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Report from Athens: "AGORA", 4th Athens Biennale 2013

The former stock exchange displayed nine digital price boards, a work by George Harvalias.

The tumultuous events of the last years in Greece have seen hundreds of thousands of people rallying, striking and rioting to protest the waves of austerity measures imposed on the debt-stricken country. Protestors have repeatedly clashed with police, lives have been lost, unemployment has skyrocketed, and the government warned in 2010 that the nation was "on the brink of the abyss". This year's Athens Biennale set itself the courageous task of asking, "Now what?". Taking its cue from the notion of the agora as a place of gathering and collaborative reconciliation, the Biennale transposed an ancient discursive framework onto the holy mess of the present. Its bitingly resonant main venue was the former Athens stock exchange, not quite a ruin, but a scarred shell of a building in the centre of the city.



  
The main hall of the former Athens stock exchange building on Sofocleous Street. This neo-Classical building opened in 1876 and was the trading floor for shares listed on the ATHEX exchange until it moved to another venue in July 2007. The nine digital price boards (the actual boards of the former exchange) was a work by George Harvalias, perhaps the touchstone of the biennial. It reproduced the share prices from the last day's trading in the building in 26 June 2007 when prices were near their peak value, with no sign of the subsequent catastrophic market crash to come. 


 






The text work on the balcony of the stock exchange hall was part of series entitled "New Behavioral Notes" (2012) by Dimitris Dokatzis, an Athenian artist of the same generation as Harvalias born in the 1950s. The words read "Money – Money! That is always the danger with you", a fragment taken from an Agatha Christie novel.



Among the younger generation of Greek artists and the more veiled comments on the financial crises, Constantinos Hadzinikolaou showed "Peacock" (2003–13), a Super 8 loop of a male Peafowl's extravagant courtship display.

One of at least three Spanish artists in the Biennial (besides Catalans Núria Güell and Ester Partegàs), Fernando García-Dory focused "on Pacific, Caribbean and Mediterranean islands as semi-enclosed ecosystems that stage the classic neo-liberal drama in which local economies succumb to the promissory spectacle of worldly paradise."

The guts of the Biennale were a series of discussions, workshops and roundtables, and on 12 October 2013 the main venue hosted a fascinating, sobering and graph-filled economics conference, featuring blue-chip economists from around the world including Heiner Flassbeck, Director of the Division on Globalization and Development Strategies of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Poka-Yio, Biennale co-founder and co-director introduced the conference (photographed above). 


Paolo Manasse, Professor of Macroeconomics and International Economic Policy at the University of Bologna.


This year's biennale is fully online and can be followed on twitter #AB4AGORA, facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Vimeo and YouTube platforms. Alternatively, for an overview of what's coming up, check out the biennale calendar.

AB4 was put together by a large group of contributing curators and collaborating correspondents as well as through an open call for projects. One of the features of the exhibition was the presence of a number of artists from Chicago, reflecting the engagement of Stephanie Smith, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago. (Stephanie was a contributor to the Latitudes-edited "Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook"). Among them, Geof Oppenheimer stood out with his "Reversals" (2013) new work which grew out of the sifting of archival advertising and press images to comprise ambiguous montages of economic affluence and political intrigue (photographed above). 



At the Contemporary Art Meeting Point (CAMP, on 4 Eupolidos & 2 Apellou str.), material related to four decades of socially engaged art in Chicago was presented under the name "Never the Same", the archive led by Daniel Tucker and Rebecca Zorach (photographed above). 



Of the artists more familiar from the better-worn paths of contemporary art, Gabriel Kuri presented "Quick Standards" (2005), which comprised four emergency blankets taped on wooden sticks.

We were very grateful to curator and art historian Christoforos Marinos and his partner Xenia Kalpaktsoglou (co-founder and co-director of the force that is the Athens Biennale) for helping us in setting up some impromptu meetings with some impressive artists while we were in Athens. We managed to meet Vangelis Vlahos, Kostis Velonis, Rallou Panagiotou, AlexandrosTzannis, Kernel (an artist/architect curatorial collaboration of Pegy Zali, Petros Moris and Theodoros Giannakis) and Dora Economou


(Above) Kernel (Pegy Zali, Petros Moris and Theodoros Giannakis) at the café of the Athens Biennial.

Apart from the Biennial, elsewhere in Athens, the Deste Foundation/Dakis Joannou Collection presented "The System of Objects", a show inspired by Jean Baudrillard's 1968 book of the same name. Curated by Andreas Angelidakis with Italian curator Maria Cristina Didero, the show extended over densely-installed rooms which were, as Angelidakis suggested "a little bit like floating down that river of the internet... Cypriot antiquities float alongside major installations by Maurizio Cattelan, paintings by Jeff Koons and worn out red vinyl tights from American Apparel? A seminal Archizoom chair from 1968 floats next to a painting by a Cypriot artist given to Dakis ages ago? Really?".
 

 

And of course what visit to Athens could ignore the treasures of the National Archaeological Museum? Of the objects on show, the finds from the Antikythera shipwreck were perhaps the most astonishing. Dated to 60–50 BC, they came from what experts believe was a freighter packed with Greek art headed to Italy. Ancient reminders from the dawn of the art trade, the antiquities – half consumed by the sea – were brought together for the first time in a special exhibition. 


 


This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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"Modernitat Amagada" (Hidden Modernity), an exhibition at Casa Capell, Mataró (3–31 October 2013)

 Casa Capell at the Parc Central, Mataró.

'Modernitat Amagada' (3–31 October 2013), organised by ACM (Associació per a la Cultura i l’Art Contemporani de Mataró), was a short-lived group show at Casa Capell in Mataró, the wonderful former home of the Masjuan family ("former" as today there are hardly any traces of its original domestic use as it has been coverted into City Hall offices for its department of sustainability). It was built in 1959 by Jordi Capell (1925–1970), a little-known rationalist architect, mathematician and humanist.

The exhibition extended over two floors, presenting works by Alexander Apóstol, Xavier Arenós, Rafel G. Bianchi, Eva Fàbregas, Carla Filipe, Regina Giménez, Terence Gower and Jaume Roure, as well as works by its two organisers, the artists Domènec and Dani Montlleó. The works were mostly produced in 2013, and ranged from sculptural interventions (Eva Fàbregas), responses to the home environment and its particular architecture (Rafel G. Bianchi, Regina Giménez, Jaume Roure), to contributions by artists whose artistic practice usually navigates the field of modern architecture (Terence Gower, Domènec, Xavier Arenós). 
 First room included works by Carla Filipe (on the table), Jaume Roure (by the chimney) and Eva Fàbregas (by the window). All works from 2013. 

Carla Filipe, "Ideal City and Current Town" (2013). 10 acrylic stands with collages. 
 Detail of Carla Filipe's "Ideal City and Current Town" (2013).

Extending the line of her previous projects, Carla Filipe recuperated lost or forgotten memories, trying to connect unknown fragments of local history. Her modules revived the 'Moderno Escondido' (Hidden Modernity) concept which was developed by Portuguese architects in the 1950s and 60s and which resulted in a series of offices, chuches, domestic spaces and commercial spaces though now these are mostly abandoned, both physically and ideologically. 
Regina Giménez, "Composició en vermell, groc, blau i blanc" (Composition in red, yellow, blue and white, 2013).

Regina Giménez thought of her painting as a wink to Capell, the house's modernist architect who was also a fervent activist for Catalan culture, dovetailing him with two referents of Modernism, the artist Piet Mondrian and the architect Mies van der Rohe. Her work suggested a possible intervention within the dinning room of Casa Capell – the incorporatation of a red carpet, white and blue cushions and a yellow wall – based on the principles of Neoplasticism, a movement which often used these primary colours in modern architecture, colours which are coincidentally also that of the Estelada, the Catalan independence flag. 
Jaume Roure, "RE: Projecte Casa Capell" (2013). 

Upon visiting the house and realising that little trace was visible of its original domestic use, Jaume Roure decided to recuperate the family presence by trying to locate photographs and personal memories of the original inhabitants. He couldn't find any photographs and only knew they were a couple with four children. He therefore tried to put faces to them by reconstructing a series of fictional images of what he thought they would look like, and framed them as if these memories were finally coming back to their original setting. 
 Eva Fàbregas, "Collapsible Sculptures" (2013).

