LONGITUDES

Longitudes cuts across Latitudes’ projects and research with news, updates, and reportage.

Cover Story, November 2023: Surucuá, Teque-teque, Arara: Daniel Steegmann Mangrané

  November 2023 cover story on www.lttds.org


The November 2023 monthly Cover Story “Surucuá, Teque-teque, Arara” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org

Daniel Steegmann Mangrané’s exhibition “Una fulla al lloc de l’ull” (A Leaf Shapes the Eye) opens later this month at Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). Curated by Hiuwai Chu and João Laia, the show includes works from the late 1990s to the present. 

→ Continue reading (after November 2023 this story will be archived here).

Cover Stories are published on a monthly basis 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.


→ RELATED CONTENTS

  • Archive of Monthly Cover Stories 
  • Cover Story, October 2023: A tree felled, a tree cut in 7, 2 October 2023
  • Cover Story, September 2023: The Pilgrim in Ireland, 6 September 2023
  • Cover Story, July–August 2023: Honeymoon in Valencia, 1 July 2023
  • Cover Story, June 2023: Crystal Bennes futures, 1 Jun 2023
  • Cover Story, May 2023: Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty in Barcelona, 1 May 2023
  • Cover Story, April 2023: Jerónimo Hagerman (1967–2023), 1 Apr 2023
  • Cover Story, March 2023: Art, Climate and New Coalitions, 1 March 2023
  • Cover Story, February 2023: Soil for Future Art Histories, 2 Feb 2023
  • Cover Story, January 2023: Claudia Pagès’ ‘Gerundi Circular’, 2 Jan 2023
  • Cover Story, December 2022: “The Melt Goes On Forever. David Hammons and DART Festival, 1 December 2022
  • Cover Story, November 2022: Jorge Satorre’s Barcelona, 1 Nov 2022
Stacks Image 39


Exposición ‘Juego de niños’ de Lola Lasurt, Barcelona Producció 2019-2020, 21 julio–27 septiembre 2020

(↑↓) Vistas de la exposición ‘Joc d'infants’ (Juego de niños) de Lola Lasurt en La Capella, Barcelona, 21 julio–27 septiembre 2020. Fotos: Pep Herrero / La Capella.

El proyecto Juego de niños de Lola Lasurt parte de la retrospectiva Miró. Barcelona 1968-69, la primera muestra de arte contemporáneo presentada entre entre noviembre de 1968 y enero de 1969, en el espacio actualmente conocido como La Capella

A través de pinturas, fotografía, vídeos y cerámicas, el proyecto de Lasurt aborda la agitación sociopolítica de finales de los sesenta a través de la figura del artista catalán Joan Miró (1893-1983), quien durante el último periodo de la dictadura de Franco se convirtió en un “objeto transicional”, una suerte de puente artístico entre el régimen anterior y la nueva democracia. [1]

En su nueva serie de pinturas Lasurt alude a dos formas de transición: un periodo de excepción tanto desde el punto de vista político como del desarrollo personal. Lasurt se apropia de imágenes relacionadas con la infancia publicadas en la prensa nacional durante el estado de excepción de dos meses que se inició a finales de enero de 1969, un período de ausencias y silencios forzados.

→ PDF hoja de sala en castellano, catalàenglish.
→ PDF publicación (en cat/cast/eng).
→ Video (1'50'')
→ Video entrevista (14'44'')

[1] El término objeto transicional fue acuñado en 1951 por el pediatra y psicoanalista inglés D. W. Winnicott para describir objetos reconfortantes –como ositos de peluche, mantas o muñecas– que sustituyen el vínculo madre-hijo en el desarrollo del niño.

















A partir de la exposición de Lasurt, el programa de mediación εξέδρα (Exedra) dirigido por Jordi Ferreiro ha generado una serie de deslocalizaciones a tres espacios públicos y privados del barrio del Raval con el fin que no se vean perjudicados por posibles protocolos de actuación ante COVID-19.

(↑↓) Vistas de las deslocalizaciones relacionadas con la exposición ‘Juego de niños’ de Lola Lasurt alrededor del barrio del Raval. Hasta el 27 de septiembre 2020. Fotos: Eva Carasol.

Pósters en los escaparates de la Escola Massana con material de archivo del estado de excepción que se decretó en el Estado Español entre enero y marzo de1969.


Consulta de publicaciones relacionadas con Joan Miró y el estado de excepción que se decretó en el Estado Español a inicios de 1969 disponibles en la Biblioteca Popular Sant Pau i Santa Creu.

(↑↓) Pintura animada proyectada en el escaparate del Estanc Carme 15 en Carrer del Carme, 15. ‘Copito de Nieve, ¿personaje de Marcel Proust?’ Tele/eXpres, 22 de enero de 1969. Una de las obras iniciales de Lola Lasurt fue ‘Expendeduría 193’ (2008), un videodocumental que, a través de sus protagonistas, narraba la vida diaria de un estanco vinculado a la familia de la artista. Así pues, ‘Juego de niños’ incorpora un pequeño tributo a esta obra mediante la deslocalización de una de sus pinturas animadas al estanco Carme 15 de la calle del Carme.

 
(24 septiembre) La tercera y última deslocalización coincide con la finalización de la exposición el 27 de septiembre 2020. Desde La Capella se hizo una llamada a los vecinos del distrito de Ciutat Vella ofreciendo la posibilidad de exponer en su balcón una obra de Lola Lasurt representando un objeto transicional de la infancia y presentarlo en formato banderola. 

Meritxell Mestre envió su historia relacionada con unos dibujos animados que solía mirar de pequeña en casa de sus abuelos y que gravaba en VHS, cuyo protagonista era una pequeña locomotora.  

(↑↓) Última de las deslocalizaciones de la exposición ‘Juego de niños’ de Lola Lasurt presenta una banderola en el balcón con la imagen de un objeto transicional de la infancia de su habitante. Fotos: Eva Carasol.

Stacks Image 39


Helene Romakin interviews Latitudes for artfridge.de



Over the course of the Summer, Helene Romakin (PhD candidate at the Institute for the History and Theory of the Architecture, ETH Zurich) interviewed us for the Berlin-based online platform www.artfridge.de run by the art historian and curator Anna Lena Werner.

As Helene mentions in her introduction, we met last July in Valencia, after Mariana's conversation with Lara Almarcegui on the occasion of her solo exhibition “Agras Volcano. Mining Rights” at the Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM). Afterwards, we had a lively discussion on several topics surrounding Lara's practice, our thoughts on other artistic practices tackling a range of environmental issues, the Extinction Rebellion, etc. so we were happy to continue our conversation when she proposed doing this interview looking back at several projects we produced in the mid-two thousands. 


RELATED CONTENTS:

  • Conversation for the exhibition catalogue "Limits to Growth" by Nicholas Mangan (Sternberg Press, 2016) 31 October 2016
  • In conversation with Lucas Ihlein for Artlink Magazine 5 September 2016
  • Witte de With and Spring Workshop's 'Moderation(s)' publication 'End Note(s)' is out! 5 March 2015
  • Interview with Nicholas Mangan in Mousse Magazine #47, February–March 2015 11 February 2015
  • "Focus Interview: Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum", frieze, Issue 157, September 2013 14 September 2013

Stacks Image 39


Latitudes' "out of office" 2016–2017 season

 Downtime for physical and mental "reparations" begins. 
Photos: Latitudes (except where noted otherwise).

