Longitudes
New publication: “Things Things Say” (2021) now available
Mon, Feb 28 2022
Texts by: Joana Hurtado Matheu, Latitudes and Eulàlia Rovira
Edited and coordinated by: Latitudes and Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani
Publisher: Ajuntament de Barcelona. Institut de Cultura de Barcelona / Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani
Graphic design: Bendita Gloria
Format: 16 x 11cm, hardcover, 180 pages
Language: Catalan with Spanish & English translations
ISBN: 978-84-9156-386-0
Date of Publication: December 2021
Price: 10 Euros
Availability: Llibreria Laie, Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani, Sala Ciutat of the Ajuntament de Barcelona and Diputació de Barcelona bookstore.
The publication of the exhibition ‘Things Things Say’ is finally out! The show was curated by Latitudes at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani between October 2020 and January 2021.
Designed by Bendita Gloria, the volume includes a preface by art centre director Joana Hurtado Matheu, new texts by exhibition curators, a text-based intervention by participating artist Eulàlia Rovira, and texts on each exhibited work.
Latitudes’ text “And Another Thing...” comprises a series of responses to the 33 questions that confronted visitors and took the place of the conventional introductory wall text. The responses variously take the form of quotations, historical references, anecdotes, and theoretical snippets that often do not provide direct answers but instead further expand on the research and imaginary of the exhibition.
“Coses que les coses diuen” [Things Things Say] accompanies the homonymous exhibition curated by Latitudes that took place at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani between October 2020 and January 2021, presenting works by Adrià Julià, Annette Kelm, James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Sarah Ortmeyer, Eulàlia Rovira, Francesc Serra i Dimas, Stuart Whipps, Haegue Yang, as well as meaningful things from the Friends of Fabra i Coats archive.
- ‘Things Things Say’ in social networks;
- Premiere del vídeo “A knot which is not” [Un nus que no ho és] (2020–21) de Eulàlia Rovira, 15 febrero 2021
- Reseñas: Exposición ‘Cosas que las cosas dicen’ en Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 11 January 2021
- Trailer and photo documentation of the exhibition ‘Things Things Say’, 4 Nov 2020
- 6 de noviembre, 17:45h: Proyección ‘Popcorn’ [Palomita] (90', 2012) de Adrià Julià en el Zumzeig Cinema, 29 Oct 2020
- e-flux – Fall 2020 exhibitions and programs at Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Centre of Barcelona, 17 October 2020
- Exhibition ‘Things Things Say’, Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Center of Barcelona, 17 October 2020–17 January 2021, 9 Oct 2020
Exhibition ‘Things Things Say’, Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Center of Barcelona, 17 October 2020–17 January 2021
Fri, Oct 9 2020
‘Things Things Say’
Fabra i Coats: Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona
17 October 2020 – 17 January 2021
Curated by Latitudes
An exhibition with works by Adrià Julià (1974, lives in Barcelona and Bergen), Annette Kelm (1975, lives in Berlin), James N. Kienitz Wilkins (1983, lives in New York), Sarah Ortmeyer (1980, lives in Vienna), Eulàlia Rovira (1985, lives in Barcelona), Francesc Serra i Dimas (1877–1967, Barcelona), Stuart Whipps (1979, lives in Birmingham), Haegue Yang (1971, lives in Berlin and Seoul), as well as meaningful things from the Friends of Fabra i Coats archive.
Do you trust things to write human history? Do things’ lives matter? Can a pebble destroy an empire if the emperor chokes at dinner? Would the pebble stand accused? Do you really think that if you stare at something long enough, it will reveal its secrets? Have you ever wondered why there is a hole in a donut? Did you ever own a pair of dungarees? Does a desire to write about a small car indicate some fear of its inadequacy? Does popcorn hold firm opinions? Is the key key? Are you familiar with the Luddites? Have you heard the expressions “how long is a piece of string?”, or “exceptional typical”?
The exhibition ‘Things Things Say’ springs from the past of Fabra i Coats as an industrial complex once dedicated to the manufacturing of cotton thread. The factory represented the first merger between a Catalan company and a foreign multinational and the first in Spain to offer its workers paid holidays. The exhibition evokes this novel and curious kind of place, a place comprised of many places and people, vastly different scales, temporalities, and values. Things, and spectres of things, that might at first seem exceptionally normal, apparently obsolete, or inert, each bring often-extraordinary stories or offer telling evidence, temporarily becoming new protagonists in the art centre community.
In the setting of the bygone factory, the works in the exhibition introduce a perspective on how the modern world has been shaped through complex and contentious relationships between humans and the web of life. Taking on the popular XVIII century genre of the ‘it-narrative’ in English literature and the approach of ‘object journalism’ against a background of world history and ecology, ‘Things Things Say’ and the exhibition ‘4.543 billion. The Matter of Matter’ (CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux, 2017–18) are imagined as a diptych: two folds with the same hinge that tacks back-and-forth between deep time and microhistory, natural history and the history of capitalism.
Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Center of Barcelona
c. Sant Adrià 20
08030 Barcelona
(+34) 932 566 155
[email protected]
https://www.barcelona.cat/fabraicoats/centredart
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Saturdays, 12 to 8 pm
Sunday and Holidays, 11 to 3 pm
Free guided tours every Saturday at 18 pm and Sundays at 12:30 pm
Limited capacity. Pre-registration at [email protected]
→ RELATED CONTENT:
- Save the date: 19 September 2018 at 7 pm, opening Joan Morey ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring machine, working machine’, Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats 3 September 2018
- Photo report: Trip to Berlin Gallery Weekend 2018 and Cologne 9 May 2018
- Works by Stuart Whipps in the exhibition ‘4.543 billion. The matter of matter’, CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux, 2017–18.
- Work by Stuart Whipps at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux
- Work and performance by Eulàlia Rovira and Adrian Schindler included in ‘Cream Cheese and Pretty Ribbons!’, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, 2018.
- Latitudes in conversation with Haegue Yang, Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona, 3 May 2017.
- Tote by Haegue Yang for Latitudes' 10º anniversary, 2015.
- Work by Sarah Ortmeyer in the exhibition 'Exposition internationale des arts décoratifs et industriels modernes & des arts et techniques dans la vie moderne', Meessen de Clercq, Brussels, 2011.
- Work by Haegue Yang in the exhibition ‘Sequelism Part 3: Possible, Probable, or Preferable Futures’, Arnolfini, Bristol, 2009.