The series "Collapsible Sculptures" reflected on the progressive 'containerisation' of our culture  which since the 1950s has triggered a revolution in the production and transportation of merchandising. Our daily lives have also been highly affected by this shift: our food is able to be stored and transported and so are our domestic environments with modular, foldable, extensible or stackable items. Fàbregas sculptures (located in three spaces throughout the house), revealed the correspondences between mass-production and the aesthetics of Modernity.
Above: Jaume Roure, "RE: Projecte Casa Capell" (2013), and below on the screen the 17' video "New Utopias" (2010) by Terence Gower.

Still from "New Utopias" (2010) by Terence Gower.

(From the artist's website): "New Utopias is a lecture about pop culture utopias filmed in the style of a 1950s Walt Disney documentary. The set, costuming, lighting and camera work are based on 1950s television production standards. But where the original Disney documentaries celebrated rockets and nuclear technology, this updated version promotes aesthetic frivolity, sexual perversion and UFO abduction fantasies. Among the new utopias under analysis are an afrofuturist extraterrestrial society, a dreary French seaside town transformed into an aesthetic paradise, and a retelling of the Frankenstein myth set in a sexual utopia ruled by the uninhibited libido. This video is shown accompanied by the Mothership Blueprints."
 Rafel G. Bianchi, Album (2013). 6x7 slides on lightbox.

Rafel Bianchi's slides portrayed the cacti he had been documenting in his own garden in Barcelona. Upon visiting Casa Capell, he felt the need to bring some of the domesticity back to a space which was heavily restored in 2009–10 for it new adminstrative use. Cacti are a recurring motif used in the photographic documentation of architectural spaces, plants that often appear in photographs of works by the Catalan architect and city planner Josep Lluís Sert. Upon finishing a commission, Sert would arrange furniture and plants, with the aim of trying to give an appearance of domesticity and commodity as well as of Mediterraneity and modenity. 
 More "Collapsible Sculptures" by Eva Fàbregas downstairs by the window towering as cacti. These are reminiscent of those projected by Mexican architect Juan O’Gorman to protect Kahlo and Rivera's studio in Mexico City.
Lower gallery with works by Domènec (left) and Dani Montlleó (right).
Lower gallery with works by Dani Montlleó (left) and Alexander Apóstol (right).

Alexander Apóstol's photographic series "Le Corbusier quemado en Bogotá" (2005), documented the interior of the burnt Centro Nariño, a residencial campus of 23 buildings built in Bogotá, developed by Colombian architects following the doctrines of Le Corbusier, who earlier proposed a modern city that was finally never built. Amindst student revolts in the 60s, the buildings were set on fire, destroying most of its interiors, which are still intact amongst the ashes and electric wiring revealing some of the important traces that the Modern thinking left in Latin American cities.

 Domènec, "Conversation Piece: Narkomfin" (2013). Maquette and formica chairs.

"Conversation Piece: Narkomfin" (2013) was supported on two formica chairs, typically used in 1950s and 60s homes, and a maquette of the social housing Narkomfin, a building that fascinated Le Corbusier in his 1930s trip to the Soviet Union and that later inspired his Unité Habitation in Marseille.

 
Maquette of Jean Prouvé's ’Maison Bulldog’ (2011) by Dani Montlleó

This little half-bunker, half-trench-looking house of Dani Montlleó's work was also planned in 1959 (as was Can Masjuan house) for the writer Louis-Ferdinand Céline, although he died shortly after in 1961. The house was a replica of the Villa Arpel, designed by Jacques Lagrange for Jacques Tati's film "Mon Oncle" (1958).
 
Xavier Arenós, ’Madriguera#10. Proun. Desenterrament’ (2012). 15' with music by Rafa Ruiz.

Arenós' video, suitably projected in the lower floor storage room, recreated an excavation in which a Proun – a projection of an imaginary space, a term coined by El Lissitsky in the 1920s – is seemingly unearthed, like an anachronic residue of a remote civilisation, a transitional object. The accompanying futuristic soundtrack enhanced its science-fiction atmosphere.


This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Two texts by Manuel Segade and Max Andrews analyse the current Spanish art scene

Two recent texts reflect on the current Spanish art scene, both noting the damaging effects of not only the ongoing budget cuts, but on the deleterious political interference in the programming of numerous museums and art centres throughout the country – perhaps the most notorious of which saw the resignation of MUSAC's Eva González-Sancho after three months as director of the León museum, followed by the resignation of the museum's artistic committee

The texts are written by Manuel Segade, a Spanish-born independent curator based in Paris; and by British Barcelona-based curator Max Andrews of Latitudes, offering critical and analytical perspectives from both the inside and the outside of Spain.
 
"Art and Society in Spain on the Edge of Critical Emergency" by Manuel Segade written for the September 2013 issue of Artpress (see pages below), offers a brief genealogy from the 1990s until today, mapping the rise and the activities of art centres, museums, art fairs, commercial galleries and artists. (Click on the images below for a larger view of the text.)



"On a Shoestring – Institutions in Catalonia" written for the October 2013 issue (#158) of frieze magazine by Max Andrews of Latitudes, focuses on the art scene of the Catalan capital and the effects of its cultural policies towards the creative industries. Mentioning the documentary MACBA: The Right, the Left and the Rich (1h 27m, 2013) [watch it here – in Catalan with Spanish subtitles] as an example of a critical strategy, the text questions the direction of the city's politics with regards to art.  

 (Click on the image for a larger view of the text, or else you can read it here online.)



This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter
All photos: Latitudes (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
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"Focus Interview: Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum", frieze, Issue 157, September 2013

 'Work in Progress', 2013, production still. All images courtesy: the artists

The image of ‘work’ and the relation between art and labour
  
Max Andrews: I’d like to talk about your current project, provisionally titled Work in Progress, set in the Lea-Artibai district of the Basque Country where Iratxe grew up. It began with your curiosity about the informal factories in the area where women trim moulded rubber parts destined for the car industry. What drew you to this subject?

Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum: When we encountered these groups of women sitting in a circle in their makeshift workspaces, surrounded by crates and boxes, performing tedious repetitive tasks together, it struck us as an incredibly complex and layered image. Although it echoed a traditional and communal way of life in what is still a mainly rural area, instead of spinning wool or mending fishing nets these women were working with abstract industrial forms which had no direct use-value to them. A closer inspection of the pieces revealed the brand names of multinational corporations such as Renault, Mercedes and Volkswagen. The women are from countries like Moldova, Peru or Senegal, yet it’s a scene that is at once domestic, local and Basque, while being replete with the contradictions of global capitalism.

MA:  You are dealing with a representation of working, while also interweaving your own labour by making a film.

IJ & KvG:  We have a long-standing interest in the image of ‘work’, and in the relation between art and labour. So we took this scene as the starting point for a cinematic analysis of production processes, both in these semi-clandestine work­shops as well as in the main fac­tory itself. Our approach has been strictly dispassionate, free from any superficial attempt to give the workers a voice. Instead, we focused our camera on the disciplinary conditions and rationalization of these processes, reproducing them in the montage by breaking up complex scenes into smaller units and stitching them back together again.

MA: How has Jorge Oteiza’s Laboratorio de Tizas (Chalk Laboratory, c.1972–4) – thousands of small sculpture-studies made by the late Basque sculptor, yet never conceived as art works per se – come to play a key role in the project?

IJ & KvG:  To extend the analogy between editing a movie and working on an assembly line, we wanted to ‘splice’ ourselves into the relations of production at the factory by inventing an artistic task that resembled the one already being performed by the workers. So we hired the factory workers to make synthetic resin casts of Oteiza’s ‘Tizas’. Turning Oteiza’s experimental sculpture laboratory into a mass-production line, and recording it on camera is, in essence, a formal exercise that juxtaposes the production of Modernist sculpture with industrial manufacturing. It also allowed us to stage an image of the artist at work, and to superimpose it onto that of the wage-worker, ultimately presenting both as ideologically loaded social constructions.
 


 Producing time in between other things, 2011, installation view at MUSAC, León.