It's the end of the 2016–17 season, at last. Following a Latitudes' tradition we mark the summer downtime with an "out of office" post (see the 2008-9, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16 ones) with a series of "behind the scenes" and "making of" moments from the year gone by. Here are some glimpses of the past season, from September 2016 to July 2017.

We'll be back in September 2017, when we'll be leading a residency programme at Banff Centre in the Canadian Rockies!

 
15 September
2016: The 2016–17 season started with glitter and sparkle as Antoni Hervàs' "The Mystery of Caviria" exhibition opened in La Capella. The eight chapters of his complex scenario revolved around the legend of Jason and the Argonauts’ expedition in search of the Golden Fleece. The spectacular scenography took as its point of origin the section of the tale in which the expedition led by Jason stops for a few months in Lemnos, the island of fire, in the northern part of the Aegean Sea. Taking this fragment, Hervàs explored the transformist and genre-bending possibilities of drawing, a medium that enabled him to unite two mythologies: the Cabeirian rites of Classical Greece and figures from Barcelona’s dwindling cabaret scene. Photos of the exhibition here.

Toni's exhibition was the focus of the September and November Cover Story series on our home page, archived here.








Photos above: Latitudes and Toni Hervàs.

18 September 2016: More sparkle awaited on the former site of the Copacabana club and nearby frontón court. The former is currently a parking lot used by the Department of Culture of the Catalan Government. The lone castanets master Juan de la Cruz el Rosillo interpreted a moving repertoire of popular Spanish coplas. For the second part of the event, the audience walked a few meters up Las Ramblas towards the frontón, where Gerard López, Senior Spanish Champion in male rhythmic gymnastics, interpreted newly-commissioned choreography with specially-produced music by Norman Bambi, while wearing a Hervàs-designed garment (exhibited as part of his exhibition).








20 September 2016: Just as we are catching our breath from the memorable exhibition opening and the first event related to Toni's exhibition, street banners popped up around the city announcing the second Barcelona Gallery Weekend.


26–28 September 2016: Installation of "Composiciones" projects, five site-specific commissions for the second iteration of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend. Three days of intense preparations! Curated by Latitudes for the second time (see 2015 edition), the project further explored Barcelona as a rich fabric of the historic and the contemporary, the unfamiliar and the conspicuous.

 Above and below: Lola Lasurt at the Biblioteca Pública Arús. 


(Above) Lúa and Mariana admiring the serendipitous finding of "El espejo equivocado" painting at the Club Billar Barcelona. An almost spooky, yet incredibly fitting find. 

(Above) With Rafel Bianchi and Gina Giménez unpacking Gina's works and spreading them around the former textile factory Can Trinxet, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat. 

Silkscreened outfits for the runners finally ready to be worn throughout the weekend. Photos: Robert Llimós.

Runners pass by Galeria dels Àngels. Photo: Gabriela Moragas.

 Testing the resistance of a pair of Levi's jeans in preparation for Wilfredo Prieto "Pantalones Rotos" at the Mounted Unit of the Barcelona City Police.


29 September–2 October 2016: Opening and guided visits around the five "Composiciones" interventions by Lúa Coderch (at the Club Billar Barcelona); Regina Giménez (at the former textile factory Can Trinxet, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat); Lola Lasurt (at the Biblioteca Pública Arús); Robert Llimós (connecting all the participating galleries) and Wilfredo Prieto (at the Mounted Unit of the Barcelona City Police) in unique sites across the neighbourhoods of the city. Their projects offered moments of intermission, intimacy and bewilderment throughout the weekend, highlighting some lesser-known aspects of the city’s cultural heritage and municipal life.

Archive of social network posts. Photographs here.


Guided tour by Lúa Coderch in her intervention at the Club Billar Barcelona.

Guided tour by Gina Giménez to ARCOwalks group in Can Trinxet. 

 Interviewed for the radio at the Mounted Unit of the Barcelona City Police.

 
 TV presenter Josep Paris modelled Robert Llimós' 1972 updated runners design during the weekly cultural TV programme Àrtic. Photo: Àrtic.

 Double spread on "Composiciones" in the cultural supplement "Tendències" by the national newspaper El Mundo. Photo: Vanessa Graell.

26 October 2016: Launch of Rasmus Nilausen's book "Soups & Symptoms" at Múltiplos, which includes an essay by Max Andrews. For the event, Rasmus and Max served up a carrot soup (potage crécy) and requested questions from friends, family and collaborators which would be accepted as long as they fitted onto Jacob's Cream cracker.

The catalogue was produced thanks to funding from Premi Art Nou 2015, Art Barcelona, Associació de Galeries d’Art Contemporani in collaboration with the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona, García Galeria (Madrid) and Estrany de la Mota (Barcelona). It can be purchased in La Central.





Max and Rasmus prepare the carrots for a large pot of Potage Crécy, questions are written on Jacob's Cream crackers (that will later accompany the soup) and book launch at Múltiplos.


3 November 2016: Runway show at La Capella with some costumes from the 1980s and 90s designed by actor and impresario Victor Guerrero. Part of the activities programmed on the occasion of the exhibition.


Photos: Latitudes.

8 November 2016: Mariana Cánepa Luna's review on Ana Jotta's exhibition published on art-agenda, focused on "her ongoing series 'Notas de rodapé' [Footnotes] [which] provide a key to understanding the semantic complexity of her work. It comprises a selection of the eclectic bits and pieces Jotta has gathered for decades and that coexist in her studio alongside works that she has fabricated." Continue reading


18–20 November 2016: Attended the CIMAM 2016 Annual Conference hosted in several venues in Barcelona, and hosted by the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and CaixaForum, focusing on ‘The Museum and its Responsibilities’.

Mariana holding the CIMAM 2016 Annual Conference programme.
CIMAM 2016 Annual Conference speakers and delegates at the Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona. Photo: CIMAM.
 Selfie from Museum Nacional d'Art de Catalunya with Portuguese curator Miguel Amado.

23-24 November 2016: Latitudes participated in a two-day summit "You are such a curator!" organised by the Curatorial Programme of De Appel, Amsterdam. With contributions by Mira Asriningtyas, Lucrezia Calabro Visconti, Renata Cervetto, Mateo Chacon-Pino, Galerie (Adriano Wilfert Jensen and Simon Asencio), Natasha Hoare, Kati Ilves, Prem Krishnamurthy, Inga Lace, Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna), Ariane Loze, Shona Mei Findlay, Fadwa Naamna, Kim Nguyen, Emma Ines Panza, Aneta Rostkowska and Kuba Woynarowski, Chris Sharp, Niels Van Tomme, Huib Haye van der Werf, and others. We took the opportunity to extend our stay on the occasion of the Amsterdam Art Weekend 2016, which included the opening of Jordan Wolfson's at the Stedelijk and the Open Studios at the Rijksakademie.

