Longitudes

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

Latitudes’ essay “Un suelo para las historias del arte del futuro” [Soil for Future Art Histories] in TBA21’s catalogue “Futuros Abundantes”

 Sun, Jan 22 2023

"Futuros abundantes" / "Abundant Futures" is co-published by TBA21 and Turner, 2023. Photos by Enrico Fiorese.

The exhibition catalogue “Futuros Abundantes / Abundant Futures” is now available. The book will be launched in ARCOmadrid’s section of ArtsLibris, on February 23rd at 5pm. 

With contributions from Rosemary-Claire Collard, Jessica Dempsey and Juanita Sundberg; Beatrice Forchini; Macarena Gómez-Barris; Berta Gutiérrez Casaos; Soledad Gutiérrez Rodríguez; Latitudes; Regina de Miguel; Plata; Matthew Ritchie; Jess Saxby; and Daniela Zyman. Poems by Ibn Zaydun and an artistic intervention by Abraham Cruzvillegas.

Futuros abundantes / Abundant Futures
Hardcover, 16,5 x 24 cm
Spanish / English, 336 pages
Edited by Daniela Zyman and Eva Ebersberger
Book design by Matteo Guarnaccia
ISBN 978-84-18895-65-4
EUR 25
Miguel Covarrubias, “The Tree of Modern Art planted 60 Years Ago” [El árbol del arte moderno plantado hace 60 años], plantado hace 60 años], in Vanity Fair, vol. XL, n.º 3, New York, May 1933, pp. 36-37.

Edited by Daniela Zyman and Eva Ebersberger, and co-published with Editorial Turner in the context of the exhibition “Abundant Futures. Works from the TBA21 Collection” curated by Zyman, the show was co-organised by TBA21 and C3A Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía in Córdoba. 

The 336-page book includes Latitudes’ newly commissioned essay titled “Un suelo para las historias del arte del futuro” [Soil for Future Art Histories], which delves into how we might turn the page on the pseudo-organic root-and-branch diagrams that have underpinned the cultural narratives of the archetypical institutions of twentieth-century art, and instead consider an entity that has been largely neglected in its capacity to connect human and natural relations: soil.

The essay is published in Spanish. Below an excerpt in English: 

“Thinking and building a new logic outside of the dualism of humanity on the one hand and nature on the other necessitates new narratives, new grammar, new relational strategies, and such new explanatory figurations. History in this alternative perspective is a history where human activity has always been meshed and mulched in the web of life. Following a sense of both humanity-in-nature and nature-in-humanity, we could imagine an art history and way of making exhibitions that is both outside in and inside out.

We could better imagine a shared vocabulary—terms that easily move back and forth between aesthetic and non-aesthetic uses. And we could give more attention to categories that, like soil, already seem to refuse a distinction between cultural forms and other forms of lived experience. The present and the future likewise require reconstructing and refreshing the theoretical model of the whole genre of the exhibition, its possibilities, and conditions. Allowing a wider and deeper sense of image- and object-making lineages could create new conditions for abundance, tackling the damaging split still left between the humanities and the natural world, and the imprint that this rift has left on the institutions of knowledge which allowed art history and artistic practices to be considered an alternative order to the forces and objects of the web of life. What we then might find is not a universal and singular structure, not a unitary tree of modernity, but countless very specific perspectives, practices, systems, temporalities, and imaginations in varying states of composition as well as decomposition, active as well as lying fallow.”


Essay keywords: Ecology, Daniel D. Richter, environmental art histories, Art History, abundance, temporalities of soil, “human forcing”, Environmental collapse, exhibition-making, Dipesh Chakrabarty, diagrams, Earth system, Miguel Covarrubias, Alfred H. Barr Jr., MoMA, tree genealogy, Porphyrian trees, environmental history, rewilding art history, María Puig de la Bellacasa, Jason W. Moore, Web of Life, soil, landscape, farming, agricultural intensification, Aldo Leopold, “to think like a mountain”, Julie Cruikshank, soil-attentive ethos, humanity-in-nature, nature-in-humanity, Caroline Levine, overlapping rhythms of art institutions.


→ RELATED CONTENT:



 2022, Alfred Barr, catalogue, Ecology, Essay, María Puig de la Bellacasa, miguel Covarrubias, MOMA, research, soil, TBA21, trees, web of life, world ecology, writing
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Cover Story – April 2021: Lara Almarcegui at La Panera

 Fri, Apr 2 2021

 April 2021 cover story on www.lttds.org


The April 2021 monthly Cover Story ‘Lara Almarcegui at La Panera’ is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org

“Latitudes participated in a roundtable and wrote the exhibition text for Lara Almarcegui’s ‘Graves’ (Gravels), currently on view at the Centre d'art la Panera, Lleida, until 30 May. “What possibilities begin to emerge when the excavation at a quarry is stopped?”, the text wonders.”

