Cover Story, April 2024: In Progress–Iratxe Klaas & Klaas van Gorkum
Tue, Apr 2 2024
April 2024 cover story on www.lttds.org
The April 2024 monthly Cover Story “In Progress–Iratxe Klaas & Klaas van Gorkum” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org (after April 2024 this story will be archived here).
“On the occasion of their participation in Ten Thousand Suns, the 24th edition of the Biennale of Sydney, April’s Cover Story spotlights Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum, and The Margins of the Factory, the solo exhibition of the duo’s work that Latitudes curated in 2014.” → Continue reading
Cover Stories are published monthly on Latitudes’ homepage featuring past, present, or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects, or field trips related to our curatorial projects and activities.
→ RELATED CONTENTS:
- Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
- Cover Story, March 2024: Dibbets en Palencia, 4 March 2024
- Cover Story, February 2024: Climate Conscious Travel to ARCOmadrid, 1 February 2024
- Cover Story, January 2024: Curating Lab 2014–Curatorial Intensive, 2 Jan 2024
- Cover Story, December 2023: Ibon Aranberri, Partial View, 2 Dec 2023
- Cover Story, December 2023: Ibon Aranberri, Partial View
- Sat, 2 Dec 2023
- Cover Story, November 2023: Surucuá, Teque-teque, Arara: Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, 2 Nov 2023
- 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
Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum's installation ‘Work in Progress’ in the process of being acquired by ARTIUM, Vitoria-Gasteiz
Sun, Mar 4 2018 |
Above and below: Installation views of "Work in progress" in the exhibition "The Margins of the Factory", ADN Platform, 25 January–30 April 2014. Video (14’ 22”), 739 polyurethane sculptures, and 47 moulds. Produced with support from the Eremuak program of the Basque Government and from Centrum Beeldende Kunst Rotterdam. Courtesy of the artists. Photos: Roberto Ruiz.   |
‘Work in Progress’ was one of the two works featured in their solo exhibition "The Margins of the Factory" presented at ADN Platform in January 2014, and curated by Latitudes.
 |
‘Work in Progress’ immerses itself in the manufacturing industry of Markina-Xemein, the rural Basque village where Jaio comes from. A video documents the mass production of rubber car parts, following the pieces from the assembly line in a worker-owned factory to subcontracted workshops where informal workers finish them by hand.
The artists employed several of these workers to cast hundreds of replicas of small modernist sculptures. These are displayed on mass-produced shelving to evoke the “Chalk Laboratory” of Basque sculptor Jorge Oteiza (1908–2003), a fierce critic of the commodification of art.
Exhibition leaflet. PDF downloadable here.
Latitudes previously collaborated with Jaio and van Gorkum in the exhibition cycle ‘Amikejo’ presented throughout 2011 in MUSAC, León, when they exhibited ‘Producing time between other things’ (2011), a work specially produced for the occasion, and also included in the show mentioned above "The Margins of the Factory" in 2014.
—> Photographs of the exhibition.
—> Exhibition leaflet (pdf).—> Photographs of the exhibition.
—> Exhibition reviews.
—> Video on ‘Producing time between other things’ (2011)
RELATED CONTENT:
- Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum website
- ‘Work in Progress’ (2013)
- ‘Producing time between other things’ (2011)
- ‘Amikejo’ exhibition cycle in MUSAC, León.
- Max Andrews' interview with the artists in frieze magazine.
- Recommended listening and reading material on the so-called "anthropological turn" in contemporary art 17 November 2014
Recommended listening and reading material on the so-called "anthropological turn" in contemporary art
Mon, Nov 17 2014
Installation view of Mariana Castillo Deball's work "It rises or falls depending on whether you're coming or going. If you are leaving, it's uphill; but as you arrive it's downhill" (2006) in the Latitudes-curated exhibition "Extraordinary Rendition" at NoguerasBlanchard in 2007. Photo: Roberto Justamante. One of the many interesting events that took place during Frieze week, was a panel discussion titled "Adventures in the Field: The Anthropological Turn" (from there you can download the audio or mp3 file) moderated by Beirut-based writer Kaelen Wilson-Goldie with the participation of artists Iman Issa (Cairo & New York) and Naeem Mahaiemen (Dhaka & New York), and curator Dieter Roelstraete (Senior Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago).
As Frieze magazine's Associate Editor Christy Lange explained in her introduction, the discussion followed on Wilson-Goldie's recent feature "The Stories They Need" published in the October issue of Frieze magazine, where the writer digs into the notions previously raised in Roelstraete's well-read essay "The Way of the Shovel: On the Archeological Imaginary in Art" (2009, e-flux journal). Her text also brings in new artists names whose work have reflected an interest in the tools and methods of anthropology, including some of the participating artists in Roelstraete's recent show 'The Way of the Shovel: Art as Archaeology' (Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, 9 Nov 2013–9 Mar 2014), an exhibition that continued to delve on the subject of artists involvement with anthropology that will seem to take curator to his grave, as he himself stated during the panel.