Latitudes' presentation "Following the Holy Greyhound" reflected "on the disinterment of a sculpture from 1991 – part of an exhibition by the Venezuelan artist José Antonio Hernández-Díez curated by Latitudes at MACBA, Barcelona, earlier this year – and their approach to a group exhibition in preparation for CAPC Musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux in Summer 2017.  

→ Full report here.


  Photos: Carina Erdmann/De Appel.

November-December 2016: Two of Latitudes' projects ("Composiciones" commissions for the Barcelona Gallery Weekend and "El misterio de Caviria" by Antoni Hervàs) are shortlisted for the best exhibition of the year by the TV culture programme Tria33. The audience casts their votes online until January. Antoni Hervàs won with 40% of the audience votes. "Composiciones" ends in the third position with 17% of the votes.



January 2017: Issue of frieze magazines includes Max Andrews' "Salon Selectives" text in the Opinion section, discussing "How open are open calls?":

"While competition organizers typically trumpet the volume and cosmopolitanism of applications received an ebullient endorsement, others may rue the sheer amount of collectively wasted effort made by the also-rans. (In Spain, Bilbao-based studio Taller de Casquería estimated that the hours involved in the 1,715 submissions received for the Guggenheim Helsinki open call for designs represented over €18 million worth of speculative work.) In Gary Hustwit’s 2011 documentary film, Urbanized, Rem Koolhaas stated that such competitions were a ‘complete drain of intelligence’, inviting mass creative thinking with the guarantee that the vast majority of it will be discarded. This addiction in the field of architecture appears to be gaining traction in contemporary art as a means not only of generating exhibitions but of programming institutions."

The text was the January Cover Story on our website.


25 January 2017: Presentation of Antoni Hervàs' La Capella publication at the Antic Teatre in the background of one of his scenographic drawings dedicated to Gilda Love (this was the second time this had been displayed in this space, following the recording in May last year of Gilda performing, a video later included in the exhibition). The evening was followed by the "Desplume" monthly cabaret show.










16 February 2017: A moving evening seeing Toni Hervàs receive the Premi Ciutat de Barcelona for visual arts exhibition of the year at the Sala de Consell de Cent in the Barcelona City Hall. The jury recognised "the artist's research in linking Greek mythology with the Barcelona cabaret scene from the 1960s–80s and for the recuperation of its vitality."


Toni receiving the award from Barcelona mayor Ada Colau. Photos: Latitudes.

1 March 2017: Launch of the fourth 'Incidents (of Travel)' episode, in which Galician curator Pedro de Llano met Lisboeta artist Luisa Cunha in Lisbon. Their offline day took place in early December and went through key locations in the artist's life – from Ar.Co, the School of Visual Arts in Almada where she enrolled at age thirty-seven, to the Largo da Academia de Belas Artes in Chiado, where she conceived a public project that never materialised. 

Project website.
Above: captures from the project website.

2 March 2017: Opening of Joana Hurtado Matheu's "Nostalgic Dissidence" exhibition mentored by Latitudes as part of the Barcelona Producció 2016 season. Repairs and conservation work in the Baroque cupola had delayed the opening by three months, so we were all pleased the day finally arrived. 

  Working on the exhibition layout.

Francesco Arena's "Mare della tranquillità" (2013) is activated by a performer. "An old wooden table, taken from the family dining room, has been cut into four pieces to form the corners of a much bigger new table. Enlarged with inserts of metal, its size evokes the table on which, on May 7, 1945, the signing of the German surrender ended World War II in Europe. The work is the support for a participative action which consists of walking back and forth on the five-metre table a total of 155 km, the length of the Berlin Wall. Every day during the two months of the exhibition someone will get up on the table and, wearing shoes that have never touched the ground and holding a tally counter, walk from one end to the other 596 times." (exhibition wall label by the curator)

Photo: Pep Herrero/La Capella.

January 2017: The artist Alexandra Navratil posts an image of the work she will present in the forthcoming exhibition "4.543 billion" due to open June 29 at the CAPC musée in Bordeaux.



22–24 March 2017: Third trip to Bordeaux. Packed with meetings. Three months to go to the opening of "4.543 billion" exhibition. In two weeks deadline to submit the texts for the gallery guide. 

 Running through each work through our sketch-up exhibition rendering with the curatorial, collections, registrar, press and installation teams.

23 March 2017: Meanwhile in Barcelona, Toni Hervàs wins yet another award – for the best exhibition of the year, and given by the Catalan Association of Art Critics. 

Hervàs during the award ceremony. Photo: ACCA.

April 2017: A bit of a website refresh – these things are so darn tedious yet they feel so good when they are done and dusted!

26 April 2017: Fifth 'Incidents (of Travel)' episode online narrating the encounter between curator Simon Soon and artist Chi Too. Their offline day took place in April 2016, when they visited the Malaysian state of Terengganu, where chi spent some time in 2013, surrounded by "men and women who work(ed) multiple jobs as a fishermen, housebuilders, boat builders, farmers, coconut pickers, food producers, and everything else that matters."

'Incidents (of Travel)' is a chartered day-long itinerary as an alternative to the standard studio visit, inviting an extended conversation between a curator and an artist. Previous destinations have included Chicago, US; Jinja, Uganda; Suzhou, China; and Lisbon, Portugal. Produced by Kadist; photographs and video by Awang Ketut; site built by The Present Group.



Above: captures from the project website.

3 May 2017: Conversation with Korean-born, Berlin-based artist Haegue Yang at the Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona. The evening discussion analysed Yang's practice from the perspective of historical development and cyclic fluctuations, asking, as phrased by sociologist and economist Giovanni Arrighi – what is accumulative, what is cyclical, and what is new? 



Photos: Fundació Han Nefkens.

May 2017: After three intense weeks of the jury process, eighteen selected projects of Barcelona Producció 2017 grant scheme are announced. We begin the year-long mentoring process of three projects out of the seventeen selected projects this year as part of the Barcelona Producció 2017 production grants. David Mutiloa's SYNTHESIS (18 July–25 September 2017) is the first to occupy La Capella's 15th-century exhibition space. The other two projects mentored by Latitudes are a publication by Anna Moreno and an exhibition "Artengo2000" at the small exhibition space by Camille Orny and Magda Vaz.

 Jury searching for a solid wifi spot to watch video documentation sent by an applicant.

12 June 2017, in Basel: Max Andrews of Latitudes contributed the essay "C-H-R-I-S-T-O-P-H-E-R-K-N-O-W-L-E-S. SO LISTEN UP" about the spoken-word works, "typings", poetry and paintings of Christopher Knowles. The publication is made to accompany his solo presentation in the stand of NoguerasBlanchard gallery at Liste art fair in Basel. The exquisite short-run publication is designed and printed by Barcelona-based independent publishers and Riso printers Do The Print. Read on.



Photos: Latitudes

Photo via @gal_NB


12 June, in Barcelona: Following the announcement of the awardees of the 2017–18 season of Barcelona Producció production grants, we visit David Mutiloa's temporary studio in Hangar. Mutiloa is the first artist to open the season and his exhibition "SYNTHESIS" will take place in the central nave of La Capella from July 18. 