→ Continue reading

→ After April 2021 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
  • 18 marzo 2021, 18:30h: Mesa redonda “Transformación geológica y construcción artificial” con Lara Almarcegui y Juan Guardiola, 8 Mar 2021
  • Cover Story—March 2021: Eulàlia Rovira's ‘A Knot Which is Not’ (2020–21), 1 mar 2021 
  • Cover Story—February 2021: ‘Straits Time: narrative smuggling in Singapore’, 1 Feb 2021
  • Cover Story–January 2021: ‘Things Things Say’: VIP's Union’, 1 Jan 2021
  • 11 de julio 2019, 19h: Conversación con Lara Almarcegui en el Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM), 25 June 2019
  • ‘Thinking like a drainage basin’ essay in the catalogue of the exhibition ‘Lara Almarcegui. Béton’, 8 April 2019
  • Works by Lara Almarcegui included in the exhibition “4.543 billion. A Matter of Matter”, CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, 2017
  • Report from Urdaibai: commission series ‘Sense and Sustainability’, Urdaibai Arte 2012 22 July 2012
  • Launch of the monograph ‘Lara Almarcegui. Projects 1995–2010’, edited by Latitudes at 'The Dutch Assembly', ARCOmadrid, 15 February, 19-20h 14 February 2012
  • Photos 'In conversation with Lara Almarcegui', 19 May 2011, TENT, Rotterdam 6 June 2011
  • Portscapes bus tour: Lara Almarcegui wasteland tour and Christina Hemauer & Roman Keller's 'Postpetrolistic Internationale' choir performance 10 November 2009
  • Text on Lara Almarcegui's project for Expo Zaragoza 2008 and exhibition at Pepe Cobo, Madrid 28 October 2008
  • Catálogo 'Estratos', texto sobre Lara Almarcegui, PAC Murcia 2008, 28 Mayo 2008
  • Lara Almarcegui, “Wastelands” in “LAND, ART: A Cultural Ecology Handbook”, Royal Society of Arts and Arts Council England, 2006
 2021, conversations, cover story, deep time, Ecology, Essay, Juan Guardiola, La Panera, Lara Almarcegui, latitudes
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Max Andrews' text for Rasmus Nilausen's solo exhibition ‘Bluetooth’ at Copenhagen's Overgaden

 Mon, Sep 16 2019

Rasmus Nilausen, ‘Better Half’ (2019), oil on linen, 160x130cm. Photo: Roberto Ruiz. Courtesy: the artist.

Max Andrews of Latitudes has written a text on Rasmus Nilausen for his forthcoming solo exhibition ‘Bluetooth’ (PDF) opening September 20, 5–8pm, at Copenhagen's Overgaden. Institute of Contemporary Art.

‘Bluetooth® is a two-way digital wireless standard that enables the exchange of information between computers, mobile phones, and other peripherals such as keyboards and headphones. For Rasmus Nilausen, painting is a technology that connects the communicative assets of drawing, writing, speaking, reading, and looking. The range of both protocols is typically less than 10 m. Could we mandate the capabilities of Nilausen-enabled devices, along with their encoding and specifications? Since around 2000, oil pigment on linen has provided Nilausen’s most widely adopted attributes and colour space. It has transmitted information and provided connectivity using the following parameters: idioms and fruits, vegetables and eyeballs, tongues and images, fingers and candles, sense and habits, nonsense and perspective, old masters and young slaves.’

—Max Andrews

The exhibition is on view until November 24, 2019.

Rasmus Nilausen, ‘Historie’ (2019), oil on linen, 40x50cm. Courtesy: the artist.

→ RELATED CONTENTS:
 2019, copenhagen, Essay, Max Andrews, painting, Rasmus Nilausen, writing
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11 de julio 2019, 19h: Conversación con Lara Almarcegui en el Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM)

 Tue, Jun 25 2019


‘Volcán de Agras. Derechos mineros’. Foto: Lara Almarcegui.

El próximo 11 de julio a las 19h, la artista Lara Almarcegui y Mariana Cánepa Luna (comisaria, Latitudes) mantendrán una conversación abierta al público con motivo de la inauguración de exposición individual de Almarcegui ‘Volcán de Agras. Derechos mineros’ en el Institut Valencià d'Art Modern (IVAM), un proyecto coordinado por Sandra Moros, conservadora del museo valenciano. El evento es gratuito y tendrá lugar en el auditorio del museo.