During the discussion, both Roelstraete and Wilson-Goldie refer to the so-called "anthropological turn" or "historiographical turn", as a sequel to the "archaeological turn", the "educational turn" and many other turns (from Hal Foster's "ethnographical" or "archival" impulses, to the narrative, the pedagogical, the documentary, the social, the relational, the curatorial...the many turns) that have succeeded one another in recent art production – and as he also points out they all get mentioned preceded by "so called...".
Detail
of Mariana Castillo Deball's work "It rises or falls depending on
whether you're coming or going. If you are leaving, it's uphill; but as
you arrive it's downhill" (2006). Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Roberto
Justamante.
But why this impulse of looking back? As Roelstraete suggested in his presentation, it might respond to the fact that our present has been so depressing (Ebola, Isis, Ukranian crisis) and oppressive (from Bush's regime onwards through the 2008 global economic crisis) so artists can almost be forgiven for wanting to look back. Artist Naeem Mohaiemen, clarified that artists don't look back to hide from the present but that the present is too brief, it's not over, and meanwhile looking back allows them to shed light on a particular long-time span hoping to have an impact on thinking about that particular moment. To conclude Roelstraete noted that the impulse artists might follow is because they want to "leave the studio to go to the museum (or the kunsthalle)".
Installation view of Simon Fujiwara's "The Museum of Incest" at the 2009 "Provenances" at the Latitudes-curated exhibition at Umberto di Marino, Naples. Photo: Danilo Donzelli.Wilson-Goldie's text concludes that the artists as anthropologist is most likely "a storyteller or fabulist using the techniques of anthropology to tell again or tell differently, a story of encounter." This has certainly been very much on our minds as well as in the conversations we have maintained with the artists we have worked with in projects such as "Provenances" (2009 at Galleria Umberto di Marino, Naples) or "Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes ..." (2011, Meessen de Clercq, Brussels), and of course with other artists we have met in recent months.
This resonates in with a notion that has been stuck in our heads for a while and that emerged during Sean Lynch's lecture last September at Halfhouse's workshop: that of the artist' work as a "meaning place". He explained that for him when an exhibition ends the work becomes a conversation, and that those residues and the way they circulate can often be far more interesting than its intrinsic parts.
View of Kasper Akhoj's "Abstracta" at the 2011 Latitudes-curated exhibition "Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes & des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne" at Meessen de Clercq, Brussels. Photo: Philippe de Gobert.
On an archaeological note, a project called "The Materiality of the Invisible" looks intriguing. It is a fellowship run by the Jan van Eyck instigated within the framework of NEARCH, a European network of archaeological institutes and university departments. The following artists and art collectives have been selected out of some 300 applicants: Leyla Cardenas, Joey Bryniarska, Martin Westwood, Matthew Wilson, Rossella Biscotti and Klaas van Gorkum & Iratxe Jaio, the latter with whom we have collaborated (in the exhibition series Amikejo in 2011 and a solo show at ADN Platform earlier this year). The fellowship "offers a hitherto unknown opportunity to research in practice the interaction between artists and archaeologists, to work together in close confines, to profoundly exchange information and to thoroughly questioning both professions in an age of change and fluctuating cultural attitudes".
Above: Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum, "Work in Progress" (2013). Video (14’ 22”), 739 polyurethane sculptures, and 47 moulds. View of their exhibition "The Margins of the Factory" at ADN Platform, 25 January–30 April 2014. Photos: Roberto Ruiz.
Related content:
- Latitudes'-curated exhibitions "Provenances" (2009 at Galleria Umberto di Marino, Naples) and "Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes & des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne" (2011, Meessen de Clercq, Brussels).
- (Beautiful) publication that accompanied Roelstraete's "The Way of the Shovel" exhibition.
- Recently published "Art, Anthropology and the Gift" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2014) by Roger Sansi, Senior Lecturer in Anthroplogy at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK.
- The subject of how one remembers exhibitions emerged during the symposia "When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?", an event we convened and moderated last June together with Heman Chong at Singapore's National Library.
- For more information on the exhibition "The Margins of the Factory", download the pdf of the exhibition guide (in English).
- Hal Foster, 'The Artist as Ethnographer?' in 'The Return of the Real'. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1996.
- Hal Foster, 'An Archival Impulse', Fall 2004, October No. 110, Pages 3-22, 2004.