"Using sculpture, video projections and human presence, David Mutiloa’s exhibition Synthesis proposes that this condition has led to the appearance of pharmacologically managed depression, “an illness of responsibility”. It has also induced a terrible form of boredom – the spectre of both the boundless outsourcing of undesirable labour to the developing world and automation leading to a world without work. – Text from the gallery guide, written by Latitudes (pdf here). 

Short video of the exhibition.

 Photos: Latitudes

 
19 June–2 July: We're off to Bordeaux for the installation and opening of "4.543 billion. The matter of matter" exhibition in ten days. After two years of preparation, it's a truly exciting moment to see it all coming together.  

→ Press release here
Archive of social media posts



Lucy Skaer's 26 coal and resin sculptures after Brancusi's 26 different editions of "Bird in Space".

Deciding the layout of Félix Arnaudin's incredible suite of photographs kindly lent by the Musée d'Aquitaine Bordeaux.

Photovoltaic panels charging the batteries that power Nicholas Mangan's double video projection "Ancient Lights" (2015).

 Anne Garde's photos documenting Richard Serra's "Threats of Hell" (1990) production from Dillinger Hütter (Germany) to its exhibition at the CAPC nave, to its current location at a private collector home on the banks of the Garonne, where it changed its name to a happier "Hopes of Paradise".

 Part of the CAPC installation team having a coffee break enjoying Stéphane's awesome chocolate cake.


 Rayyane Tabet's mobile pieces arriving from Hamburg at the CAPC.

Registrar thick checklist file.

 François measuring Lara Almarcegui's works before placing them on the wall.

 Construction of the warehouse and jetty. Statements of works by engineer and architect Claude Deschamps.

 Christophe moving the 600kg rock by Hubert Duprat to the entrance.

 Pascal lighting the exhibition.

Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller stretching their new work "Untitled (Blue)" (2017), a work focused on indigo and colonial trade.

Christina Hemauer and Terence Gower listening to Pep Vidal explaining his sculpture work "19-metre tree cut in 7 equal volumes" (2015).

 One of the many guided visits for press, staff, and friends of the museum during the opening days. Photo: Latitudes/RK.

11–14 July 2017: Installation of "SYNTHESIS" in La Capella. David Mutiloa's solo exhibition is the first of the 2017–18 season of Barcelona Producció. Opening on July 18, on view until September 25.

"In the modern office workplace, spatial design and brand communication have evolved in step with novel notions of management, business efficiency and a labour market that progressively favours flexibility and adaptability. The typical Western office worker – their physiology as well as their psychology – has also been overhauled. Twentieth-century time-and-motion studies first standardised and rationalised the salaried worker’s time and space. And today the twenty-first-century worker is increasingly a co-working independent contractor who navigates an entirely dissolved working-week structure, continuous competitive ‘disruption’ and the so-called ‘gig economy’." – Text by Latitudes from the exhibition sheet.

Scheme to help assemble the platform.

 Artist at work.




24–26 July 2017: Trip to Copenhagen to visit the impressive solo exhibition by John Kørner, "Altid Mange Problemer" at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, curated by Marie Nipper—the largest exhibition of his works to date. Max Andrews of Latitudes has been invited to contribute an essay for his forthcoming monograph published by Roulette Russe which is due to come out in November 2017. Max has previously written on John's work for his 2006 exhibition "Problems" at Victoria Miro Gallery in London. Our first visit to Copenhagen to see John's work was precisely the subject of our first blog post in September 2006!

Everything in Copenhagen seemed to have turned yellow – we knew John's love for the colour (first image below), but also Mark Leckey's exhibition at the x-room of the Statens Museum fur Kunst, seemed to have been inspired by "the Nyboder yellow" hue – the historic row house district of former Naval barracks in Copenhagen. 




(Above) Mark Leckey's exhibition ‘He Thrusts his fists against the posts but still insists he sees the ghosts’ recreated the ramps underneath the M53 motorway bridge in Ellesmere Port. 


An example of the "Nyboder yellow" hue – is the historic row house district of former Naval barracks in Copenhagen. 

27 July 2017: Visit Ricardo Bofill's Walden7 and his nearby studio Taller de Arquitectura with Anna Moreno. Moreno was awarded a grant of Barcelona Producció 2017 to produce the publication "The Drowned Giant", a project focusing on a performance–happening staged by Bofill in 1970 to promote his unrealised architectural project La Ciudad en el Espacio in Moratalaz (Madrid). The publication will be launched in late November 2017 and is mentored by Latitudes. As part of Moreno's ongoing research on Bofill's practice, she has been living in Walden7 for the past month to carry out research for a forthcoming commission for the Spring 2018 exhibition "Beehave" at the Fundació Miró. 



 (Above) Taller de Arquitectura studio. (Below) Walden7 in Sant Just Desvern (Barcelona).




Anna Moreno walking around Walden7 in Sant Just Desvern (Barcelona).

At the time of writing, we are frantically preparing for what will be an intense September. On September 10 we'll travel to Banff, where Latitudes will be Lead Faculty of the month-long residency programme "Geologic Time" at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity which will bring together 10 curators/artists/writers from around the world to discuss geological formations and timescales while speculating about a more expansive and longer-term view of art, exhibitions, and their institutions. We will be “thinking with” geology (beyond the depiction of the landscape) as a potential way to consider non-conventional, deep-time perspectives on curating, exhibition making, programming, and fieldwork within contemporary art. 

 Julius Schoppe (1795–1868), “Illustration of giant stone near the Rauenschen Mountains near Fürstenwalde”, c. 1827. Public domain – Wikimedia Commons.

RELATED CONTENT:
Stacks Image 39


October Cover Story: "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gallery"


A new Monthly Cover Story is now on www.lttds.org (after October it will be archived here). "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gallery" reflects on the recent reenactment of the 1972 performance by Robert Llimós, restaged during the four days of the recent Barcelona Gallery Weekend. "Los Corredores" was one of the five context-sensitive interventions curated by Latitudes for the second edition of the event.
 
(...) "During the past few days the Compositions of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend could be found in a subterranean billiards club, an abandoned textiles factory, a masonic-anarchist library, and the stables of the city police. The contribution of Robert Llimós was constantly dashing between these singular venues and the twenty-three participating galleries. Los Corredores (The Runners) was a remake of an action that was originally created in the summer of 1972 as part of the legendary avant-garde art festival known as Los Encuentros de Pamplona (The Pamplona Meetings). Llimós is best known for a long trajectory as a painter and sculptor that began in the sixties within the Nueva Figuración movement, and continues today with his depictions of extraterrestrials, yet this is one of a handful of his striking performative works." Continue reading...  

Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage to highlight past, present or forthcoming projects, research, exhibitions or field trips related to our activities. 