MA:  Is this project also a way for you to obliquely address the idea of Basque sculpture, from Oteiza and Eduardo Chillida through to Ibon Aranberri or Asier Mendizabal, for example?

IJ & KvG:  The legacy of Basque Modernism loomed over this project long before we decided explicitly to include a reference to the work of Oteiza – although, in hindsight, it seems inevitable. But to speak of ‘Basque sculpture’ is to turn it into a closed-off category. We prefer to consider how the political function and significance that was once attributed to the language of abstract sculpture in Basque society holds up under contemporary conditions.

MA:  In combining a study of the serial production of art with a social investigation into industrial manufacturing, you’re also reflecting on yourselves as cultural labourers. This was an important motif in your 2011 work Producing time in between other things (a project I co-curated with Mariana Cánepa Luna). Do you find it hard to be artists who make objects?

IJ & KvG:  Oteiza once said that it wasn’t he who made the sculptures, but that the sculptures made him a sculptor. And now that he is a sculptor, why should he create more? In a way, we have been travelling in the opposite direction. We’ve always referred to ourselves as artists who do not make objects, and we only started making things to be able to address the notion of practice itself. In Producing time in between other things, for example, the 50 ornamental wooden legs we manufactured were simply a by-product of the task we had set ourselves: to learn how to use the woodturning lathe left by Klaas’s late grandfather, a retired factory worker. We took his place behind the machine, and recorded our ac­tiv­ities on camera, not just as a ‘measurement’ of the passage of time required to gain a certain skill, but also as a reflection on how the disciplinary conditions of the wage-worker’s spare time inform our notion of artistic freedom and vice versa. Yet we’re also very much indebted to those thousands of ‘How to ...’ videos on YouTube, from cooking a steak to casting polyurethane action figures. Considering the generosity of all that is being shared between the producers and the viewers of these videos, is it any wonder that actually eating the steak doesn’t even enter into the picture?
 

Max Andrews



Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum live in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and have been working together since 2001. They recently completed a residency at LIPAC, Buenos Aires, Argentina. They will present a solo exhibition at FRAC Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France, opening on 4 October.
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Curso "Comisariando el presente. Teoría y práctica de la exposición de arte contemporáneo" en La Casa Encendida, Madrid

El sábado 16 de noviembre, Latitudes impartirá una sesión entorno al comisariado como parte del curso "Comisariando el presente. Teoría y práctica de la exposición de arte contemporáneo" que organizan Museology y La Casa Encendida en Madrid.

El curso tendrá lugar en La Casa Encendida de Madrid cada sábado entre el 19 de Octubre y el 21 de diciembre (excepto 2, 9 y 7 de noviembre), de 10:30h a 14:00h y de 16h a 19:30h. Para los interesados, hay tiempo hasta el 4 de Octubre para inscribirse. A continuación más información sobre los módulos que lo componen y sobre los profesionales que participarán en este curso que dirigen Tania Pardo, Sergio Rubira y Alberto Sánchez Balmisa.

"Comisariando el presente" se vinculará directamente con el programa para comisarios emergentes Inéditos. Uno de sus objetivos es la realización de un proyecto de exposición que tome como punto de partida la convocatoria de este concurso. 

Número de horas: 45 h.
Precio: 120 Euros
Plazas: 30 (con selección previa a partir de una carta de motivación)


Photo: Latitudes


COMISARIANDO EL PRESENTE 
Teoría y práctica de la exposición de arte contemporáneo

La importancia que ha adquirido la figura del comisario es un fenómeno relativamente reciente. Es una consecuencia de la progresiva profesionalización experimentada por el sector del arte contemporáneo, así como del desarrollo de los museos y centros de arte que demandan especialistas que puedan hacerse cargo de la realización de exposiciones y la programación de actividades.

Como consecuencia directa del marcado interés por esta profesión que cada vez amplia más sus límites y objetivos, La Casa Encendida y la asociación cultural Museology organizan este curso que busca acercar la teoría y la práctica curatorial tanto a profesionales como a aficionados y curiosos. El programa del curso permitirá seguir el proceso de producción de una exposición desde su concepción hasta su clausura, incidiendo tanto en aspectos teóricos como prácticos. Se reflexionará sobre la propia historia del dispositivo de exposición y sus diferentes formatos y se analizarán casos de estudio específicos y trayectorias concretas.

Comisariando el presente parte del nacimiento de la exposición con los salones de los siglos XVIII y XIX y su revisión en las vanguardias, se detiene en el estudio del surgimiento de la figura del comisario y en personajes como Harald Szeemann y Seth Siegelaub o el fenómeno del bienalismo en las décadas de los 80 y 90, para pasar a reflexionar sobre el modo en el que el comisario se relaciona con las diferentes instituciones artísticas –museos, centros de arte, galerías y espacios independientes– y plantear posibles funciones del trabajo curatorial y formas de enfrentarse a él.

El curso se divide en siete módulos: Historia, Institución, Comisariado y comisarios, Comunicación, Investigación y producción, Edición y Proyecto. Cada uno será impartido por distintos profesionales con una amplia experiencia en el objeto de estudio –artistas, comisarios, críticos de arte, profesores universitarios, directores de museos– y permitirá encontrar una suma de miradas sobre la práctica del comisariado y la figura del comisario tanto desde una perspectiva histórica como actual.



Bloque I. HISTORIA


Sábado, 19 de octubre 2013  
9,30 horas. Presentación del curso.
 

10,30–14 horas. HISTORIA I

María Dolores Jiménez-Blanco es Profesora Titular de Historia del Arte en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). Entre 2002 y 2006 ejerció la docencia en la Universitat Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona. Ha colaborado con la Phillips Collection de Washington DC y con el Museo Guggenheim de Nueva York, y ha comisariado exposiciones para el Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, la Fundación Mapfre, la SEACEX, la Fundación César Manrique de Lanzarote, y el Centro de Arte y Naturaleza de Huesca, entre otras instituciones. Es autora de Arte y Estado en la España del siglo XX (1989), Juan Gris (1999), Juan Gris. Correspondencia y Escritos (2008). Entre sus otras publicaciones destacan Spanish Art in New York (2004) y Buscadores de belleza (2007; 2010), ambas con Cindy Mack. Ha sido editora y autora de la primera guía oficial del Museo del Prado (La Guía del Prado, 2008), y es colaboradora habitual del suplemento Cultura/s del diario La Vanguardia, de Barcelona.
 

16,30-19,30 horas. HISTORIA II

Olga Fernández López es Profesora del Departamento de Historia y Teoría del Arte de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid y en el Royal College of Art de Londres. Ha sido vicecoordinadora del Máster de Historia del Arte Contemporáneo y Cultura Visual de la UAM, UCM y Museo Reina Sofía. En sus clases aborda la expansión de los formatos comisariales y sus investigaciones se centran en la especificidad del medio expositivo y sus posibilidades críticas. Entre 2001 y 2006 fue Conservadora Jefe y Jefa de Investigación y Educación del Museo Patio Herreriano de Valladolid. Ha comisariado, entre otras, exposiciones de Dora García, Jesús Palomino y Jordi Colomer. Entre sus publicaciones en torno a la práctica comisarial destacan los artículos “Comisariado y exposiciones: perspectivas historiográficas” (Exitbook, nº 17, 2012), “El fin del cubo blanco. Releyendo a Brian O’Doherty”, (Papeles de Cultura Contemporánea, nº 15, 2012), “Travesía site-specific: Institucionalidad e imaginación” (Matadero, Madrid, 2011), “Just What is it That Makes 'Curating' so Different, so Appealing” (oncurating.org). Ha codirigido el curso Colonialismo, Comisariado y Arte Contemporáneo, (UNIA-CAAC, 2012).