A continuación de la charla, se podrá visitar la exposición en la que Almarcegui ha investigado sobre los derechos mineros del volcán de Agras en Cofrentes, lugar que fue explotado como cantera por la industria cementera desde mediados de los años setenta hasta los años ochenta. La exposición se podrá visitar hasta el 27 de octubre.  


Tapa del catálogo ‘Lara Almarcegui. Béton’ publicado por Silvana Editoriale (2019) con motivo de la exposición de Almarcegui en CAIRN Centre d'art en Digne-les-Bains, Francia.

Lara Almarcegui es seguramente la artista con la que Latitudes ha colaborado en más ocasiones. Han incluido su trabajo en la publicación ‘LAND, ART: A Cultural Ecology Handbook’ (2006) y en la revista UOVO #14 ‘Ecology, Luxury and Degradation’ (2007). Han escrito sobre su trabajo en para revistas como Mousse Magazine (abril 2010), así como para los catálogos de los proyectos ‘Estratos’ en Murcia (2008), ‘Sense and Sustainability’, Urdabai Arte (pdf aquí) (2012), y recientemente para el catálogo de su exposición monográfica en el CAIRN Centre d'art, France (2019). 
(Arriba y abajo) Conversación con Almarcegui y el crítico y comisario Cuauhtémoc Medina en TENT, Rotterdam, mayo 2011. Photos by Aad Hoogendoorn.


En el 2011 moderaron una conversación con la artista y el crítico y comisario Cuauhtémoc Medina en TENT, Rotterdam, y editaron su primera monografía ‘Lara Almarcegui. Projects 2005–2010’ publicada por Archive Books (2011). Asímismo le han encargado proyectos para proyectos en el espacio público como ‘Portscapes’ en el puerto de Róterdam (2009–10), el puerto más grande de Europa, y presentado su trabajo en exposiciones colectivas como ‘Greenwashing. Percoli, promesse e perplessità’ [Greenwashing. Peligros, promesas y perplejidades] en la Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo en Torino (2008) y ‘4.543 milliard. La question de la matière’ [4.543 billones. La cuestión de la materia], en el CAPC Musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux (2017–2018).


Monografía ‘Lara Almarcegui. Projects 2005–2010’ editada por Latitudes (Archive Books, 2011).

(Arriba y abajo) Febrero-mayo 2008: Obras de Almarcegui presentadas en la exposición colectiva ‘Greenwashing. Perils, promises and perplexities’, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino. Fotos: Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.

(Arriba y abajo) 8 Noviembre 2009: 80 personas se sumaron a la visita guiada a cuatro de los diecisiete terrenos baldíos documentados por Almarcegui para el proyecto Portscapes en el Puerto de Rotterdam. Fotos: Paloma Polo/SKOR. Más fotos aquí.

(Arriba, pared) Junio 2017–Enero 2018: Materiales de construcción realizadas por la artista entre el 2005 y el 2008 incluidas en la exposición colectiva ‘4.543 billion. The matter of matter’, comisariada por Latitudes en el CAPC Musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, Francia. Foto: Latitudes/RK.

→ CONTENIDO RELACIONADO: 
  • ‘Thinking like a drainage basin’ essay in the catalogue of the exhibition ‘Lara Almarcegui. Béton’(8 April 2019)
  • Report from Urdaibai: commission series 'Sense and Sustainability', Urdaibai Arte 2012 22 July 2012
  • Launch of the monograph 'Lara Almarcegui. Projects 1995–2010', edited by Latitudes at 'The Dutch Assembly', ARCOmadrid, 15 February, 19-20h 14 February 2012
  • Monograph ‘Lara Almarcegui. Projects 1995–2010’, Archive Books, 2011
  • Photos 'In conversation with Lara Almarcegui', 19 May 2011, TENT, Rotterdam 6 June 2011
  • Editing the forthcoming publication 'Lara Almarcegui. Projects 1995–2010' 18 March 2011
  • Portscapes bus tour: Lara Almarcegui wasteland tour and Christina Hemauer & Roman Keller's 'Postpetrolistic Internationale' choir performance 10 November 2009
  • Text on Lara Almarcegui's project for Expo Zaragoza 2008 and exhibition at Pepe Cobo, Madrid 28 October 2008
  • Catálogo 'Estratos', texto sobre Lara Almarcegui, PAC Murcia 2008 28 Mayo 2008
  • Lara Almarcegui in Frieze Art Fair 19 Octubre 2006
     2019, catalogue, conversations, Ecology, Essay, event, IVAM, Lara Almarcegui, Mariana Cánepa Luna, talk, Valencia, writing
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    Cover Story—June 2019: ‘Thinking like a drainage basin: Lara Almarcegui’s ‘Concrete’