Related content:
  • Archive of Cover Stories
  • September Cover Story: "El misterio de Caviria" by Antoni Hervàs 1 Septiembre 2016
  • Last chance to read the August 2016 Monthly Cover Story "Fermínlandia" 31 August 2016
  • Cover Story, July 2016: Through the grapevine – Rasmus Nilausen’s Soups & Symptoms 3 July 2016
  • Last days! Cover Story and exhibition of José Antonio Hernández-Díez: techno-pop, death and resurrection (20 June 2016)
  • Cover Story, May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (10 May 2016)
  • Cover Story, March 2016: José Antonio Hernández-Díez: The sacred heart of the matter (3 March 2016
  • Cover Story, February 2016: Sarah Ortmeyer, Towering allusions (9 Febrero 2016)
Stacks Image 39


Latitudes' "out of office" 2015–2016 season

"CLOSED. We open when we arrive, close when we leave, and if you come and we're not here, we just didn't coincide."

The end of the season is approaching and high summer is looming. Following Latitudes tradition we mark the summer break not by presenting a memo of activities per se, but with an "out of office" post (see the 2008-9, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15 versions) with a series of 'behind the scenes' photos revisiting moments from the year gone by. So here are some glimpses of the past season, starting September 2015 to July 2016. See you in September!

In order to be conducive to freedom of interaction, the ‘Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group’ meetings have been held under the Chatham House Rule: This allows participants to express personal views, to listen, reflect and gather insights with a clear distinction from the position of their employers and/or the policies of any associated organization. Participation is expected, but there will be no resolutions issued, no votes are undertaken, and no policy statements proposed. Only this photo was taken.

Latitudes 2015–16 season started with a residency at Kadist, San Francisco (26 August–9 September) during which time we had the opportunity to develop several projects. Three artist-led tours with SF-based artists Amy Balkin, Rick & Megan Prelinger and Will Brown were part of our ongoing series 'Incidents of Travel' (see 2012 in Mexico City, 2013 in Hong Kong and most recent 2016 online incarnation). We took over Kadist social media with an Instagram residency and contributed to the online programme 'One Sentence Exhibition'.

Furthermore, on August 29, we convened the second ‘Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group’ at Kadist, a "by-invitation meeting bringing together individuals and expertise from the Bay Area with an active interest in institutional prototyping and emergent usership" initially presented in May 2015 for the
International Curatorial Retreat in Bari, Italy.

The workshop is "a forum for informal dialogue about megatrends and the future of contemporary art institutions. In the San Francisco iteration, an emphasis was put on cross-pollination between design thinking and curatorial thinking. Participants also discussed, among other things, the notion of the post-disciplinary, and the question of appropriate speeds, scale or periodicities of institutions."

  Photo: Arash Fayez.

September 8: Our last activity in the Bay Area was a session with first-year participants of the MA Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts (CCA). We briefly introduced our curatorial practice and invited the new students to imagine the governance and daily operations of a range of institutions – a remote residency facility, a commissioning institution, and an annual festival.


(Above and below) BAF technical team and artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané installing the sound piece “Surucuá, Teque-teque, Arara” (2012) at the Umbracle (shade house), Parc de la Ciutadella. One of the "Composiciones" commissions for the Barcelona Gallery Weekend.


September 25: Max Andrews of Latitudes participates in the symposium "The Shock of Victory" held at CCA Glasgow. Meanwhile, installation is well underway for the first Barcelona Gallery Weekend, for which Latitudes devised a special programme of five artists' commissions.

 (Above and below) David Bestué browsing and choosing ceramic pieces and molds in the attic at the Cosme Toda factory, for his "Composiciones" installation.

(Above and below) Jordi Mitjà discussing his work with the team at the Museu Geològic del Seminari during the installation of his "Composiciones" piece.
Rasmus Nilausen lights up Pere Llobera's drawing in dust, part of their joint "Composiciones" adventure.

(Above) Second seminar at the Biblioteca del Campo Freudiano de Barcelona, project by Dora García for "Composiciones".

  (Above) Display of the books selected by Dora García from the holdings of the Biblioteca del Campo Freudiano de Barcelona.

'Composiciones' received some great write-ups – including a long text on Frederic Montornés popular blog and by Jörg Heiser in frieze magazine. We also gathered hundreds of tweets, Instagram shots and press material on this Storify.  

 Board announcing the seminar and public talk.

Closed-door seminar at Tabakalera. Photo: Consonni. 

Public presentation of Latitudes' projects at Tabakalera. Photo: Consonni.

November 2015: Latitudes travelled to Donostia's recently opened Tabakalera. We were invited by LaPublika's programme, created by Consonni, to lead a two-day seminar and public lecture around artists working in the public sphere.


Moments before starting the ESP people assembly at Birmingham's Eastside Projects.

On November 15 Latitudes convened the third iteration of the 'Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group', this time in Birmingham's Eastside Projects. This "forum for informal dialogue about megatrends and the future of contemporary art institutions" collectively imagined a ‘What if?’ – a post-apocalyptic scenario in which the entire art ecology of Birmingham had to be regrown from the ground up, an exercise that would help define and identify which are the most urgent organisations, facilities, and tools.

International Summit Synapse 1 at New Rex of the National Theatre of Greece. 'Session II: Rethinking Institutions': (from left to right) Leo Panitch, Maria Hlavajova, Adam Szymczyk, Amalia Zepou (moderator), Hilary Wainwright, Emily Pethick, Latitudes (Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa Luna) © Eva Galatsanou. 

  Second-day assembly at the Bargeion Hotel. 

Shortly after, on 18–19 November Latitudes participated in the OMONOIA summit which began the Athens Biennale 2015–2017. For a short report see the Cover Story of December 2015 and this blog entry.

December 2015: Mariana joined Hangar's renewed Board of Trustees as its Secretary, a responsibility she will fulfill for the next three years.

December 4: Participation in the BAR module: Curating the space / Space for curating open public conversation with Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Carles Guerra, Michy Marxuach and BAR module participants. 


(Above and below) Courtesy: BAR Project.  Photos: Eva Carasol. 

January 2016: After an intense jury process in January, we began the year-long mentoring process of three exhibition projects out of the nine selected projects as part of the 2016 season's BCN Producció 2016.



The first project Latitudes mentored was by Pau Magrané/PLOM who turned the Espai Cub, a 3x3x3 metre white cube, into "a sound stage/instrument, an echo chamber hosting different screenings and objects to be played by PLOM at the opening". The two other projects Latitudes is mentoring are by Antoni Hervàs (September 15) and a group exhibition "La dissidència nostàlgica" by curator Joana Hurtado Matheu (December 1). 

From January onwards: Preparations for the five projects produced in the context of the second edition of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend. Studio visits, site visits, project proposals, budget and production planning, taking measurements...

May 2016: Regina Giménez and Rafel G. Bianchi taking measures of Can Trinxet's walls, a former 19th Century textile factory in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. 
March 2016: visiting Robert Llimós's studio in Sant Pere neighbourhood.

 Lola Lasurt doing some tests positioning her paintings at the Biblioteca Pública Arús.

February 2016: Trip to Arles to attend the 'How Institutions Think' symposium at the LUMA Foundation, this time not participating but listening and reporting. Read Max Andrews' report on the frieze blog.


Besides the reportage from the Arles conference, Max also published other reviews in Frieze magazine as one of its team of contributing editors: Xavier Ribas at ProjecteSD (Barcelona); Joachim Koester at BlueProject Foundation (Barcelona); Alexandre Estrela at the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid) and Critic's Guide: Barcelona highlighting some of the interesting shows in the city on frieze website. He has also contributed the text "Soups & Symptoms" for a forthcoming publication of Barcelona-based Danish painter Rasmus Nilausen. 