Bloque II. INSTITUCIÓN Y CRÍTICA


Sábado, 26 de octubre
10.30–14 horas. INSTITUCIÓN I

Glòria Picazo es Directora del Centre d’Art La Panera, Lleida, desde 2003. Licenciada en Historia del Arte por la Universidad de Barcelona. Crítica de arte y comisaria de exposiciones. Ha colaborado con museos como el capc Musée d’art contemporain de Burdeos y el MACBA de Barcelona. Imparte regularmente clases de arte contemporáneo y comisariado de exposiciones en las siguientes universidades: Universidad de Barcelona, Universidad Internacional de Catalunya de Barcelona, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia y Universidad de Zaragoza. Ha comisariado muestras como Gina Pane (Palau de la Virreina de Barcelona y Salas de la Diputación de Huesca), Orientalismos y Nómadas y Bibliófilos en el Koldo Mitxelena de San Sebastián y El instante eterno en el EACC de Castellón, así como Paisajes después de la batalla y Mediterráneo(s), en el Centre d’Art la Panera, entre otras. Ha colaborado en las siguientes publicaciones: Transversal, L’Avenç, EXIT Express y EXIT Book.

16,30-19,30 horas. INSTITUCIÓN II

Sergio Rubira es Profesor Asociado de Historia del Arte en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Es secretario académico del Máster en Historia del Arte Contemporáneo y Cultura Visual, UAM, UCM y Museo Reina Sofía. Imparte la asignatura del Crítica de arte en el Máster de Periodismo Cultural del CEU-San Pablo. Ha sido Redactor Jefe de EXIT Express (2003-2005); Director Adjunto de las tres revistas EXIT (2006-2009) y en la actualidad es Editor Adjunto de EXIT y co-director de FLUOR. Es colaborador de El Cultural de El Mundo. Ha sido co-director de las Jornadas de Estudio de la Imagen de la Comunidad de Madrid (2005-2009) y de las Jornadas Arte español contemporáneo realizadas entre la Fundación Helga de Alvear, La Casa Encendida y el MAC Gas Natural Unión Fenosa (2012-13). Desde 1999, forma parte de la oficina curatorial y agencia de producción RMS La Asociación, con la que ha desarrollado proyectos como Para todas las edades (AECID, 2012-13); Sexy Books (Matadero, Madrid, 2012); Contextos en desuso (Centre d’Art La Panera, Lleida, 2012); Sur le dandysme aujourd’hui (CGAC, Santiago de Compostela, 2010); Entornos próximos (ARTIUM, Vitoria, 2008); NIT_CASM: Madrit! Entresijos y gallinejas (Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, Barcelona, 2007), y puso en marcha RMS, El Espacio (Madrid, 2010-12). Entre sus comisariados fuera de RMS La Asociación se incluyen: imaginar_historiar, con Mónica Portillo (CA2M, Móstoles, 2009); y La mirada a estratos, con Estrella de Diego (Museo de Zamora, 2003). www.rms.com.es


Bloque III. COMISARIADO Y COMISARIOS

Sábado, 16 de noviembre
10.30–14 horas. COMISARIADO I


Tania Pardo es comisaria independiente. Ha sido comisaria en MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León y responsable de Programación del espacio Laboratorio 987 (2005-2010) y Directora de Proyectos de la Fundación Santander 2016 (2009-2010). Entre sus comisariados recientes se incluyen: Sin heroísmos, por favor (Iván Argote-Teresa Solar Abboud-Sara Ramo), CA2M (Madrid, 2012); Narraçoes Fragmentadas, Galería Liebre (Madrid, 2012); Imágenes del Norte (Taxio Ardanaz y Ignacio Navas), Raquel Ponce (Madrid, 2013). Ha sido la comisaria invitada al programa EN CASA (2011-2012) de La Casa Encendida donde ha desarrollado los siguientes proyectos No School de Antonio Ballester Moreno; Vuelva usted mañana de Julio Falagán; De mi casa a La Casa de Fermín Jiménez Landa; Out of the Blue de Alejandra Freymann y Lo nuestro: From Me to You de Kiko Pérez. Ha co-dirigido las Jornadas Arte Contemporáneo Español (Fundación Helga de Alvear / La Casa Encendida y Museo Unión FENOSA). Ha sido Directora Artística de la sección ARTE INFILTRADO del Festival MULAFEST (j2012). Comisarió en ARCO 2013 el programa ARCOmadrid Collect On Line. Actualmente dirige el proyecto de visionado de porfolios CAFÉ DOSSIER organizado por el Ministerio de Cultura y el proyecto de red curatorial y fotografía sobre el colectivo NOPHOTO. Ha publicado en diversos medios especializados y colabora en el suplemento Babelia de El País.

16,30-19,30 horas. COMISARIADO II

Latitudes es una oficina curatorial independiente iniciada en abril de 2005 por Max Andrews y Mariana Cánepa Luna, que trabaja en un contexto internacional desde y en Barcelona, España.
Latitudes inicia y desarrolla proyectos de arte contemporáneo en asociación con instituciones y colabora con artistas en producciones que abarcan varias formas de organización y escala: géneros de display; proyectos editoriales; modos de reunir, organizar y programar; así como contextos teóricos e interpretativos. Entre sus proyectos se incluyen: 'Lawrence Weiner – La cresta de una ola', Fundació Suñol, Barcelona (2008); 'Portscapes', serie de diez proyectos en el espacio público del Puerto de Rotterdam, Países Bajos (2009) y la participación en las dos ediciones 'No Soul For Sale: A Festival of Independents' (X Initiative, Nueva York, 2009, y Tate Modern, Londres, 2010). Latitudes fue una de las organizaciones asociadas en la exposición 'The Last Newspaper' en el New Museum, Nueva York (2010–11) y fueron comisarios invitados de 'Amikejo', la temporada 2011 del Laboratorio 987, el espacio proyectual del MUSAC, León. En el 2012 comisariarion 'The Dutch Assembly', un programa de treinta eventos con la participación de instituciones y artistas de los Países Bajos convocados en ocasión de ARCOmadrid 2012. Recientemente, Latitudes inició el proyecto 'Incidentes de viaje' en México DF (2012) y Hong Kong (2013) en el cual artistas desarrollan visitas guiadas de un día. www.lttds.org

Bloque IV. COMUNICACIÓN Y PÚBLICOS.

Sábado, 23 de noviembre
10.30–14 horas. COMUNICACIÓN I


Pablo Martínezes responsable de Educación y Actividades Públicas del CA2M y profesor asociado de Historia del Arte. Facultad de Bellas Artes de la UCM. Trabajó entre 2002 y 2004 en el departamento de educación del Museo Patio Herreriano de Arte Contemporáneo Español y desde el año 2004 hasta el 2009 fue coordinador de los Programas Públicos del departamento de educación del Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Ha participado en numerosos foros nacionales e internacionales sobre educación y arte contemporáneo (Maestría en curaduría de la Universidad Nacional de México, Jornadas DEAC, La Recoleta de Buenos Aires, Thyssen Bornemisza, Musac, Kiasma…) y ha publicado en numerosas revistas y publicaciones. Ha disfrutado de estancias e intercambios profesionales en el Bronx Museum of the Arts de Nueva York y Tate Britain y Liverpool y ha desarrollado proyectos conjuntos financiados por la Unión Europea con Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool, Centre Georges Pompidou y Kiasma. Es miembro de Las Lindes, grupo de investigación y acción sobre educación, arte y prácticas culturales. Ha comisariado numerosos ciclos de cine y dirigido cursos, jornadas y talleres vinculados con la creación contemporánea. Ha codirigido las XIX y XX Jornadas de Estudio de la Imagen con Vincent Meessen y recientemente ha co-editado junto a Yayo Aznar Arte Actual. Lecturas para un espectador inquieto.
 

16,30-19,30 horas. COMUNICACIÓN II

Bea Espejo es crítica de arte y responsable de la sección de arte de El Cultural, suplemento del periódico El Mundo. Ha escrito para catálogos y revistas especializadas y ha comisariado exposiciones. También ha trabajado en la edición de publicaciones y ha impartido cursos de crítica de arte. De 2002 a 2008 fue colaboradora habitual del suplemento Cultura/s de La Vanguardia. De 2002 a 2007 formó parte del equipo de la Galería Estrany-de la Mota (Barcelona) y de 2007 a 2008 del de Urroz Proyectos (Madrid).