- Suely Rolnik, 'Archive Mania', e-book within the Series: dOCUMENTA (13): 100 Notizen - 100 Gedanken, Hatje Cantz, 2011.
–
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.
Seven social media archive albums
Mon, Nov 3 2014
Report from Frieze week: Frieze Art Fair, Frieze Masters and the whole other rest, 12–18 October 2014
https://wakelet.com/wake/6dfdd6cf-c369-44da-83ca-efaf651418e6
Report from Madrid: exhibitions during Apertura 2014 (11–13 September 2014)
https://wakelet.com/wake/4e7f7503-544c-4a8a-bde6-e1d5cb22b4a1
Visiting Curator Program, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 12 May–7 June 2014
https://wakelet.com/wake/c61aa3f1-b379-477a-b12d-8b6ff0bd9dfb
More on this residency here.
'Incidents of Travel', Hong Kong, 7 January–10 February 2013
https://wakelet.com/wake/b4893181-a74d-4553-8081-ef05e42a1d9d
More on this project and residency here.
'The Margins of the Factory', a show by Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum at ADN Platform, 25 January–30 April 2014
https://wakelet.com/wake/92c3f1af-424b-4605-8795-82897706f135
More on this exhibition here.
Report from Paris: FIAC 2013, 21–25 October 2013
https://wakelet.com/wake/0f57d98e-af1c-4d51-9c3a-8016b81eaab9
#OpenCurating research, June 2012–April 2013
https://wakelet.com/wake/7fac41d3-dc07-4335-98b4-5af3b6e2d8a2
More on this research project here.
Related content:
"When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" symposium, National Library of Singapore, 14 May 2014
Lunchtime Art Forum and seminar with PhD candidates in Curatorial Practice, MADA | Monash Art Design & Architecture, Melbourne, 14 May 2014
'The Margins of the Factory' on Artforum's Critics' Picks
"Focus Interview: Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum", frieze, Issue 157, September 2013
https://wakelet.com/wake/6dfdd6cf-c369-44da-83ca-efaf651418e6
Report from Madrid: exhibitions during Apertura 2014 (11–13 September 2014)
https://wakelet.com/wake/4e7f7503-544c-4a8a-bde6-e1d5cb22b4a1
Visiting Curator Program, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 12 May–7 June 2014
https://wakelet.com/wake/c61aa3f1-b379-477a-b12d-8b6ff0bd9dfb
More on this residency here.
'Incidents of Travel', Hong Kong, 7 January–10 February 2013
https://wakelet.com/wake/b4893181-a74d-4553-8081-ef05e42a1d9d
More on this project and residency here.
'The Margins of the Factory', a show by Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum at ADN Platform, 25 January–30 April 2014
https://wakelet.com/wake/92c3f1af-424b-4605-8795-82897706f135
More on this exhibition here.
Report from Paris: FIAC 2013, 21–25 October 2013
https://wakelet.com/wake/0f57d98e-af1c-4d51-9c3a-8016b81eaab9
#OpenCurating research, June 2012–April 2013
https://wakelet.com/wake/7fac41d3-dc07-4335-98b4-5af3b6e2d8a2
More on this research project here.
Related content:
"When Does an Exhibition Begin and End?" symposium, National Library of Singapore, 14 May 2014
Lunchtime Art Forum and seminar with PhD candidates in Curatorial Practice, MADA | Monash Art Design & Architecture, Melbourne, 14 May 2014
'The Margins of the Factory' on Artforum's Critics' Picks
"Focus Interview: Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum", frieze, Issue 157, September 2013
–
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)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Latitudes "Out of office", 2013–2014 season
Thu, Jul 31 2014This is the sixth consecutive year [see 2008-9, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012–13] that we wave goodbye to the season as many of us say 'hello, holidays' by sharing what has become something of a Latitudes' tradition. Our yearly 'out of office' includes some unseen and 'behind the scenes' moments from the last season. This casual yearly report has always been a welcome opportunity to revise the many photographs that have been buried on hard drives, to reflect on the past year, the fantastic people we met, enriching things we have seen, and to recharge for future challenges.
This post heralds a short period of deceleration of our online activity (that is tending to our inbox, as well as this blog, Facebook and Twitter). We'll take a short break during August, but will be back in September with renewed energy. Until then, have a great summer break/Feliz verano dear readers!
11–16 October 2013: 'Agora', Athens Biennial 4, Greece. Read the full report here.
21–28 October 2013: As part of the Young Curators Invitational programme (YCI) coinciding with FIAC, we were invited to visit several institutions, gallery spaces and studios in Paris – Click here to read the full report of that week, or here for the archive of our tweets.
