ABOUT LAIA ESTRUCH
Laia Estruch (Barcelona, 1981) has had solo exhibitions at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya, Barcelona (2023); Spiritvessel, Espinavessa (2022); Fundació Joan Brossa, Barcelona (2020); Capella de Sant Roc, Valls (2019); and at Espai 13, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (2019).
Recent group exhibitions include “After Paradise”, Kortrijk Triennial, Belgium (2024); “Topalekuak”, Tabakalera, Donostia (2024); Patio by ZONAMACO, ABC Art Baja, San José del Cabo, Mexico (2024); “I drank words submerged in dreams”, 23 Bienal de Arte Paiz, Guatemala (2023); “After the Mediterranean”, Hauser & Wirth, Menorca (2023); “Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire”, MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2021) and “La cuestión es ir tirando”, Centro Cultural de España, Mexico City (2020).
Estruch has performed in numerous public events within the framework of exhibitions, biennials and festivals, including “Segar i cantar”, Lo Pati, Amposta (2024); “The Listening Affect”, Galeria da Biodiversidade, Porto (2023); “Passat / Present”, Centre d’Interpretació d’Art Rupestre de la Roca dels Moros del Cogul, Lleida (2022); 10th Deleste Festival, Bombas Gens, Valencia (2022); “The Journeying Stream”, TBA21, Sotos de la Albolafia, Córdoba (2022), Bianyal 2021, Vall de Bianya (2021) or “Plataforma. Festival de Artes Performativas”, Parque de Bonaval, Santiago de Compostela (2021), amongst other.
In 2022 Estruch won the 6th Premio Cervezas Alhambra de Arte Emergente (Alhambra Beer Award for Emerging Art) with the work “Zócalo”, and was awarded the 2021 Premi Ciutat de Barcelona (City of Barcelona Prize) in the category of Visual Arts.
Works in public space include “Moat-2 / Playground Scene” (2017–18) at Fabra i Coats Fàbrica de Creació, Barcelona; and the recently completed Concomitentes public commission “Aguas Vivas”, at Llanos de Penagos, Cantabria (2024).
Estruch has a BA in Fine Arts from the Universitat de Barcelona (2010) and studied Performance Art and Sound Art at The Cooper Union, New York (2010). She regularly lectures at the Facultat de Belles Arts, Universitat de Barcelona.
Her work is represented by Galería Ehrhardt Flórez, Madrid.
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The February 2025 monthly Cover Story “Bananas, Potatoes, Ria, Río: Jorge Satorre at CA2M” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org (after February this story will be archived here).
“Jorge Satorre’s “Triplay” (2025) serves as the entrance to his exhibition “Ria”, currently on view at the Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), curated by Latitudes. Two large wooden doors, embedded with metal casts of bananas and potatoes, form this threshold. Everyday objects are laden with both mundane associations and personal significance.” → Continue reading
Cover Stories are published monthly on Latitudes’ homepage featuring past, present, or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects, or field trips related to our curatorial projects and activities.
Max Andrews’ review of Gabriel Chaile's exhibition “Contemplando es como fuimos cambiando” at Tabakalera in San Sebastian/Donostia, goes live on the frieze website.
“‘Contemplating Is How We Have Been Changing’, Tabakalera’s survey of Argentine artist Gabriel Chaile, deftly shows his ability to transform humble materials into vessels of ancestral knowledge and familial intimacy. The exhibition includes several of Chaile’s characteristic anthropomorphic and zoomorphic adobe sculptures, yet it also features a selection of impressive earlier works, and hints at new forays into film narrative and mythmaking.” Continue reading
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January 2025 cover story on www.lttds.org
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The Scholarly Text Program regularly commissions thinkers from various disciplines to write 1,200 words on single artworks by Nancy Holt and/or Robert Smithson. These essays explore how Holt and Smithson’s ideas resonate through contemporary artistic and cultural production, covering topics ranging from geology to ecology, poetry, and beyond.
Read Mariana Cánepa Luna’s recently published essay on Nancy Holt’s site-responsive installation “Ventilation System” (1985–1992) also part of the Scholarly Text Programme’s Chapter 7.
Thank you to Lisa Le Feuvre, Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation, for the kind invitation to contribute to the foundation’s growing archive, and to William T. Carson, Program Manager and Assistant Curator, for the research assistance.