     Sat, Jun 1 2019
    Latitudes' homepage www.lttds.org

    The May 2019 Monthly Cover Story ‘Thinking like a drainage basin: Lara Almarcegui’s ‘Concrete’’ is now up on Latitudes' homepage: www.lttds.org

    “    Lara Almarcegui’s current exhibition at the CAIRN art centre in Digne-les-Bains, southern France, focuses on the nearby Bléone river, its geology, and its exploitation. Latitudes has written an essay entitled ‘Thinking like a drainage basin’ for the accompanying catalogue. Lara’s project Béton (Concrete) has two parts. The first, seen here, involves the floor of the art centre being covered with crushed cement, gravel and sand. This raw material is the remains of several concrete structures — weirs — that were placed in the river in a failed attempt to stabilise a riverbed that had been extensively dug out over the preceding decades to produce gravel for the construction industry. The watercourse and its ecology is now being restored, and the weirs were recently removed.”

    —> Continue reading
    —> After May it 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 activities.


    RELATED CONTENT:
     2019, catalogue, conversations, cover story, curatorial writing, Ecology, Essay, France, IVAM, Lara Almarcegui, Mariana Cánepa Luna, raw materials, talk, text, Valencia
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    Essay: ‘Thinking like a drainage basin’ in the catalogue of the exhibition ‘Lara Almarcegui. Béton’

     Mon, Apr 8 2019

    (Above and below) Installation views of the exhibition ‘Béton’ by Lara Almarcegui at the CAIRN centre d'art, Digne-les-Bains, 2019. All photos: François-Xavier Emery.

    Lara Almarcegui's exhibition ‘Béton’ opened on April 5 at CAIRN Centre d'art, in Digne-les-Bains, France, and will be on view until June 30th, 2019.

     Latitudes has collaborated in the bilingual catalogue ‘Lara Almarcegui. Béton’ (French/English) recently published by Silvana Editoriale on the occasion the exhibition, with the new essay ‘Thinking like a drainage basin’. The publication includes an introduction by Giulia Pagnetti (curator of the exhibition and director of CAIRN Centre d'art), a second essay titled ‘Lara Almarcegui's building sites’ by Natacha Pugnet, and a conversation between the artist and Winfried Dallmann (Associate Professor, Department of Geosciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø) titled ‘Earth Calculation’.



    As Latitudes' writes in the essay (...) ‘As part of her most recent project for CAIRN Centre d’art, Almarcegui has produced ‘Roches et Materiaux du Bassin de la Bléone’ (2019), an inventory of the different types of geological matter comprising the entire drainage basin of the Bléone river from its source near Prads-Haute-Bléone to its confluence with the Durance at Chateau-Arnaux, a terrain of some 906 km2.

    In discussing how storytelling might integrate with environmental science, anthropologist Julie Cruikshank poses the rhetorical question, “are glaciers ‘good to think with’?”[1] She suggests that glaciers and glacial stories be allowed to disrupt and exceed conceptual fields and dominant frameworks of knowledge. Ecologist Aldo Leopold coined the term “to think like a mountain” in his 1949 book ‘A Sand County Almanac’, proposing that history could be narrated, or indeed art could be made, from the point of view of non-human actors. Are drainage basins good to think with? What might it entail to think like the rocks and topological forms that funnel water into a river in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence département in southeastern France?’



    ‘Lara Almarcegui. Béton’
    April 2019, 48 pages, 24 x 17 cm
    Texts by Natacha Pugnet, Latitudes and an interview between the artist and Winfried Dallmann. 
    French/English 
    Published by Silvana Editoriale
    March 2019
    Edited by CAIRN centre d'art
    ISBN 9788836640904
    Purchase here for 10 Euros.

    RELATED CONTENT:
    • Writing archive on Latitudes' website;
    • Review – ‘Domènec. Y la tierra será el paraíso', adn galería, Barcelona, frieze.com, 13 March 2019
    • Opinion – ‘Frank Zappa’s Genre-Defying ‘Civilization Phaze III’’, frieze, January-February 2019, Issue 200, and frieze.com, 14 January 2019
    • Review – ‘Te toca a tí’ [It's your turn], Espai d'art contemporani de Castelló, art-agenda, 7 January 2019
    • art-agenda review of Frieze week 2018 15 October 2018. 
    • Catalogue essay – ‘The Kørner Problem’, in the monograph ‘John Kørner', ed. by Maria Nipper. Published by Roulette Russe, 2017. 19 February 2018
     2019, catalogue, curatorial writing, Ecology, Essay, France, Geology, Lara Almarcegui, latitudes, writing
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    "The Kørner problem” essay by Max Andrews in the monograph "John Kørner" published by Roulette Russe

     Mon, Feb 19 2018
    Exhibition poster of "Altid Mange Problemer" at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Summer 2017. Photo: Latitudes.