16 November 2013: Seminar for "Curating the present. Theory and practice of the contemporary art exhibition", organised by Tania Pardo, Sergio Rubira and Alberto Sánchez Balmisawith La Casa Encendida, Madrid.
20 November 2013: At the kind invitation of the wonderful The Common Guild in Glasgow, on 21 November we gave a lecture about the work of Roman Ondák – read the text here. We also took the opportunity to do some studio visits – see full Report from Glasgow (posted on 4 December) – including Lucy Skaer's exhibition at Tramway; see Max's Frieze review.
25 January 2014: Opening of "The Margins of the Factory" a solo show by Rotterdam-based Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, at ADN Platform in Sant Cugat (Barcelona). Photos of the show here, reviews and exhibition leaflet here and all the social media posts archived here.
19–22 February 2013: Since November 2013, Latitudes had been guest Tweeting from @ARCOmeetings, advancing content and profiling the +70 participants of the seven Professional Meetings that took place during ARCOmadrid art fair. During the fair, we live-Tweeted each session as well as the 'III Meeting of Museums of European and Iberoamerica'. Our reportage and commentary spanned over 1200 Tweets – they're archived here.
18 March 2014: Max in conversation with Dutch artist Remco Torenbosch at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, in the context of his exhibition at NoguerasBlanchard.
On May 14, we gave a lecture and an afternoon seminar with PhD candidates in Curatorial Practice at MADA | Monash University in Melbourne, focusing on 2012–13 research project #OpenCurating, and in particular the published interviews with the web team from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; with Badlands Unlimited in New York; with research curator Steven ten Thije of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and with Dia Art Foundation Curator, Yasmil Raymond.
During
our Melbourne residency we made more than thirty studio visits, and also met curators,
graphic designers, writers, editors and University professors. We also paid visits to
galleries (Neon Parc, Sarah Scout, Sutton Gallery, Utopian Slumps, Tolarno Gallery, Anna Schwartz Gallery...), bookstores (the jewel-box that is World Food Books),
non-profits, curator-led projects and artist-run-spaces (West Space, Slopes) and of course museums
such MUMA at Monash, the Ian Potter Museum, the National Gallery Victoria, or the fantastic Heide Museum, which hosted a solo show of Emily Floyd (pictured below).
We had one day to explore the stunning Great Ocean Road. We saw a couple of wild koalas as well as local-speciality birdlife including Rufous Bristlebird and Hooded Dotterel, plus many surfers waiting for the perfect wave, before driving back to the city.
26–31 May 2014: Visiting Sydney and the 19th Biennale of Sydney.
1 June 2014: Short trip to Hobart in Tasmania to pay a visit to professional gambler and philanthropist David Walsh's extravaganza, the Museum of Old and New Art (MoNA). Despite the tech-geek owner and the 'O' device (iPod devices which function as extended audio guides, digital captions and location trackers), photography is not officially allowed inside the galleries, although you can, in fact, find plenty of shots on social media. Here instead are some views from the museum while waiting for the Bond-villain ferry to take us back to Hobart.
11–14 June 2014: Singapore Curating Lab 2014 begins! This 9-month programme began with a 3h morning lecture by Latitudes, followed by an afternoon workshop in which we asked participants to imagine an institution by defining a succinct "about us" paragraph for three imaginary institutions. Following the root of word "institution" (to establish, to set up), the task involved considering what practices were to be initiated, how programmes were to be established, and for what public. Read more here. Below the Tweets published, explaining each group's task.
14 June 2014: Symposium "When does an exhibition begin and end?", National Library of Singapore. With the participation of Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (Curator, National Gallery Singapore), Charles Lim (artist); Anca Rujoiu and Vera Mey (Curators, CCA — Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore) and artist Shubigi Rao.
16–20 June 2014: Curating Lab 2004 Overseas Field Trip to Hong Kong, where participants were introduced to the programme and spaces of Spring Workshop, Asia Art Archive, Para/Site and M+. The many tweets published by ourselves and the participants are archived here.
In January 2014, Mariana wrote a text on Time/Bank for the digital catalogue of the exhibition "7.000.000.000" curated by Arlandis/Marroquí for the Espai d'art Contemporani Castelló (EACC).
17 July 2014: Jointly published an art-agenda review on Andrea Buttner's "Tische" show at NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona.
One of the most widely-read blog posts of the year has been the analysis of the 2013 report that the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports dedicated to the state of culture in Spain (La cultura en España (2a parte): estadísticas, cifras y porcentajes del 2013, a follow up to the 2012 analysis), quite symptomatic of what has been another difficult year for the cultural sector.