Bloque V. INVESTIGACIÓN Y PRODUCCIÓN

Sábado, 30 de noviembre

10.30–14 horas. INVESTIGACIÓN I

Cabello/Carceller (Helena Cabello/Ana Carceller) comienzan a trabajar conjuntamente a principios de los años 90. Desde entonces compaginan el desarrollo de sus proyectos artísticos con la investigación, la escritura y el comisariado. Su trabajo parte de la deslocalización del sujeto contemporáneo y del cuestionamiento de las políticas de la representación. Una selección de las exposiciones colectivas incluye: Genealogías feministas, MUSAC (León); Ficciones y Realidades, MMOMA (Moscú); BB4 Bucharest Biennale: On Producing Possibilities; Bienal Latinoamericana de Artes Visuales, Curitiba (Brasil); Nuevas Historias. New View of Spanish Photography, Stenersen Museum (Oslo) e itinerancias; re.act feminism. A Performing Archive, Akademie der Künste Berlín e itinerancias; The Screen Eye or The New Image, Casino Luxembourg; Global Feminisms, Brooklyn Museum, Nueva York, o Cooling Out, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork (Irlanda). Entre sus últimas individuales destacan: MicroPolíticas, MicroPoéticas, Sala La Patriótica/CCEBA, Buenos Aires; Off Escena; Si yo fuera…, Matadero Madrid; Archivo: Drag Modelos, Galería Joan Prats, Barcelona, y CAAM, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; Suite Rivolta, Galería Elba Benítez, Madrid, o A/O (Caso Céspedes), CAAC de Sevilla. Conjuntamente han comisariado exposiciones como: Permiso para hacer la Revolución, Off Limits, Madrid, 2012; Presupuesto: 6 euros. Prácticas artísticas y precariedad, Off Limits, Madrid, 2010 y Supermarket Art Fair, Kulturhuset, Estocolmo, 2012, o Zona F. Una exploración sobre los espacios habitados por los discursos feministas en el arte contemporáneo, EACC, Castellón, 2000.
 

16,30-19,30 horas. INVESTIGACIÓN II

Eva González-Sancho ha sido directora y comisaria del Frac Bourgogne (Dijon, Francia) entre 2003 y 2011 y de Etablissement d'en face projects (Bruselas, Bélgica) de 1998 a 2003, así como profesora de Historia de las exposiciones en la Universidad de Metz de 2001 a 2004. Actualmente forma parte del equipo curatorial de Lofoten International Art Festival (LIAF) 2013. Sus intereses han girado principalmente en torno a las numerosas cuestiones que plantea el espacio público, así como en torno a la percepción y a la función del espacio, como muestran las exposiciones que ha comisariado tanto en Francia como en otros países, con artistas como Guillaume Leblon, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Lara Almarcegui, Jonas Dahlberg, Katrin Sigurdardottir, Knut Åsdam, Peter Downsbrough, Gaylen Gerber, Rita McBride, Koenraad Dedobeeleer, y también en las adquisiciones de obra para la colección del Frac Bourgogne de Francis Alÿs, Jordi Colomer, Henrik Håkansson, Marcelo Cidade. En relación con esta principal área de investigación, sus proyectos también tratan de la relación con el lenguaje a través de obras de arte que forman parte integrante de un cuestionamiento más amplio sobre las condiciones y formas de auto-percepción y de toma de conciencia en un lugar determinado, y sobre las posibles lecturas de la historia tal como se muestra de distintas formas en las obras de Imogen Stidworthy, Frances Stark, Stefan Brüggemann. Dora García o Matthew Buckingham. Define su trabajo curatorial como aquél centrado en prácticas artísticas no-autoritarias, en otras palabras, aquéllas que ofrecen al público un margen muy amplio de maniobra e interpretación, enfoques no espectaculares que reconocen el protagonismo de los espectadores, su propia individualidad, y responsabilidad.

Bloque VI. EDICIÓN

Sábado, 14 de diciembre
10.30–14 horas. EDICIÓN I


Alberto Sánchez Balmisa es crítico de arte y comisario de exposiciones, desde 2003 se encuentra vinculado al grupo editorial EXIT Imagen y Cultura, donde ha sido redactor jefe de EXIT Express (2005-2011) y director de EXIT Book (2005- actualidad). Es autor de más de una centena de ensayos y artículos en publicaciones especializadas. Entre sus proyectos curatoriales se cuentan Una fábrica, una máquina y un cuerpo… Arqueología y memoria de los espacios industriales (Centre d’Art La Panera, 2009 y Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo, México DF, 2010); Periferias (Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 2009 y Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, Móstoles, 2010, junto a Rosa Olivares); Sentido y sostenibilidad (Reserva de la Biosfera de Urdaibai, País Vasco, 2012); Esse est percipi (Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, Móstoles, Madrid; y Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, MACBA, 2013). En la actualidad prepara los XXIV Circuitos de Arte Joven de la Comunidad de Madrid (Sala de Arte Joven, Madrid, 2013).
 

16,30–19,30 horas. EDICIÓN II

Roberto Vidal es diseñador editorial y comisario independiente. Ha realizado proyectos curatoriales, educativos y de diseño con administraciones públicas, centros culturales, galerías de arte e institutos de diseño. Entre los últimos destacan la dirección de los Proyectos Fin de Estudios Artes Visuales 2013 en IED Madrid, el comisariado de los Premios Injuve 2012, en la modalidad de diseño. En la actualidad, dirige la plataforma de comisariado editorial RV.PAPERS. www.robertovidal.com

Bloque VII. PROYECTO

Sábado, 21 de diciembre
10,30 horas–14 horas. PROYECTO


Tania Pardo, Sergio Rubira y Alberto Sánchez Balmisa.


http://www.museology.es


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Two 'Portscapes' films presented in 'Scenographies', an exhibition at SMBA in Amsterdam

Still from Marjolijn Dijkman's "Surviving New Land" (2009). 
Courtesy of the artist and SKOR | Foundation for Art in Public Space.
 
Two of the films produced for 'Portscapes', the year-long programme of public art projects in the Port of Rotterdam curated by Latitudes back in 2009, are currently screened as part of the exhibition 'Scenographies'. The show, curated by Clare Butcher for SMBA Amsterdam, is "a dynamic exhibition programme based around the archive of SKOR | Foundation for Art in Public Space." On view until 16 November 2013, artists and artists' collectives will approach the legacy of SKOR, the former institution that realized more than a thousand projects in public space in the Netherlands over the past three decades.

The selected films are those by Dutch artists Jan Dibbets ("6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective", watch the making of part 1 and part 2), and Marjolijn Dijkman's "Surviving New Land" (watch a low res view here), and are screened between 3-16 October as part of the larger film programme "Constructed Sceneries" curated by High& Low Bureau (Yael Messer and Gilad Reich).

On Saturday 3 October at 8pm, High& Low Bureau will talk about their practice in relation to the subjects in the film programme. They will be joint by 'Scenographies' curator, Clare Butcher.

+ info:
Photos of Jan Dibbets' film here
Photos of Marjolijn Dijkman film here.
Info on the exhibition 'Scenographies', here (as a pdf)
Portscapes website.

 Production of '6 Hours of Tide Object with Correction of Perspective' (2009) by Jan Dibbets. Photo: Paloma Polo / SKOR.

This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter
All photos: Latitudes (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Barcelona inaugurates the 2013–14 season with a new art map

Asociación de Galerías
de Arte Contemporáneo
Art Barcelona - See more at: http://www.artbarcelona.es/es/directorios.html#sthash.iopEshqs.dpuf
Asociación de Galerías
de Arte Contemporáneo
Art Barcelona - See more at: http://www.artbarcelona.es/es/directorios.html#sthash.iopEshqs.dpu
Map with suggested route available on the Circuit de l'Art Contemporani website 

Habemus gallery listings!

Barcelona inaugurates the 2013–14 season with new signage and gallery map. The itinerary, presented yesterday to the media, suggests a route from west to east of the city, from Montjuïc's Fundació Miró to Sant Andreu's Fabra & Coats - Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, via most of the contemporary art galleries that concentrate in the city centre. Besides the online and physical map, visitors will find two-metre high poles crowned with a pill (galleries marked in pink; museums, foundations and art centres in blue) placed at the entrances of each venue offering additional information (via QR codes and contactless device) about the adjunct venue (exact address, opening hours, website). 