View of Francesc Ruiz, “Correos,” garcía galería, Madrid, 2016. Courtesy of garcía galería, Madrid. Photo: Roberto Ruiz.

On February 25, Mariana Cánepa Luna's review of Francesc Ruiz's exhibition at garcía | galería, Madrid, was published online on art-agenda: "Ruiz’s second solo show at Madrid’s garcía galería delves into the visual communication of one of Spain’s most iconic institutions, the Sociedad Estatal Correos y Telégrafos—the national postal service, commonly known as Correos—whose graphic identity was created in 1977 by Spanish designer and artist José María Cruz Novillo (b. 1936)." continue reading...


Mariana also contributed to the publication "Great Expectations: Prospects for the Future of Curatorial Education" edited by Leigh Markopoulos and published by the California College of the Arts and The Banff Centre – with some insightful questions by Banff Centre Walter Phillips Gallery curator Peta Rake.

Miquel from MACBA's AV team checking the connections behind the monitor that presented 'Houdini' (1991) – one of the most challenging works in the exhibition for the technical team as it meant dismantling a 40-year-old TV and submerging the front part into water.


March 2016: Installation begins! After over a year and a half of preparation, the exhibition "I Will Fear No Evil" opened at Convent dels Àngels del MACBA on March 17, 2016. Two busy weeks of installation in the Convent dels Àngels space preceded the opening. Many press tours, exhibition reviews, photo and video recordings, guided visits, film screenings, and music events followedthey're all archived here!

 Alex from MACBA's restoration department scraping the old silicone off the acrylic box containing "San Guinefort" (1991).
Tria33, a programme broadcast at Canal 33, came to film during the installation.
 Lightbox of "El Resplandor de la Santa Conjunción aleja a los demonios" in progress, a piece from 1991, exhibited for the first time in the Sala RG in Caracas, and also reconstructed for the present exhibition. 
TTI installation team placing twelve pork rind skateboards on the metal structure. "La Hermandad" (1994) was commissioned for the 1994 exhibition "Cocido y Crudo" at the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, and it's now part of the "la Caixa" Collection.  

 Vinyls go up – design by Mucho. More on the exhibition graphic design. 
March 17, 11:30am: Presentation to the press. Left to right: Ferran Barenblit (MACBA director), exhibition curators Mariana Cánepa Luna and Max Andrews of Latitudes, and artist José Antonio Hernández-Díez. Photo: MACBA twitter.

Visitors in front of "Sagrado Corazón Activo", a work from 1991 reconstructed for this exhibition. Photo: Miquel Coll/MACBA.
Visitors next to "Houdini", a work from 1989 reconstructed for this exhibition. Photo: Miquel Coll/MACBA.

 General view of the exhibition. Photo: Roberto Ruiz/MACBA.

April: We love snail mail and handwritten notes! We received a note from Rick & Megan Prelinger alongside a copy of their Yearbook 2015. We relished spending time at the Prelinger Library in San Francisco last August as part of our 'Incidents of Travel' series! (Our extended heartfelt thanks to the Kadist team for hosting us!).

Card and Yearbook 2015 by the Prelinger Library.
 
April 20: Wrapped-up a five-part interview with Melbourne-based artist Nicholas Mangan to be published in the catalogue of his forthcoming solo exhibition ‘Limits to Growth’, co-produced by Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Melbourne (opening July 20) and Institute of Modern Art (IMA), Brisbane (where it will be on view from October 29). The exhibition will travel to KW in Berlin in Summer 2017.


 Installing Pau Magrané exhibition at the Cub space in La Capella. Photos: Pau Magrané.

April 27 (until June 12): Exhibition "Demo" of Pau Magrané/PLOM at Espai Cub, La Capella. This is the first of the three projects Latitudes is mentoring throughout 2016  as part of BCN Producció'16 production grant scheme. Video of the project here (Catalan with Spanish subtitles) or here (English).


April 25–May 7: Two-week residency at CAPC Bordeaux to research for a group exhibition that will take place in 2017. One strand of our investigations departs from the CAPC building itself, known as Entrepôt Lainé – a 19th Century warehouse for colonial commodities. We learned from the museum staff that coffee beans are occasionally found atop a pile of papers on an office desk or in the middle of the exhibition galleries. This became the focus of our May Cover Story (archived here).


First and last pages of the first online dispatch by Chicago-based curator Yesomi Umolu within the distributed phase of Incidents (of Travel). http://incidents.kadist.org/
 

May: Launch of the online project Incidents (of Travel), produced by Kadist Art Foundation. The web marks a new ‘distributed’ phase of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ as an online periodical. The ongoing series will be edited by Latitudes and produced by Kadist.

Originally conceived by Latitudes as day-long artist-led tours commissioned to artists in and around Mexico City (2012) – followed by Hong Kong (2013) and San Francisco (2015) – ‘Incidents’ expands on the format of the curator-meets-artist studio visit to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of an artistic encounter. The first dispatch came from Chicago and featured Yesomi Umolu (Exhibitions Curator at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago) and artist Harold Mendez, an offline day photographed by Nabiha Khan.

  
June: Launch of the second Incidents (of Travel) dispatch, an encounter between curator Serubiri Moses and photographer Mohsen Taha in Jinja, Uganda, narrated throughout 18 photos by Taha with an introduction, captions, sound and commentary.
 

And finally July. Some are off on holiday but many remain working full speed despite the less frantic inbox. Many surely agree that this is one of the weirdest months in the calendar, a bit like the pre-Christmas rush, but with a whole month of heated intensity

4–8 July: Second trip to Bordeaux, more archival appointments and more geology. Led by Bruno Cahuzac (Maître de Conférences, UFR Sciences de la Terre et de la Mer) from the Faculté des Sciences de Bordeaux, we visited the incredible carothèque-lithothèque at the Université de Bordeaux in Talence which houses over 30,000 core samples from the subsoil of the Aquitaine basin.

(Above) Gerard Ortín's exhibition "Vijfhoek" at Galería Estrany-de la Mota and (below) Gerard receiving the award.



July 9 and 20: As jurors of this year's award Art Nou/Primera Visió we visited the twenty participating commercial galleries, non-profits, private foundations and museums alongside BCNProducció'16 co-tutors Mireia Sallarès and David Armengol. We unanimously decided to award Gerard Ortín for his solo show at Galería Estrany-de la Mota. Ortín receives 2,000 Euros to produce a new publication. The ceremony took place on July 21 at La Capella. Last year winner Rasmus Nilausen produced the publication "Soups & Symptoms" which includes a text by Max Andrews of Latitudes.


Instagram post by Fireplace project.

July 11: Presentation of the publications of the projects by artists Ricardo Trigo and Pau Magrané resulting from the production grant BCN Producció'16.  

 February 2016 Cover Story was dedicated to Sarah Ortmeyer. 