Related posts:
Latitudes' "out of office" photo album 2008-9, 30 July 2009
Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2009–10 season, 30 July 2010
Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2010–11 season, 1 August 2011
Latitudes' "out of office" photo album 2011–2012, 31 July 2012
Latitudes' "out of office" photo album, 2012–2013 season, 31 July 2013
–
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)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
2013, 2014, ARCOmadrid, art-agenda, Athens, Frieze, Glasgow, Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, latitudes, Melbourne, Moderations, out of office, Paris, Reviews, Rotterdam, Singapore
This post heralds a short period of deceleration of our online activity (that is tending to our inbox, as well as this blog, Facebook and Twitter). We'll take a short break during August, but will be back in September with renewed energy. Until then, have a great summer break/Feliz verano dear readers!
11–16 October 2013: 'Agora', Athens Biennial 4, Greece. Read the full report here.
| Beautiful Acropolis floor. |
Afternoon light over the façade of the National Archaeological Museum.
An astonishing exhibition presenting severely-eroded antiquities recovered from the legendary shipwreck off the islet of Antikythera, south of the Peloponnese. (Hello, Matthew Monahan and Thomas Houseago!)
Group photo of the Young Curators Invitational programme (YCI) 2013 participants nearby one of the massive and over-the-top fountains at Versailles. Some 1980s (or maybe 1880s?) dance moves going on for some reason.
We were looking forward to visiting this particular 18th-Century cabinet of curiosities, but only managed to take this one photo before we were told off. It's the Cabinet de Curiosités de Joseph Bonnier de La Mosson, at the Médiathèque of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle at the Jardin des Plantes. Quite a lot of fluff has been written about Cabinets de Curosités and exhibition-making, and some terrible art made in its name, but this slice of history is quite extraordinary, beautiful and shocking and 'very much of its time' to put it mildly. See some better photos here.
16 November 2013: Seminar for "Curating the present. Theory and practice of the contemporary art exhibition", organised by Tania Pardo, Sergio Rubira and Alberto Sánchez Balmisawith La Casa Encendida, Madrid.
About to begin our lecture...
During our Madrid visit, we visited Roman Ondák's intervention at Palacio de Cristal (above) which got a short mention in our Roman Ondák lecture in Glasgow a few days after.
20 November 2013: At the kind invitation of the wonderful The Common Guild in Glasgow, on 21 November we gave a lecture about the work of Roman Ondák – read the text here. We also took the opportunity to do some studio visits – see full Report from Glasgow (posted on 4 December) – including Lucy Skaer's exhibition at Tramway; see Max's Frieze review.
27 November 2013: Mariana Cánepa Luna gave an afternoon seminar on a range of Latitudes' projects for the course 'On Mediation – Theory and Curatorial Practice in Global Art’ at the Universitat de Barcelona.
25 January 2014: Opening of "The Margins of the Factory" a solo show by Rotterdam-based Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, at ADN Platform in Sant Cugat (Barcelona). Photos of the show here, reviews and exhibition leaflet here and all the social media posts archived here.
 |
Photo via Facebook of Miguel Ángel Sánchez, posted with the caption: "Curators backing up the artist! The awesome outcome of this team effort at ADN Platform. On view from Saturday 25th".
Klaas installing the series of photos that form part of Producing time in between other things (2011).
 |
Exhibition guide designed and produced by Latitudes includes texts on each piece and an A3 sized fold-out poster. Download in English and in Spanish.
Nathaniel Mann's opening performance included his singing the Basque popular song “Oi Peio Peio” – a dialogue between a woman worker and her cruel boss, who insists that she carries on working throughout the night. Watch video of the performance here. Photo: Joan Morey
Photo published by Amanda Bernal in her exhibition preview at Tot Sant Cugat.
19–22 February 2013: Since November 2013, Latitudes had been guest Tweeting from @ARCOmeetings, advancing content and profiling the +70 participants of the seven Professional Meetings that took place during ARCOmadrid art fair. During the fair, we live-Tweeted each session as well as the 'III Meeting of Museums of European and Iberoamerica'. Our reportage and commentary spanned over 1200 Tweets – they're archived here.
Welcoming words by Joao Fernandes, Deputy Director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, before kicking off the 'III Meeting of
Museums of European and Iberoamerica'.
The "Biennials at the Periphery" session was masterfully moderated by the SITE Santa Fe team.
18 March 2014: Max in conversation with Dutch artist Remco Torenbosch at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, in the context of his exhibition at NoguerasBlanchard.
 |
| Photo by @priscilaclementti. |
12 May–7 June: Visiting Curator Programme of Gertrude Contemporary in Melbourne, Australia, in partnership with MADA: Monash School of Art Design and Architecture. Our month-long residency is documented in this Storify thread.
Central Melbourne.