    Last Summer, Max Andrews of Latitudes was invited to contribute an essay for the forthcoming monograph of John Kørner's work published by the Danish editorial Roulette Russe and designed by Spine Studio. The publication is out now and includes essays by Max, London-based writer Oliver Basciano, and a conversation between the artist and Marie Nipper, curator of John's recent mid-career exhibition in Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen. 

    The 280-page bilingual Danish/English monograph will be launched on March 2, 2018, at 4:30pm, in Kunsthal Charlottenborg's Apollo Kantine, though it will become available for online orders from February 26.

    (Above and following): Photos: Finn Wergel Dahlgren. Courtesy Roulotte Russe. 













    In his essay, Max tries to define what "The Kørner problem” (the title of the essay) might be:

    (...) "The apparently ‘wicked’ problems and appalling catastrophes that interpenetrate Kørner’s works are manifold. The upsurge in jihadist terrorist activity in Europe since 2015 and its fallout are unavoidable (whether vestiges of the Charlie Hebdo shootings and the Bataclan attacks in Paris, suicide bombings in Brussels and Manchester; or truck attacks in Nice, Berlin, Barcelona; rampaging attacks in London, and so on). The civil war and the rise of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) in Syria and the exacerbating effects of climate change and mega-drought that affected the region are inescapable. The European debt and migrant crisis are here. Yet elsewhere Kørner also brings to mind what at first seem like unrelated problems: the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami and the calamity of the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown, human trafficking, et cetera, states of exception that seem to confirm that the problem is evermore radical, atrocious, ungrounded—more diffuse while remaining intractably real. American pop star Ariana Grande knows this as well as Kørner. Released in spring 2014, three years before the suicide bombing of her concert at Manchester Arena, her most successful single to date is titled “Problem”. We are witnessing new kinds of wicked problems and Kørner paints accordingly."

    In preparation for the catalogue essay, in July 2017 Latitudes visited Kørner's impressive "Altid Mange Problemer" mid-career exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, the largest exhibition of his works to date, gathering paintings and sculptural pieces from 2004 to the present.

    (Above and following): Photos by Latitudes.


    Max has previously written on John's work for the catalogue of his 2006 exhibition "Problems" at Victoria Miro Gallery in London.

    Latitudes' first visit to Copenhagen also involved Kørner's work, as we visited his solo show 'ARoS Bank' at the ARoS Århus Kunstmuseum, Denmark (13 June–10 September 2006), which became the subject of our first blog post over a decade ago, in September 2006 (!).

    RELATED CONTENT:
    • Latitudes' writing archive
    • Latitudes' "out of office" 2016–2017 season 1 August 2017
    • Max Andrews essay on Christopher Knowles for NoguerasBlanchard at Liste 2017 21 July 2017
    • Mariana Cánepa Luna reviews Ana Jotta’s “Abans que me n’oblidi (Before I forget)” exhibition in art-agenda 11 November 2016
    • '2006 Problems' exhibition and publication by John Kørner, Victoria Miro Gallery, London 29 November 2006
    • Copenhagen trip. 'Woman with 24 problems' by John Kørner 30 September 2006
     2017, 2018, artist monograph, catalogue, curatorial writing, Essay, John Korner, Max Andrews, trip, writing
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    Max Andrews essay on Christopher Knowles for NoguerasBlanchard at Liste 2017

     Fri, Jul 21 2017
     
    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 by Christopher Knowles. The publication was made to accompany his recent solo presentation in the stand of NoguerasBlanchard gallery at Liste art fair in Basel. 

    Max reviewed Knowles’ exhibition at Gavin Brown's enterprise for frieze magazine back in October 2004, and his work "Untitled (Alert Paintings)" (2004) depicting the Department of Homeland Security’s Threat Advisory System, was the linchpin of the Latitudes-curated 2007 exhibition "Extraordinary Rendition" at NoguerasBlanchard.  

    The exquisite short-run publication (500 copies) was designed and printed by Barcelona-based independent publishers and Riso printers Do The Print.


    All photos: Latitudes.