Promoted by Art Barcelona (Gallery Association of Contemporary Art) the 240,000 Euro initiative maps out 26 galleries and 11 art centre locations as well as a calendar of events and openings, both in English (30,000 copies have been printed) and Catalan (20,000 copies) updated quarterly. On a second phase there will be a mobile app with additional information on the artists and programming.



 Detail of the information given in one of the poles marking a gallery location.

Although the map is quite comprehensive, it is a shame that after years of waiting for an initiative of this kind that matches that of cities such London, Berlin, New York, Amsterdam or Glasgow, to only mention a few, other Barcelona galleries such as etHALL, production and studio facilities like Hangar, artist-run and independent spaces such as Halfhouse, Homesession or A*Desk amongst others, are not represented in the listings. Neither are city or government-funded spaces such as Sala d'Art Jove, Can Felipa or Sant Andreu Contemporani. Adding them to the 'official' map (which is part-funded by the city and the Catalan regional government) would not only help in offering a more textured panorama of the city locating private and public spaces but would also instigate a much-needed generosity from top-down and show the city willingness to share its promotional tools.

On a final note, it is perhaps curious that Arts Santa Mònica [formerly the Centre d'Art Santa Mònica (CASM)] is missing. Yet as the new General Director of Creativity and Cultural Companies Jordi Sellas, recently announced the reorientation of its programming to become "a centre of activity more than an exhibition space" (...) "a radar for new cultural tendencies", it is perhaps a final confirmation that what used to be Barcelona's kunstverein is no longer recognisable as a venue of contemporary art (see this blog post). 

Downloadable map with suggested routes here.

Programming here. Includes addresses, listings and forthcoming openings and events.



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Report from New York: Gramcsi Monument, visiting critics at ISCP, Carol Bove at The High Line and galleries route

Visiting Thomas Hirschhorn's "Gramcsi Monument", a project produced by Dia Art Foundation at Forest Houses, in the south Bronx. Some recent articles on the project are available via Artfagcity's "How Do People Feel About the Gramsci Monument?" and a summary with more reviews via the Gallerist.
 

On the September 4 and 12 we were 'visiting critics' at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The first round included seven visits to the studios of Sofie Thorsen, Niko Luoma, Ramiro Chaves, Mojé Assefjah, Shigeyuki Kihara, Javier Barrios and Tobias Dostal. In the second round (12 visits), we visited Paulien Oltheten (participant in our 2009 project "Portscapes"), Henrjeta Mece, Deva Graf, Bernard Williams, Hugues Reip, Ruth Campau, Tricia Middleton, Savas Bovraz, Sasa Tkacenko, I-Chen Kuo, Mónica Ferreras and Petr Sprincl and collaborator Marie Hájková. A selection of images below.

Back in 2006, Max Andrews of Latitudes edited the publication and wrote the catalogue essay for an exhibition at Victoria Miro Gallery in London of Danish artist John Kørner, also a current resident at ISCP.


(Above) Studio visit with Danish-born, Vienna-based artist Sofie Thorsen.
 (Above) Studio visit with Finnish artist Niko Luoma.
 (Above) Studio visit with Argentinian-born, Mexico City-based artist Ramiro Chaves.
 (Above) Studio visit with Dutch artist Paulien Oltheten.
 (Above) Studio visit with Kurdish-born Turkish-based artist Savas Bovraz, recipient of the 2013 Victor Fellowship of the Hasselblad Foundation.
(Above) Studio visit with Chicago-based artist Bernard Williams.
 (Above) Studio visit with Berlin-based artist Tobias Dostal, creator of this magic trick
you'll be amazed!
  (Above) Studio visit with Canadian artist Tricia Middleton.

On September 11, we joined a tour along the northernmost part of The High Line (the as yet unopened section from 34th to 30th street). Alongside Carol Bove's works (read New Yorker review here), and despite the infernal temperatures, there were amazing views of New York's midtown, soon to disappear with the forthcoming construction of Hudson Yards

 

On Friday 13, we visited a few Chelsea galleries, starting at 18th street with a bombastic show by Matthew Day Jackson show at Hauser Wirth. A concise review of the exhibition in this New Yorker article.
(Above) Ho Chi Minh City and Los Angeles-based collective The Propeller Group at Lombard Freid.

(Above) An overview of the 1960s–2000s work by the late John McCracken occupied David Zwirner's spaces.
(Above) Phil Collins at Tanya Bonakdar.


 (Above) "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream" a cross-generational group show with works by Ed Ruscha, Alex Israel, Alex Hubbard, Julie Becker, Lutz Bacher, and Rachel Harrison at Greene Naftali Gallery.


(Above) The always great Annette Kelm presents 2013 photographs at Andrew Kreps – on view until November 2nd.


(Above) Claudia Wieser's mirrors, ceramics, wooden sculptures, geometric prints at Marianne Boesky


Barbara Gladstone Gallery showed Damián Ortega's 25 twisted steel sculptures which cast the alphabet with their shadows.


At Metro Pictures, David Maljkovic's show includes the animation "Afterform" – on view until October 19.


(Above) Wonderful photographic work by Leslie Hewitt at Sikkema Jenkins – on view until 5 October. Another short view of the exhibition on this New Yorker article.


(Above) Bortolami Gallery presented paintings by Morgan Fisher based on colour swatches from a prefab house company owned by artist father.

(Above and below) Pablo Helguera's "Librería Donceles" at Kent Fine Art (210 11th Avenue, 2nd floor). "Librería Donceles" is an itinerant bookstore of 10,000 used books in Spanish, of virtually every subject, and the only Spanish-language used-book store in the city. On view until 8 November. 


In the Lower East Side, Simon Preston presented one of the best shows in town centered around the new film 'Provenance' (2013) by Chicago-born artist Amy Siegel. The 40min. the film documents the interior of homes of avid collectors in New York, London, Belgium and Paris that have furnished their homes with 1950s tables, chairs, settees and desks originally conceived by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, for several buildings in Chandigarh, India. Go see it, ends 6 October.


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Max Andrews' review of Julia Montilla's exhibition 'El "cuadro" de la "calleja"', Espai 13, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona

Below Max Andrews' review of Julia Montilla's exhibition, 'El "cuadro" de la "calleja"', presented between February and April 2013 at the Espai 13 of the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona. Text was first published in the Issue 156 of frieze.
View of the exhibition at Espai 13. Courtesy of the artist and Fundació Miró.

Julia Montilla’s exhibition documented a minor miracle: between 1961 and 1965, in the tiny Cantabrian village of Garabandal, four young girls allegedly received repeated supernatural visitations from the Virgin Mary and were entrusted with her prophesies. However, the so-called Garabandal apparitions are not recognized by the Vatican, though they continue to be championed by a sprawling network of international enthusiasts. Montilla documented the visions – or, rather, documented their documentation – stressing how the beholding of physical testimony can access a vast surplus of politics and patriarchy, belief and body language.

Montilla was not primarily concerned with debunking the girls’ visionary experiences. Instead, the exhibition’s four annotated display cases (La construcción de una aparición, The Construction of an Apparition, all works 2012–13) – containing books, magazines, proselytising pamphlets, religious journals, collectors’ postcards, slide-lecture packs sold by ‘Garabandalist’ organizations, and so on – contextualized them with a forensic attention to how they were produced and publicized through photography. The girls’ theophanies and trances could be understood, it was proposed, as site-specific performances in a post-Lourdes tradition of remote ‘scheduled apparitions’. A monitor looped a 1971 television documentary, while an overhead projector beamed a 1994 newspaper article reporting that Hollywood were set to dramatize the autobiography of Conchita, the most precocious of the ‘seers’ (three of whom left Spain for the US in the 1970s) and that Luciano Pavarotti would sing the theme. Two slideshows entitled Soportes vivientes para la fabricación de un mito (Living Supports for the Fabrication of a Myth) were accompanied by Montilla’s commentary and, along with Garabandalistas, a new publication edited by the artist, compiled dozens of archival shots of the girls’ ecstatic night-time walks, taken by various amateur and professional photographers. Staring fixedly up into the beyond, offering crucifixes and rosaries, conversing with the divine, or open-mouthed to receive invisible communion, the girls are portrayed clasping their hands together or individually writhing on the ground, stupefied by Marian divinity, and all the while seemingly oblivious to the crowds, microphones and lenses around them.