On May 14, we gave a lecture and an afternoon seminar with PhD candidates in Curatorial Practice at MADA | Monash University in Melbourne, focusing on 2012–13 research project #OpenCurating, and in particular the published interviews with the web team from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; with Badlands Unlimited in New York; with research curator Steven ten Thije of the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and with Dia Art Foundation Curator, Yasmil Raymond.
Photo: Courtesy MADA.
On May 23rd we shadowed a site visit to the fascinating Living Museum of the West (photo below) in Maribyrnong, a social history museum and former industrial site which will be the focus a forthcoming project by West Space with artists Susan Jacobs and Geoff Robinson, among others. Below their analogue archive over interviews, with plenty of cassettes, binders and filing cabinets.
26–31 May 2014: Visiting Sydney and the 19th Biennale of Sydney.
A great welcome to Sydney sunset by the Opera House.
Bianca Hester's 'fashioning discontinuities', 2013–14, at Cockotoo Island was one of the (frankly very few) highlights of the 2014 edition of the Sydney Biennale.
One of the best things we saw in Sydney was a one-room show dedicated to 'Tehching Hsieh: One-year performance 1980–1981' at Carriageworks.
Entrance to the artist-run space Alaska Projects, whose creative base camp is level 2 of Kings Cross Car Park.
1 June 2014: Short trip to Hobart in Tasmania to pay a visit to professional gambler and philanthropist David Walsh's extravaganza, the Museum of Old and New Art (MoNA). Despite the tech-geek owner and the 'O' device (iPod devices which function as extended audio guides, digital captions and location trackers), photography is not officially allowed inside the galleries, although you can, in fact, find plenty of shots on social media. Here instead are some views from the museum while waiting for the Bond-villain ferry to take us back to Hobart.
11–14 June 2014: Singapore Curating Lab 2014 begins! This 9-month programme began with a 3h morning lecture by Latitudes, followed by an afternoon workshop in which we asked participants to imagine an institution by defining a succinct "about us" paragraph for three imaginary institutions. Following the root of word "institution" (to establish, to set up), the task involved considering what practices were to be initiated, how programmes were to be established, and for what public. Read more here. Below the Tweets published, explaining each group's task.
14 June 2014: Symposium "When does an exhibition begin and end?", National Library of Singapore. With the participation of Shabbir Hussain Mustafa (Curator, National Gallery Singapore), Charles Lim (artist); Anca Rujoiu and Vera Mey (Curators, CCA — Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore) and artist Shubigi Rao.
 |
| Curatorial Intensive participants live-tweeting, mapping concepts discussed during talks, photo-documenting and taking notes for future posts on Curating Lab blog. Photo: @nusmuseum. |
Symposium moderators taking notes during the conference. Photo via @hemanchong
16–20 June 2014: Curating Lab 2004 Overseas Field Trip to Hong Kong, where participants were introduced to the programme and spaces of Spring Workshop, Asia Art Archive, Para/Site and M+. The many tweets published by ourselves and the participants are archived here.
Afternoon discussion at Spring Workshop.
Christodoulous Panayiotou and Philip Wiegard's exhibition at Spring Workshop.
Curating Lab 2014 group photo in Hong Kong airport before boarding to Singapore.
31 July 2014: Master Class for the 2014 Open Set Summer School at Witte de With, Rotterdam. After a lecture on the tour as an artistic/curatorial format, participants work towards developing prototype guided tours for Rotterdam. More photos here.
Also great to finally be able to visit "The Part In The Story Where A Part Becomes A Part Of Something Else" exhibition curated by Heman Chong and Samuel Saelemakers at Witte de With, the epilogue to Moderation(s). Here interacting with Haegue Yang's 'Sonic Nickel Dance' (2013).
The night before the workshop, a great catch up a picnic with 'Portscapes' collaborators (Liesbeth Bik & Jos van der Pol, better known as Bik van der Pol, Lara Almarcegui, Nienke Terpsma and Rob Hamelijnck of Fucking Good Art and graphic designer Samira Ben Laloua). Ahhh, good memories!
During the past weeks we've been proofreading layouts with documentation of our 2013 residency and four "Incidents of Travel" tours we realised in Hong Kong, our contribution to the forthcoming publication "Terms & Conditions" published by Witte de With, Rotterdam as part of the Moderation(s) project steered by Heman Chong.
In the past months, Max Andrews has published the following texts in frieze magazine: Exhibition review of Pablo Helguera's ‘Librería Donceles’ (Donceles Bookshop, 2013) at Kent Fine Art, New York, issue 160, January–February 2014; Review of Lucy Skaer's solo show at Glasgow's Tramway, issue 161, March 2014; Postcard "On a Shoestring. Institutions in Catalonia", issue 158, October 2013; and a Focus, Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, Issue 157, September 2013. Max has also contributed to the publication that will accompany the forthcoming Frieze Art Fair, London (out in October 2014).