    Christopher Knowles was born in New York City, USA, in 1959. Lives and works in New York. He has taken part in several exhibitions, among which: 'In a Word', Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, USA, curated by Anthony Elms and Hilton Als (2015); 'Secret Codes', Galeria Luisa Strina, São Paulo (2014); 'The Sundance Kid is Beautiful', The Louvre Museum, Paris, France, 2013; 'Merci Mercy', 980 Madison Avenue, New York (2013); 'Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language', MoMA, New York (2012); 'En el primer cercle', Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (2011); 'Poor. Old. Tired. Horse', Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (2009); 'Visions of the Frontier', curated by Robert Wilson, Institut Valencia d’Art Modern (2009); 'Glossolalia: Languages of Drawing', Museum of Modern Art, New York (2008); 'Get Lost: Artists Map Downtown New York', New Museum Project, New York (2007); 'Learn to Read', Tate Modern, London (2007); 'Extraordinary Rendition', NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona (2007).

    Knowles' is represented by NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona / Madrid; Gavin Brown's enterprise, New York / Rome; and Office Baroque in Brussels.


    RELATED CONTENT:
     2017, Christopher Knowles, Essay, Max Andrews, NoguerasBlanchard, Publication, writing
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    Ignasi Aballí at ARTIUM and Latitudes' text on 2009 project in Beijing and a 2010 interview

     Sun, May 20 2012
    Ignasi Aballí "This is not the end". Courtesy of the artist.

    On the occasion of Ignasi Aballí (Barcelona, 1958) exhibition 'This is not the end' at ARTIUM, Vitoria-Gasteiz (curated by François Piron, on view until 2 September 2011), we wanted to share two projects in which Latitudes collaborated with the Catalan artist.

    Firstly, the interview “Rank & File” between the artist and Latitudes for which we discussed his ongoing List series. The text was originally published in 'The Last Star Ledger' (Issue #4 of 'The Last Newspaper' catalogue edited by Latitudes, New Museum, New York, 2010).


    Read here: https://issuu.com/latitudes/docs/4_the_last_star-ledger/2


    ARTIUM's 'This is not the end' includes the work "Tomar medidas" (Taking Measures, 2009), in which nine instruments are displayed measuring things we cannot see: dust particles, time, electrical fields, noise, temperature, the intensity of light, radiation, etc. The first version of "Tomar medidas" was produced for 'Nothing, or Something' (22 May–22 July 2009), an exhibition curated by Latitudes for Suitcase Art Projects, the project space of the Today Art Museum, located on three floors of the Yintai retail centre in Beijing – see images of the exhibition. 

    Following is the essay included in the small publication 'Nothing, or Something' produced to accompany the exhibition – see images of the publication.




    Detail of the publication "Nothing, or Something" published by Today Art Museum and edited by Latitudes.

    'Ignasi Aballí: Nothing, Or Something'

     The morning before Ignasi Aballí’s ‘Nothing, Or Something’ opened, we couldn’t help but overhear an American businesswoman having a breakfast meeting at our hotel. “We’re working very much with intangibles”, she declared – and, we had to concur, so were we. Aballí’s works for Suitcase Art Projects address immateriality, residues and traces. He prompts us to consider things that we cannot perceive directly or are too ordinary to be properly noticed. What is perhaps philosophy’s central and most enduring question – ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ – is simultaneously approached as a precise existential experiment and as if with the shrug of a silent comedian.

    Despite drawing on the formal language of modernism’s impulse towards reduction and the ‘white cube’ of the museum as much as commonplace materials and unremarkable elements of daily existence, ‘Nothing, or Something’ has nevertheless been created for a situation that is neither fully ‘art’ (though presented under the auspices of the Today Art Museum), nor ‘life’, nor public space – but for a shopping centre. Walter Benjamin’s vast The Arcades Project (1927–1940) located the bustling arcades of nineteenth-century Paris – early versions of the contemporary mall – as heralding a decisive shift to the speed and commodification of things which signalled the emergence of the modern age. Following Benjamin’s concerns, Aballí’s project is preoccupied by the parameters of display while being experienced through a collision and confusion with its surroundings. The windows in which it takes place are located throughout three floors of the Beijing Yintai Centre, a recently opened retail destination hosting high-end fashion, jewellery and watch manufacturers in the heart of Beijing's Central Business District, in one of the tallest buildings in the city. In the context of an excess of brand visibility, signage and luxury product presentation strategies, the eight conceptually interlinked works which comprise ‘Nothing, or Something’ seek a counterpoint and temporarily make room for a different kind of looking, a slower revelation and, to borrow from Marcel Duchamp – to whom we will return – a ‘delay in glass’. The constraints and techniques of making something visible, and the very expectation of having something to see, become the projects’ points of articulation. 