 View of the exhibition at Espai 13. Courtesy of the artist and Fundació Miró. 
 
Tracking the emergence of ‘trance photography’ as a cult genre, Montilla considered how the documentary materials themselves have acquired venerated status as certificates of veracity. The quirk that some of the projected archival images had been noticeably pixelated in their to-and-fro from print to analogue display seemed like a confession of sorts, of Montilla’s own evident hand in their ongoing dramaturgy, here in an artistic context.

In the visionary events’ shift of emphasis from the small street where the first apparition was said to have appeared, to embrace the ‘epiphanic landscape’ and pious tourism throughout the entire context of the village, Montilla’s voice-over and captions proposed how the performances conformed to the expectations of naive and spiritually pure rural life, where hoax or conspiracy would be unthinkable. Through astute bibliographic research and juxtaposition of source materials with commentary, the apparitions’ enthusiastic casting as an apocalyptic warning was shown in its entanglement with the Franco dictatorship’s demonization of Communism and the left. Furthermore, as a sign that Spain’s peasantry had been chosen as spokespeople of God without the middlemen, Montilla articulated how the folkloric fervour of the apparitions’ thronged crescendo in 1965 would have spurned the concurrent doctrinal reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

From "Soportes vivientes para la fabricación de un mito" (2013). Courtesy of the artist.
 
Yet, Montilla’s bravest and most calibrated area of enquiry intimated how the moving imagery of the girls’ rapture established a legendary motif for the performing or occupied female body as an index of radical obedience, even to the extent of self-harm. Correspondingly, the two screens of El contagio visionario (The Visionary Contagion) and Ídolos y ídolitos (Idols and Lesser Idols) showed fragments of a 1961 film of the entranced girls alongside a video shot by the artist in Garabandal in 2012, showing a muttering woman devotee supposedly in a trance herself. In urging feminist questions about Garabandalism seemingly as a form of infectious hysteria, Montilla echoes Elaine Showalter’s 1997 study Hystories: Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Culture in which alien abduction and – more controversially among other case studies – Gulf War syndrome, are interpreted as fictional epidemics propagated through support groups, popular magazines, talk shows and the Internet. Whether the seers and believers of the apparitions reflect extreme symptoms of cultural anxieties and traumas, as Showalter would argue, or represent exultant communiqués from the Blessed Virgin, Montilla carefully beseeches that we must still pay attention to what they continue to tell us. 

– Max Andrews

This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption).  
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Latitudes' "out of office" photo album, 2012–2013 season

This is the fifth consecutive year [see 2008-9, 2009-10, 2010-11 and 2011-12] we say goodbye to the season with an 'out of office' post with some unseen and 'behind the scenes' moments lived in the past months. 

Regretfully, we're not exactly off to a beach-and-palmtree holiday, just slowing down our inbox activity as well as our posts on this blog, Facebook and Twitter. 

So happy holidays/felices vacaciones dear readers!  

3 September 2012: The season started with the exciting publication of the first #OpenCurating interview with the web team of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, which became content partners of the interview series. "Beyond Interface: An Interview with Robin Dowden, Nate Solas and Paul Schmelzer" was the first of a series of ten publications which were released between September and April 2013. The compilation, gathers an array of voices and approaches around the challenges, expectations, and new possibilities that digital culture and social media present to contemporary art institutions. To what degree are curators, media teams, publishers and archivists concerned with a dialogue with their audiences? #OpenCurating has investigated these questions through how new forms of culture, participation and connectivity are being developed both on site and on line.

In 'Beyond Interface' Robin Dowden (Director of New Media Initiatives), Nate Solas (Senior New Media Developer) and Paul Schmelzer (Web Editor) of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, discuss the museum's new website, relaunched in December 2011 following a two-year conceptual reboot and complete redesign.


OC1

9 September 2012: Soon after publishing the first #OpenCurating interview, we participated in dOCUMENTA (13) series of readings based on their publications programme Readers' Circle: 100 Notes—100 Thoughts, for which we decided to read 'Lawrence Weiner IF IN FACT THERE IS A CONTEXT' (2011, Hatje Cantz). On the door steps of Fridericianum, we read Lawrence's book and played his voice reading some of the passages too. See our post on dOCUMENTA (13).


 Board announcing the 19h 'Readers Circle' event.

On the steps of the Fridericianum reading Lawrence Weiner.

11–15 September 2012: During the last week of dOCUMENTA (13) Latitudes facilitated the Nature Addicts Fund Travelling Academy, organised within the framework of the 100-days-long exhibition in Kassel, Germany. Here you can watch a summary of the week-long workshop that had 15 participants (Ackroyd & Harvey, Frédérique Aït‐Touati, Geir Backe Altern, Linus Ersson, Aurélien Gamboni, Fernando García‐Dory, Mustafa Kaplan, Zissis Kotionis, Julia Mandle, Clare Patey, Érik Samakh, Åsa Sonjasdotter, Elisa Strinna, and was punctuated by the partcipation of dOCUMENTA (13) artists Maria Thereza Alves, Toril Johannessen and Claire Pentecost.


 Im-port and Ex-port boat moared at Kassel's river Fulda. Photo: Nature Addicts Fund.

 Visiting Jimmie Durham's piece at the Karlsaue Park. Photo: Nature Addicts Fund.

Group discussion with Chus Martínez, Core Agent, dOCUMENTA (13) at the Import/Export boat. 
Photo: Nature Addicts Fund.

17 September–5 October: Installation and opening (27 September) of the two-part exhibition 'Latitudes Projects 2005–2012' and 'Incidents of Travel: Mexico City' as part of Casa del Lago's 'Sucursal' programme, for which self-organised, self-funded or non-profit organisations temporarily move their offices to Casa del Lago in order to expose the cultural strategies of such forms of organisation. 'Incidents of Travel: Mexico City', consisted of the invitation to Minerva Cuevas (19 September), Tania Pérez Córdova (20 September), Diego Berruecos (21 September), Terence Gower (23 September) and Jerónimo Hagerman (24 September), and to devise one-day-long tours throughout the city. More info and photos of the five tours.


E-invite to the opening of the exhibition "Latitudes. Proyectos 2005–2012 & Incidentes de viaje" at Casa del Lago.
 Around Lagunilla with Minerva Cuevas. Photo: Eunice Adorno.
 Visiting the Hemeroteca at the UNAM with Diego Berruecos. Photo: Eunice Adorno.

Lunch with Terence Gower at Sólo Veracruz es Bello!, Tlalnepantla Centro. Photo: Eunice Adorno.

Observing an overgrown ivy and an ash in Polanco. Photo: Eunice Adorno.

 Visiting the Espacio Escultórico in the UNAM with Jerónimo Hagerman. Photo: Eunice Adorno.

Installing one of the 200+ poster pannels that composed the exhibition 'Latitudes. Proyectos 2005–2012' gathering information on +30 projects presented over the last seven years. More on Latitudes' projects here.

 Post-opening chelas with artists Jerónimo Hagerman and Jorge Satorre at the social cathedral of the artworld in Mexico DF: the cantina Covadonga. 

8 October 2012: Release of the second #OpenCurating interview. 'Alguien dijo 'Adhocracy'?' with Barcelona-based architect, co-founder of the publishing project dpr-barcelona and blogger Ethel Baraona Pohl. Ethel was a member of the curatorial team of 'Adhocracy', the exhibition of the first Istanbul Design Biennial (13 octubre–12 diciembre 2012) which later toured to the New Museum's 'Ideas City' Festival (1–4 May 2013). Read here (in Spanish) or here (in English).

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17 October 2012: Mariana Cánepa of Latitudes participates in the season of talks Cultural Professions: the Curator, at the Aula de Cultura CAM, in Murcia. An initiative of the curatorial collective 1er Escalón.

Foto: Obra Social Caja Mediterráneo.

19–21 October 2012: Following on, we participated in a two-day meeting in Witte de With, Rotterdam, in preparation for Moderation(s), a year-long programme of residencies, performances, exhibitions, workshops and research initiated by Witte de With’s director Defne Ayas and Spring Workshop founder Mimi Brown, and presided over by artist, writer and curator Heman Chong.