Also great to finally be able to visit "The Part In The Story Where A Part Becomes A Part Of Something Else" exhibition curated by Heman Chong and Samuel Saelemakers at Witte de With, the epilogue to Moderation(s). Here interacting with Haegue Yang's 'Sonic Nickel Dance' (2013).
Photo: @ymessen.
The night before the workshop, a great catch up a picnic with 'Portscapes' collaborators (Liesbeth Bik & Jos van der Pol, better known as Bik van der Pol, Lara Almarcegui, Nienke Terpsma and Rob Hamelijnck of Fucking Good Art and graphic designer Samira Ben Laloua). Ahhh, good memories!
During the past weeks we've been proofreading layouts with documentation of our 2013 residency and four "Incidents of Travel" tours we realised in Hong Kong, our contribution to the forthcoming publication "Terms & Conditions" published by Witte de With, Rotterdam as part of the Moderation(s) project steered by Heman Chong.
In the past months, Max Andrews has published the following texts in frieze magazine: Exhibition review of Pablo Helguera's ‘Librería Donceles’ (Donceles Bookshop, 2013) at Kent Fine Art, New York, issue 160, January–February 2014; Review of Lucy Skaer's solo show at Glasgow's Tramway, issue 161, March 2014; Postcard "On a Shoestring. Institutions in Catalonia", issue 158, October 2013; and a Focus, Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, Issue 157, September 2013. Max has also contributed to the publication that will accompany the forthcoming Frieze Art Fair, London (out in October 2014).
In January 2014, Mariana wrote a text on Time/Bank for the digital catalogue of the exhibition "7.000.000.000" curated by Arlandis/Marroquí for the Espai d'art Contemporani Castelló (EACC).
17 July 2014: Jointly published an art-agenda review on Andrea Buttner's "Tische" show at NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona.
| View of Andrea Büttner, Tische, NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona, 2014. Courtesy of NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona. All photos by Roberto Ruiz. |
One of the most widely-read blog posts of the year has been the analysis of the 2013 report that the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports dedicated to the state of culture in Spain (La cultura en España (2a parte): estadísticas, cifras y porcentajes del 2013, a follow up to the 2012 analysis), quite symptomatic of what has been another difficult year for the cultural sector.
Related posts:
Latitudes' "out of office" photo album 2008-9, 30 July 2009
Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2009–10 season, 30 July 2010
Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2010–11 season, 1 August 2011
Latitudes' "out of office" photo album 2011–2012, 31 July 2012
Latitudes' "out of office" photo album, 2012–2013 season, 31 July 2013
–
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)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
'The Margins of the Factory' on Artforum's Critics' Picks
Fri, Apr 4 2014
If you can't read it correctly, click this link to the review by Miguel Amado.
The exhibition 'The Margins of the Factory' by Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum
is on view until 30 April at ADN Platform. There will be a breakfast and guided visit on Saturday 12
April at 10:30am. If you would like to join please contact Jordi Vernis
<[email protected]>
La exposición 'Los márgenes de la fábrica' de Iratxe Jaio y Klaas van Gorkum permanecerá abierta hasta el 30 de abril en ADN Platform. El sábado 12 de abril a las 10:30am habrá un desayuno y visita guiada, si estáis interesados en asistir, por favor poneros en contacto con Jordi Vernis <[email protected]>
Related posts:
– La exposición 'Los márgenes de la fábrica' de Iratxe Jaio y Klaas van Gorkum permanecerá abierta hasta el 30 de abril en ADN Platform. El sábado 12 de abril a las 10:30am habrá un desayuno y visita guiada, si estáis interesados en asistir, por favor poneros en contacto con Jordi Vernis <[email protected]>
Related posts:
- Documentation of Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum's exhibition "The Margins of the Factory" and the opening performance by Nathaniel R. Mann (6 February 2014)
- Storifying the social media related to the exhibition "The Margins of the Factory" (until 30 April) at ADN Platform, Sant Cugat (31 January 2014)
- 25 January 2014: Opening of the solo exhibition 'The Margins of the Factory' by Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum at ADN Platform, Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona) (8 January 2014)
- "Focus Interview: Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum", frieze, Issue 157, September 2013 (14 October 2013)
This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Documentation of Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum's exhibition "The Margins of the Factory" and the opening performance by Nathaniel R. Mann
Thu, Feb 6 2014 |
| Installation view of "Producing time in between other things" (2011). Three videos (12' 30'', 5' 22'', 36' 11''), 32 colour photographs (76x115 cm & 50x75 cm), 49 wooden legs, and MDF platforms with objects made by Jos van Gorkum between 1976 and 1996. Photo: Roberto Ruiz. Courtesy: ADN Platform. |
More installation photos of the exhibition here (flickr).