Cover Stories on www.lttds.org: Over a year ago we began the monthly section "Cover Story" on our home page (archive of this section). October 2015 was dedicated to David Bestué's "Luces" installation commissioned for Composiciones, November 2015 marked the sixth anniversary of Globalising the Internationale, Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller’s project for Portscapes; December presented a shot taken during OMONOIA, the International Summit at the National Theatre of Greece’s New Rex which kicked off the Athens Biennale 2015–2017. 

January shifted to black-and-white with a Mediterranean shot from E.1027, the 1920s Côte d'Azur house designed by Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici near Monaco meticulously documented since 2008 by Danish artist Kasper Akhøj. February stayed in France, going up to the Tour Eiffel and looking back at a piece by Sarah Ortmeyer presented in a 2011 exhibition in Brussels. March showed a behind-the-scenes moment of the production of "Sagrado Corazón Activo" (1991) a work by José Antonio Hernández-Díez that was only ever exhibited once before, in 1991 in Caracas. The piece was reconstructed for the exhibition "I Will Fear No Evil" at MACBA presenting a selection of his early works. In April we announced the forthcoming launch of 'Incidents (of Travel)', a series of online curatorial dispatches produced by Kadist; and in May (back to France) we began our research at CAPC Bordeaux, where we'll be curating a group exhibition in June 2017. June took us back to Hernández-Díez's show which was coming to an end – some exhibition reviews here; and July took us back to the Latitudes-devised Composiciones commissions last October (the programme of artists’ interventions returns later this year).

June Cover Story – all cover stories archived here.

 Antoni Hervàs preparing his installation for BCN Producció'16.

We are now presently preparing for what will be a rather intense September: firstly, Antoni Hervàs's exhibition "El Misterio de Caviria" at Sala Gran of La Capella (third round of exhibitions of the grant scheme BCN Producció) opens on September 15. It will be shortly followed by the presentation of the five "Composiciones" commissions by Lúa Coderch, Regina Giménez, Lola Lasurt, Robert Llimós and Wilfredo Prieto for the second Barcelona Gallery Weekend, inaugurating on Thursday 29 September, and on view until Sunday 2 October. 
 
We have also been invited to contribute to Oslo Pilot, the two-year project investigating the role of art in the public realm led by Eva González-Sancho and Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk. We will be writing on a selection of case studies based around their four areas of research – Reactivation, Periodicity, Public and Disappearancewhich will be published in the magazine launched during a three-day symposium in mid-November 2016. 

RELATED CONTENT:
Stacks Image 39


Photodocumentation of the five commissions 'Composiciones' now on flickr

'Composiciones', five new commissions for the Barcelona Gallery Weekend, 1–4 October 2015.

We just uploaded photos of the five new commissions "Composiciones" on Latitudes' flickr. These projects by artists active in the Barcelona art scene complemented the first Barcelona Gallery Weekend (1–4 October 2015) programme of exhibitions and events

Each intervention responded to site and context-specific private and public location outside the contemporary art circuit – a private psychoanalytic library, the former home of the director of a ceramics factory, a public botanical collection, the home of a former priest and an invertebrate fossile collection.

Pinpointing some lesser-known aspects of the city's cultural history and municipal life, Composiciones offered moments of interruption, intimacy and immersion throughout the weekend.


 Map of the five locations for the temporary projects. 

Commissions by David Bestué (at the Factory complex Cosme Toda, L'Hospitalet); Dora García (at the Biblioteca del Campo Freudiano); Jordi Mitjà (at the Museu Geològic del Seminari de Barcelona); Rasmus Nilausen in collaboration with Pere Llobera (at the gardens of La Central bookstore, Raval); and Daniel Steegmann Magrané (at the Umbracle, Parc de la Ciutadella). Details of each project and locations.

Also on our website (highlighted in yellow where to locate it) you'll find the links to the audio and video documentation of the three talks led by Dora García as part of her intervention at the Biblioteca del Campo Freudiano. We recommend you read a nicely written account of these three sessions (in Spanish) by two of its participants.



On the same page and under 'Related content' you will find links to the press coverage related to 'Composiciones'. The most extensive and in depth review so far has been this considered and detailed blog entry by Barcelona-based art critic and curator Fede Montornés, which of course made us really happy

And last but not least, we gathered the many tweets, instagram, press links, etc. that appeared in the last few weeks in Storify.






#BarcelonaGalleryWeekend
#Composiciones

Related content:


Storify – Social media archive 

Details of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend programme

Instagram of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend
 
PRESS RELEASE: Latitudes curates "Composiciones", a series of five artists' commissions for the first Barcelona Gallery Weekend, 1–4 October 2015 


NOTA DE PRENSA: Comisariado de "Composiciones", cinco intervenciones artísticas para el primer Barcelona Gallery Weekend, 1–4 Octubre 2015



This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption).

Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Stacks Image 39


'Compositions' a programme of five artists' interventions for the first Barcelona Gallery Weekend, 1–4 October 2015

'Save the date' cards of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend. Graphic design: Hey Studio.

Latitudes is curating Compositions a programme of five newly commissioned temporary interventions specially produced for the first Barcelona Gallery Weekend (1–4 October 2015).

With the aim of distinguishing the Barcelona gallery weekend from similar initiatives, Latitudes' project Compositions compliments the existing calendar of exhibitions in galleries and museums by commissioning six artists active in the Barcelona art scene, to develop a series of public interventions responding to singular locations – sites significant for their architecture or their history. Here's a map of the five locations.

Latitudes has invited artists David Bestué (Barcelona, 1980. Lives in Barcelona); Dora García (Valladolid, 1965. Lives in Barcelona), Jordi Mitjà (Figueres, 1970. Lives between Lladó and Banyoles); Rasmus Nilausen (Copenhagen, 1980. Lives in Barcelona) & Pere Llobera (Barcelona, 1970. Lives in Barcelona) and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (Barcelona, 1977. Lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) to produce site-specific temporary installations and one-off performances. Pinpointing some lesser-known aspects of the city's cultural history and municipal life, Compositions offers moments of interruption, intimacy and immersion throughout the weekend. 



Cosme Toda factory complex. 
Home of the former director of the ceramic factory Cosme Toda. c/Enric Prat de la Riba 60, L'Hospitalet de Llobregat.
Opening hours: Thursday 1 October, 5–9pm;  
Friday 2, Saturday 3 and Sunday 4: 11am–8pm.

David Bestué is primarily a sculptor who is fascinated by architecture – not with its hubristic icons or celebrity heroism, but by the very normality with which architectonic tropes underpin an emotional understanding of form.

For Compositions Bestué is producing a new installation in the form of a sculptural timeline defined by ignition and invention, fat and oil, obsolescence, fluorescence, luminescence and incandescence – a history of humanity from antiquity to the present day told through the evolution and refinement of lighting technology. Sited in the domestic setting of the Director’s house within the former Cosme Toda ceramics and tile factory, the installation is companioned by a sculptural intervention recuperating pieces found in the factory, linking to Bestué's ongoing interest in the evolution of architectural materials and building techniques.



Freudian Field Library in Barcelona located at Avinguda Diagonal 333, 3º 1ª. Opening hours: Thursday 1 and Friday 2 October 5–9pm; Saturday 3 October 10am–2pm. Sunday 4 October closed.