Photos: Witte de With.

6–9 November 2012: Trip to Munich, to see Haus der Kunst's 'Ends of the Earth – Land Art to 1974' exhibition and attend the opening of Haegue Yang's "Der Öffentlichkeit" commission.


 Façade of Haus der Kunst in Munich.


Haegue Yang's "Der Öffentlichkeit" commission in Haus der Kunst atrium.


 Haegue Yang with Max Andrews discussing the installation process.

28 November 2012: Third #OpenCurating interview online. 'Itinerarios transversales' is the interview with Sònia López and Anna Ramos of the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). The new web of the museum, was launched at the beginning of 2012 and includes new features such as 'Recorridos' (Itineraries), a tool that allows visitors to create their own transversal itineraries selecting amongst the five thousand works that compose the MACBA Collection, besides videos, artist entries, podcasts, publications, amongst others. Read here (in Spanish) or here (in English).
 Testing the navigation on the iPad. Looking good.

5 December 2012: Fourth #OpenCurating interview up. 'Democratizando la sociedad informacional' analyses the practice of visual artist, art theorist and web activist Daniel G. Andújar. Though the use of irony, his work has questioned the use of new communicative technologies, the democratic and egalitarian promises these media prophesy, critisising their real yet hidden intentions to control users. Read here (in Spanish).



  17 December 2013: Reached the equator with #OpenCurating. Five out of ten interviews are up and running. The fifth, 'books_expanded_field' is the interview with Badlands Unlimited, a New York-based publishing house whose motto is “books in an expanded field”. Its publications and editions in paper or digital forms (e-books for iPad or Kindle) acknowledge that “historical distinctions between books, files, and artworks are dissolving rapidly”. Read here (in English).


The Walker Art Center's web continues to support the project re-publishing the interviews on their site. Read 'books_expanded_field'.


2 January 2013: Happy New Year and happy reading. Seventh #OpenCurating interview with Steven ten Thije, Research Curator at the Van Abbemuseum, in Eindhoven. In 'From One History to A Plurality of Histories', Latitudes conversed with the researcher from one the first public museums for contemporary art to be established in Europe. Under the directorship of Charles Esche since 2004, the museum has defined itself through “an experimental approach towards art’s role in society”, where “openness, hospitality and knowledge exchange are important”. Read here (in English).


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7 January–11 February 2013: Curators-in-residency at Spring Workshop, Hong Kong, as part of the above mentioned 'Moderation(s)' programme. Our residency continued the artist-led tour format we initiated in Mexico City a few months earlier. Hong Kong-based artists Nadim Abbas, Yuk King Tan, Ho Sin Tung and Samson Young were invited to develop day-long itineraries, thus retelling the city and each participant’s artistic concerns through personal references and waypoints. More info and more photos of the four artist tours.

First 'Incidents of Travel' public tour with Nadim Abbas, 19 January. Photo: Spring Workshop.

Visiting Chung King Mansions and the nearby Mirador Mansions on Nathan Road with Yuk King Tan, 24 January. Photo: Mimi Brown.


 Navigating Tai Po with Ho Sing Tung, 29 January. Photo: Spring Workshop.

 Sound tour around the Kwun Tong Industrial district, with Samson Young, 7 February.
  
The residency included participating in the workshop "A Day at the Asia Art Archive" organised in collaboration with Spring Workshop and Witte de With, Rotterdam, on 31 January and concluded on February 2, with an Open Studios during which Latitudes and Heman Chong mantained a conversation about their experience in Hong Kong and their curatorial practice. [Related posts: Read the May 2013 interview between Christina Li and Latitudes here.]


Concentrating in the archives, "A Day at the Asia Art Archive". Photo: Mimi Brown.


2 February: Open Day at Spring. Conversation between Heman Chong and Latitudes. Photo: Spring Workshop.


 During an interview and photo session for Ming Pao Weekly. Photo: Athena Wu.

19 February 2013: Public event of the #OpenCurating research at the Auditorium of MACBA, Barcelona. Latitudes in conversation with Yasmil Raymond, Curator of the Dia Art Foundation in New York. The conversation was later transcribed and published at the #7 of the series.


Yasmil Raymond during the conversation at MACBA's Auditorium. Photo: Joan Morey.

8–14 March 2013: Research trip in Dublin. Invited by Dublin City Council: The Arts Office, Latitudes visited art spaces, artists' studios and galleries in Dublin and Derry-Londonderry throughout the week. The diary included participating in the round table 'Within the public realm', alongside artist Sean Lynch and curator Aisling Prior at the Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery [video of the talk here]; and a Curatorial talk at CCA Derry-Londonderry. During the week we were hosted by artists, curators and studio managers who took us around the Red Stables Studios; Temple Bar Gallery + Studios; Fire Station Artists' Studios; Green On Red Gallery; Kevin Kavanagh Gallery and the Project Arts Centre - Visual Arts.


Visiting Fire Station Artists' Studios. Photo: Liz Burns.


 Walk with our hosts Aileen Burns and Johan Lundh, co-directors of CCA Derry–Londonderry, around Kinnagoe Bay in Donegal, site of 1588 shipwreck of one of the Spanish Armada ships.


 Gathered plenty of material during studio visits, lunches and dinners. How do we deal with this, Ryanair?


20 March 2013: Mariana Cánepa of Latitudes visits A*Desk's HQ and talks to A*Study's partipants about some of the practical challenges that came up in recent projects, how they were negotiated and ultimately, presented.

Photo: Oriol Fondevila.

2 April 2013: Publishing the eight #OpenCurating interview, "Digression(s), Entry Point(s): An interview with Heman Chong", Singapore-based artist, writer and curator of 'Moderation(s)'. 



18–22 April 2013: Attended the first International Association of Curators of Contemporary Art (IKT) congress, this year celebrated in Madrid. See more photos of the three-day event.


(Above) Symposium at the Cineteca in Matadero and (below) visit to the newly opened MediaLab Prado.

24 April 2013: Since mid-2010 we been members of the Programme Committee of Hangar Production Center in Barcelona, and have extended our mandate one more year until a new board is formed. Below a tweeted photo of a studio visit to Rasmus Nilausen' working space, during one of our periodic visits alongside other members of the Committee Joan Vilapuig, Jordi Mitjà and Àlex Mitrani.


27 May–2 June 2013: Venice Biennale week galore. We published three posts on our blog on 'The Encyclopedic Palace', the National Pavilions and Collateral Events and of the ubiquitous biennale tote bags.

After the art overdose, Venice rewarded biennale visitors with incredible sunsets between the several storms and showers that plagued the opening week.

4 June 2013: In Madrid for an in conversation with New York-based artist Alejandro Cesarco on the occasion of his solo exhibition "La noche agranda su silencio”, Parra & Romero, Madrid. 


Photo: Parra & Romero.

As far as press coverage, Stephanie Cardon of Boston's Big Red & Shiny featured a profile in September 2012 titled 'Meanwhile in Barcelona: Latitudes and #OpenCurating'. In the Autumn issue of D'ARS, Italian writer Saul Marcadent mentioned the (out of print, unfortunately) publication "LAND, ART: A Cultural Ecology Handbook", Latitudes edited in 2006 in the context of other ecological-oriented projects. During our March visit to Dublin, we chatted with Anne Mullee about the (then ongoing) #OpenCurating research, the conversation was soon after published in the International section of the May-June 2013 issue of The Visual Artists' News Sheet. Also in May, writer and curator Christina Li, interviewed us for the Moderation(s) blog Witness to Moderation(s), an opportunity to look back at our January residency in Hong Kong.

In the past months, Max Andrews of Latitudes has published the following texts in frieze: 'Utopia is possible' (October 2012 issue); review of Julia Montilla's exhibition "El «cuadro» de la Calleja" at Espai 13, Fundació Miró; and forthcoming, an interview with Rotterdam-based artists Klaas van Gorkum and Iratxe Jaio also for frieze, as well as two texts on the 1979 documentary film 'The Secret Life of Plants' for the final issue of the Dutch journal Club Donny!



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