     Please excuse our appearance, for example, wryly offers the visitor an explanation for the apparent lack of anything in the display case beyond the out-of-place presence of pages from the Spanish newspaper El País (which has often been used by Aballí as the basis for his art) which are laid on the floor as if anticipating some messy activity. Summoning an in-between temporality of perpetual waiting, the vinyl text on the window requests pardon for an apparent hiatus in the rhythm of seasonal trends. Aballí’s work from 2005 entitled Próxima aparición / Próximamente / Coming Soon – a one hour film showing the text of its title – similarly places the audience in an irrational situation of viewing where the main event is declaredly taking place at another time. Coming Soon is also the title of the vacated shop scenario of ‘Nothing, Or Something’. Only traces are left on the premises. An inventory of products on sale is detailed in half-removed words on the glass. Torn posters hang from the side walls; dirty marks have been left by shelves at the back; the dusty outline of objects in a forgotten display case. Each is a reminder of what purports to have been a unit dedicated to photographic equipment. The awkwardly appended ‘coming soon’ vinyl text on the window creates some confusion, however, as to what has left and what has yet to appear. Dust has regularly featured as a material in Aballí’s work, bringing to mind not only Dust Breeding (1920) – Man Ray’s celebrated photograph of Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–23) partially covered in a thick dusty layer – but less specifically a concern with entropy and the threshold of perception, where something is only readily perceivable through gradual accumulation or through its removal. Dust is “a very complex material ... a terminal, annoying, residual material that we don’t want” as the artist has described – particularly when it comes to photography.1 As he addressed in his recent exhibition ‘Without activity’, so many of the gestures and routines of (especially pre-digital) photography are concerned with cleaning, brushing and wiping away.2 The depositing of dust also becomes an analogue for the exposure of light on photographic paper and in essence the inevitable passage of time.

    Dust is, unsurprisingly, present in the atmosphere of Beijing. In the work Beijing Air, Aballí takes the small volume of the city’s air present in a window display as the subject of what seems to be an encyclopedic annotated diagram cataloguing its actual and speculative, or feared, components. Text fixed to the glass and indicating lines describe the common gases present in air as well as a host of industrial pollutants, various airborne viruses and environmental particulate matter such as pollen. Many artists have commemorated the notion of blankness or explored the radically empty and each different reasons – the void can represent the wiping away of content and yet the preparation for something new. Aballí echoes this legacy – alongside Duchamp once more, whose Paris Air (1919) consists of a small vial of air from the French capital – yet his pseudo-scientific indications that nothingness is in fact not so easily achievable, at least for an earth-bound artist, brings humorous bathos to one of the central myths of the avant-garde.

    Taking measures similarly adopts the language of objective inquiry with an absurd twist. Eight identical plinths occupy a vitrine and present scientific instruments which detect and measure invisible forces for the duration of the project – a stopwatch counts time, a digital barometer records the atmosphere pressure, a compass shows the magnetic orientation, a thermometer-hydrometer measures temperature and humidity, while a lux meter detects light. A sound meter measures in decibels alongside an instrument for sensing radiation. It is no surprise that an anemometer reveals that it is not windy in the vitrine. Contrary to immediate, decorative, or pictorial appeals to vision, Aballí proposes an ongoing sensitization to perceptions that escape direct representation. Yet evidently, we are still looking at something and instead, our aesthetic attention is displaced onto the design and the presentational mode of these instruments.

     The vitrine opposite this, Scenic Viewpoints, presents the visitor with an arrangement of what appears to be blank white sheets of paper taped to the inside of the glass. As with several of the other works, in this shopping centre context, it could well seem like an unfortunate-looking temporary situation. Something is changed, remedied, covered over and hopefully overlooked: nothing to see here! Yet the attentive are rewarded with an altogether different vision – looking through the gaps in the white ‘tiles’ through to the reflection in the mirrored back surface of the narrow space, one can piece together an exuberant compilation of sights. Each sheet is an enlarged colour postcard depicting views, events and landmarks from the artist’s home of Barcelona, a city whose popularity as a tourist destination lies in no small part to its presentation as a readily consumable and legible visual ‘brand’. Blankly monochromatic on the outside, Scenic Viewpoints refuses such a generalised overview. Its ecstatic orchestration of wide vistas and saturated spectacles is only visible to a peeping, prying viewer who then can only see a small part at one time while linking “the abundance of images around us with the scarcity of meaning we can attach to them”, as Bartomeu Marí has described of another of Aballí’s works Revelations (2005).3 