Dora García's collaborations and performances engage with radicalism, inadequacy and the marginal. Her contribution to Compositions consists in pointing out the wealth of information and the activites programmed by the Freudian Field Library in Barcelona, an organisation founded in 1977 by Argentinean Oscar Masotta (1930–1979). García's intervention considers the library as a knot which ties together art, psychoanalysis and literature.

A display of publications drawn from the library shelves and three conversations will activate the space over consecutive days. The first talk (1 October, 7pm), a "solo" by García, will focus on the library's holdings of literary fiction. The second talk on October 2nd, at 7pm will be a group conversation moderated by García, amongst Miquel Bassols, Enric Berenguer, Rosa Calvet, Estela Paskvan and Montserrat Rodríguez, who will discuss the founding of the library and its ongoing role in Barcelona, and the final event on October 3 at 10am will be a conversation around the work of Irish novelist James Joyce and French psychiatrist and psichologist Jacques Lacan, between García and psychoanalyst Xavier Esqué and Patrick Bohan, who has worked at the James Joyce Center in Dublin. 


Former priest house, Gardens of La Central del Raval, located at Carrer d'Elisabets 8. Opening hours: Thursday 1 October, 5–9pm; Friday 2, Saturday 3 and Sunday 4: 11am–8pm.

Rasmus Nilausen and Pere Llobera are painters that approach painting with a respect – at times melancholic, sometimes parodic – for its traditional genres and its ancient integrity as a craft. Nilausen’s canvases have often taken on ‘minor’ or anecdotal subjects such as candles or vegetables. Llobera frequently addresses the perils virtuosity and painterly heroism in his paradoxical, restless works. Nilausen and Llobera share a workspace in the Salamina studios in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat – which they cofounded – yet the invitation to collaborate in a presentation for Compositions is the first time they are exhibiting together.

In the Gardens of La Central del Raval their works occupy a former priest's house and explore "acheiropoietic" images – those that have supposedly come into being not by human hand, but miraculously. The Veil of Veronica, for example, refers to various Catholic relics and icons which tell of a piece of cloth said to have been imprinted with the image of the face of Jesus.


 

 Geological Museum of the Seminary of Barcelona is in Carrer de la Diputació, 231.
Opening hours: Thursday 1 October, 5–9pm; 
Friday 2, Saturday 3 and Sunday 4: 11am–8pm.

Jordi Mitjà’s recent “povera” approach to sculpture, has comprised works utilizing discarded wood, metal, burned paper and clay. His contribution to Compositions takes place in the Geological Museum of the Seminary of Barcelona – an institution dedicated to paleontology and the study of fossils since 1874.


Mitjà considers the borders between evolutionary biology and the ancient geology of Catalonia in an installation which focusses on a primitive relationship between materials and morphology. A series of overheard projectors illuminate the central space of the museum with a panoply of images, shadows and geometries – layers that are unearthed by Mitjà’s exploration of the geospatial taxonomy of this unique collection of 70,000 specimens.


 
Opening hours: Thursday 1 October, 5–9pm;
Friday 2, Saturday 3 and Sunday 4: 11am–8pm.

The art of Daniel Steegmann Mangrané hinges on the natural and the geometric, often splicing the unfathomable dimension of the forests of his adopted home Brazil with the clear lines of abstraction and man-made order.

His contribution to Compositions takes place amongst the subtropical plants of the 1887 Umbracle (shade house) in the Parc de la Ciutadella and centres on the acoustic installation “Surucuá, Teque-teque, Arara” (2012). We hear sounds that were recorded along a 60 metre transect through a section of the Atlantic Rainforest of Brazil, the tropical forest that Portuguese colonists would have encountered on their arrival in the year 1500. The sound loop reproduces the disembodied calls of colourful birds such as trogons and macaws which merge with the ambient sounds of the city. As if a 1:1 scale collage, the artifice of an urban botanical collection becomes intertwined with an acoustic slice of the authentically wild.

Follow + Share:
#Composiciones
#BarcelonaGalleryWeekend
@Barcelona_Gallery_Weekend


Calendar of Related Events and Guided Visits

Thursday 1 October, 5pm:
Guided tour of the intervention by Jordi Mitjà at the Museu Geològic del Seminari de Barcelona by the artist and Latitudes.
c/ Diputació, 231

Thursday 1 October, 7pm:
Guided tour of the intervention and talk by Dora García on the library holdings of literary fiction, Biblioteca del Campo Freudiano de Barcelona (Library of the Freudian Field).
Avda. Diagonal 333, 3º 1ª
Limited seating. Reservations: bcfb@illimit.es

Friday 2 October, noon:
Guided tour of the intervention by Daniel Steegmann Mangrané at the Umbracle del Parc de la Ciutadella by the artist and Latitudes.
Passeig Picasso, 13

Friday 2 October, 7pm:
Conversation moderated by Dora García with Miquel Bassols, Enric Berenguer, Rosa Calvet, Estela Paskvan and Montserrat Rodríguez, on the origins of the Biblioteca del Campo Freudiano de Barcelona, its founder Óscar Masotta and the Barcelona of 1977.
Avda. Diagonal 333, 3º 1ª
Limited seating. Reservations:
bcfb@illimit.es

Friday 2 October, 7:30pm:
Guided tour of the intervention by David Bestué at the house of the former director of the Cosme Toda factory by the artist and Latitudes.
c/ Enric Prat de la Riba, 60
L’Hospitalet de Llobregat

Saturday 3 October, 10am:
Conversation between Dora García and the psychoanalyst and psychologist Xavier Esqué at the Biblioteca del Campo Freudiano around James Joyce and Jacques Lacan.
Avda. Diagonal 333, 3º 1ª
Limited seating. Reservations:
bcfb@illimit.es

Sunday 4 October, noon:
Guided tour of the intervention by Rasmus Nilausen and Pere Llobera at the Jardines de La Central del Raval by the artists and Latitudes.
c/ Elisabets, 8

Additionally, ARCO Foundation offers ARCO Gallery Walks, five free guided tours around the galleries throughout the weekend. Limited places. Pre-registration required: info@therealthing.es

Thursday 1 October
Route Eixample South
Meeting place: Galería Joan Prats at 5pm

Friday 2 October
Route Ciutat Vella – Born
Meeting place: Galería Senda at 11am

Route Montjuïc – L’Hospitalet
Meeting place: Galería Carles Taché at 5pm

Saturday 3 October
Route Ciutat Vella – Raval
Meeting place: etHALL at 11am

Route Eixample North
Meeting place: ADN Galería at 5pm

The Barcelona Gallery Weekend is an initiative of the Asociación de Galerías de Arte Contemporáneo Art Barcelona and is supported by the Ajuntament de Barcelona (ICUB), the Generalitat de Catalunya (ICEC), the Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte; and the Ajuntament de L’Hospitalet de Llobregat.

http://www.barcelonagalleryweekend.com/
Stacks Image 39



Cookies Advice: We use cookies. If you continue browsing, we consider that you accept their use. Aviso de Cookies: Utilizamos cookies. Si continua navegando, consideramos que acepta su uso.