Abstract:
Max Andrews’ essay delves into Robert Smithson's seminal article "Aerial Art" (1969), which outlines his earthworks proposals for the Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport and those of Carl Andre, Robert Morris, and Sol LeWitt. Andrews examines the historical context, including the growth of air travel and global art networks. Importantly, the essay underscores the sustained multi-decade increase in CO2 emissions from air travel and its significant contribution to the climate crisis.
Keywords:
Robert Smithson, Aerial Art, 1969, Studio International, Artforum, Anthropocene, Charles Jencks, postmodernism, Dallas-Fort Worth Regional Airport, Tippetts–Abbett–McCarthy–Stratton, earthworks, Carl Andre, Robert Morris, and Sol LeWitt, site-specificity, Boing 747, Spiral Jetty, CO2 emissions, frequent flying, transnational art world, contemporary art, decarbonization, exhibition-making, curatorial hypermobility, Harald Szeemann, air travel, global mobility, low-carbon footprint art production, multinational museum brands, biennial model, Fernand Braudel, Gustav Metzger, Reduce Art Flights, Paris Agreement, 2030, global warming.
How to cite:
Andrews, Max, “Frequent Flyers: Robert Smithson’s “Aerial Art,” 1969”, Holt/Smithson Foundation: Scholarly Texts Chapter 7 (October 2024). ISBN: 978-1-952603-36-5
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Danish-born, Barcelona-based artist Rasmus Nilausen is presenting, until November 22, 2024, a version of his installation “The Theatre of Doubts” (2021) in the group show “Especies de espacios. Una reflexión colectiva sobre qué pensar de este mundo” at Galería Pelaires in Palma, Mallorca.
Rasmus Nilausen’s installation of paintings is a homage to philosopher Giulio Camillo’s sublime and ridiculous attempt to explain the entire universe and allow all its relations and meanings to be beheld at once. Camillo built his “Theatre of Memory” in Venice in around 1530. Inverting the perspective of classical theatre, a single spectator could stand on a central “stage” to look out at an auditorium of seven rows of seven pictures. An occult matrix of divine, celestial, and terrestrial knowledge, this mystical rhetorical device enabled the entirety of existence and its workings to be called to mind and read off. Evidently flawed and over-ambitious, Nilausen’s liberal revival of the memory theatre format draws on 49 works from his own painterly and allegorical universe. Visitors are invited to wander among images that seem to be going for a walk, adopt multiple viewpoints, see unfamiliar connections, and summon new memories. The first row takes on the seven planetary deities of Camillo’s Renaissance design: Diana (the Moon), Mercury, Venus, the Sun (represented by a banquet), Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.
Produced by MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona with the support of the Danish Arts Foundation.
More about the work, here (pdf).
Nilausen is also exhibiting “Fixed Ideas,” a solo show at EtHall Gallery in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, presenting new and recent works. The show will be on view until November 7, 2024.
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Throughout her career, Holt presented four iterations of “Ventilation System”: at Temple Gallery, Philadelphia; and Palladium, New York (both in 1985); at the Tampere Art Museum, Finland; and at the Guild Hall Museum in East Hampton, New York (both in 1992). Posthumously, the installation has been presented on three occasions: at Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden; Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia (both in 2022); and most recently at MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain (2023).
The Scholarly Text Program regularly commissions thinkers from various disciplines to write 1,200 words on single artworks by Nancy Holt and/or Robert Smithson. The authors explore how Holt and Smithson’s ideas resonate through artistic and cultural production in the present, exploring topics ranging from geology to ecology, poetry, architecture, science fiction, public art, sculpture, drawing, film, exhibition histories or philosophy. The Scholarly Text Program will publish two essays on each work, presenting differing opinions and approaches. Each new essay includes images selected by the author, a short bibliography, citation references, endnotes pointing to the author’s references and an ISBN.
Stay tuned for Max Andrews’ upcoming contribution on Smithson’s article “Aerial Art” (1969) next month.
Thank you to Lisa Le Feuvre, Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation, for the kind invitation to contribute to the foundation’s growing Scholarly Texts Program archive and to William T. Carson, Program Manager and Assistant Curator, for the research assistance. Extended gratitude to Chicago-based artist Nick Raffel for the insightful online studio visit and to Maxwell Graham Gallery, New York.
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