     The vitrines titled Illuminating and White Cube are sited facing each other. Illuminating consists only of the application of light. Very bright light. The installation of professional film lights which shine out from the vitrine creates a level of luminescence that is evidently excessive. With a seeming lack of anything in particular to illuminate, one is reflected in the mirrored vitrine in the looped process of beholding oneself beholding the work. A counterpoint to the tastefully spotlighted products in the neighbouring shops, the wastefully ‘incorrect’ situation highlights a stark condition of energetic consumption while literally highlighting its context. White Cube provides the backdrop to this intense reflexivity. It cancels the transparency of its vitrine through the application of whitewash on the glass, a technique commonly adopted by empty premises after going out of business. (Not coincidentally, some of the pages of the newspapers of Please excuse our appearance carry stories related to the recession, which are illustrated by closed-up shops.) As with Aballí’s Big Mistake (1998-2005) and other works using Tipp-Ex correction fluid (used to cover errors on writing or typing paper), the artist creates a quotidian monochrome, through a melancholic painting-like blanking-out activity that nevertheless is never properly a painting. If White Cube refers to a spectre of painting, Vitrines for a Vitrine seems to orientate around some missing sculpture or precious object. Yet as if the artist has been perpetually unconvinced by the plausibility of displaying something, nothing is on show – rather it is the condition of display which is demonstrated in a mise en abyme, itself within the regime of visibility of the shopping centre. Three clear acrylic display cases like those used in museums or in chic stores occupy the glass vitrine. Each contains one small photograph of different empty vitrines which the artist has encountered in various cities.

    ‘Nothing, or Something’ undoubtedly triggers perplexing situations for the shopping public and the workers of the centre who were more-or-less familiar with the art project’s presence or witnesses to its installation. For many, the works may well go completely unnoticed. Are we seeing what we are supposed to be seeing? Where is the work? When is the work? Yet it is not the intention of Aballí’s project to be disingenuous or confrontational. On the contrary, it operates through orchestrating and modifying simple possibilities for observation, deduction and reflection. Something or nothing is happening, is not happening, is not happening anymore, or is yet to happen. Enhanced by memory and hindsight the project allows a disarmingly humble visual retirement – the kind of complexity that emerges through ceasing or waiting. How and why are things added and subtracted from the world, or from sight? What is worth looking at, having or keeping, and what is to be doubted or erased? What does it mean to be more aware of the things we cannot see? Perhaps we are all working with intangibles?

     – © Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna)
     
    1 Ignasi Aballí, 0-24 h., Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2005, p.25
    2 Sem Actividade / Without Activity, Museu de Portimão, 2008
    3 Ignasi Aballí, 0-24 h., Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2005, p.11

    Text originally published in 'Nothing, or Something', the publication accompanying the exhibition that took place in the Suitcase Art Projects, Beijing, China, 22 May–22 July 2009. 

     –

     This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Twitter.

    All photos:     Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
     2009, ARTIUM, Beijing, Essay, Ignasi Aballí, interview, latitudes, SUITCASE Art Projects, Taking Measures, The Last Newspaper
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    Haegue Yang's 'Symmetric Inequality' (Desigualdad simétrica) exhibition catalogue, sala rekalde, Bilbao

     Thu, Dec 17 2009
    Haegue Yang at Sala Rekalde


    The trilingual exhibition catalogue 'Symmetric Inequality' (Desigualdad simétrica), has just been published following the solo exhibition by Berlin-based artist Haegue Yang (1971, Seoul, Korea) which opened a year ago at sala rekalde, Bilbao (18.12.08–19.04.09 – see above images of the exhibition on Latitudes' post from 20 December 2008). 

    The catalogue is the second volume of a two-part publication project that began with the exhibition 'Asymmetric Equality: Haegue Yang', which took place at REDCAT, Los Angeles between 28 June and 24 August 2008.

    This second volume documents the installation at sala rekalde and includes texts by Max Andrews of Latitudes; Prof. Jie-Hyun Lim, director of the Institute of Research in History and Comparative Culture of the University of Hanyang and a conversation between Melanie Ohnemus, curator of Portikus, Bart van der Heide, former curator of Cubitt, Pablo Lafuente, critic and editor of the journal Afterall, London/ Los Angeles, Asier Mendizábal, artist, Leire Vergara, former curator of sala rekalde and Haegue Yang.

    'Haegue Yang. Symmetric Inequality'
    Graphic Design: Katie Hanburger & Gail Swanlund
    Publisher: sala rekalde, www.salarekalde.bizkaia.net
    Distributor: AGD Libros, Bilbao, [email protected]
    ISBN 978-84-88559-58-6 (sala rekalde), ISBN 0-9749831-9-5 (REDCAT)
    352 pp., colour, softcover
     Essay, haegue yang, Max Andrews, Publication, REDCAT, sala rekalde
    Stacks Image 39



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