The exhibition "The Margins of the Factory" (ADN Platform, Sant Cugat, 25 January–30 April 2014) presents two recent projects by the Rotterdam-based duo Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum that are motivated by their interest in art's relationship with labour. Each explores sculptural form and manufacturing processes from the perspective of artists who have not usually made objects. Jaio & van Gorkum undertake what are in part sociological investigations by documenting the local, marginal effects of the displacement of manufacturing industries over the last two generations with the emergence of the global market. Emerging from the artists' personal history and implicating the direct effects of their own vocation as well as work they ask of others, the projects are moreover complicit in asking what kind of industriousness brings value and what political life objects might have.
The exhibition opening featured a performance by British “avant-folk” musician Nathaniel Robin Mann developed for the occasion in collaboration with Jaio & van Gorkum around the raw footage of "Work in Progress" (2013), a film by the artists showing men and women at work in the Lea Artibai region in Basque Country, where they trim rubber parts destined for the global automobile industry.
The exhibition opening featured a performance by British “avant-folk” musician Nathaniel Robin Mann developed for the occasion in collaboration with Jaio & van Gorkum around the raw footage of "Work in Progress" (2013), a film by the artists showing men and women at work in the Lea Artibai region in Basque Country, where they trim rubber parts destined for the global automobile industry.
 |
| Photos: Roberto Ruiz. |
Nathaniel Robin Mann
performing "Oi Peio Peio" during the exhibition opening of "The Margins
of the Factory". Video by Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum.
While singing, Mann manually assembled a device which broadcasted his prerecorded voice to a transistor radio, with which he then performed a moving duet. The performance is Nathan's response to the themes and issues explored in the installation of "Work in Progress", infused with his own longstanding interest in work song and traditional music.
More info:
www.lttds.org/projects/jaiovangorkum/
Download exhibition leaflet (English or Spanish):
www.lttds.org/projects/jaiovangorkum/archive/
Related posts:
- Storifying the social media related to the exhibition "The Margins of the Factory" (until 30 April) at ADN Platform, Sant Cugat (31 January 2014)
- 25 January 2014: Opening of the solo exhibition 'The Margins of the Factory' by Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum at ADN Platform, Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona) (8 January 2014)
- "Focus Interview: Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum", frieze, Issue 157, September 2013 (14 October 2013.
This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Storifying the social media related to the exhibition "The Margins of the Factory" (until 30 April) at ADN Platform, Sant Cugat
Fri, Jan 31 2014We have began to storify all the social media posts related to the exhibition "Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum: The Margins of the Factory" that opened last Saturday 25 January at ADN Platform in Sant Cugat.
The exhibition will remain open until 30 April. If you would like to visit, please make an appointment writing to [email protected] or calling (+34) 93 451 00 64.
More information about the exhibition:
Press Release: http://mad.ly/7b4164 (English) / http://mad.ly/657564 (Español)
Exhibition leaflet (pdf English) / Hoja de sala (pdf en Español)
Follow:
@LTTDS
@KlaasvanGorkum
#ADNPlatform
Related content:
This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
ADN Platform, Exhibition, Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, latitudes, Solo show, storify, Twitter stream
The exhibition will remain open until 30 April. If you would like to visit, please make an appointment writing to [email protected] or calling (+34) 93 451 00 64.
More information about the exhibition:
Press Release: http://mad.ly/7b4164 (English) / http://mad.ly/657564 (Español)
Exhibition leaflet (pdf English) / Hoja de sala (pdf en Español)
Follow:
@LTTDS
@KlaasvanGorkum
#ADNPlatform
Related content:
- Documentation of Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum's exhibition "The Margins of the Factory" and the opening performance by Nathaniel R. Mann (6 February 2014)
- 25 January 2014: Opening of the solo exhibition 'The Margins of the Factory' by Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum at ADN Platform, Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona) (8 January 2014)
- "Focus Interview: Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum", frieze, Issue 157, September 2013 (14 October 2013)
This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
25 January 2014: Opening of the solo exhibition 'The Margins of the Factory' by Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum at ADN Platform, Sant Cugat del Vallès (Barcelona)
Wed, Jan 8 2014The Margins of the Factory, a solo exhibition by the Rotterdam-based duo Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum curated by Latitudes will open on Saturday 25 January 2014, as part of ADN Galería and ADN Platform's exhibitions programme.
Opening programme:
12h: Opening at ADN Galería (c/ Enric Granados 49, Barcelona). Exhibition: “This is not Just Fucking Business” by Carlos Aires
13:15h: Buses depart from ADN Galería towards ADN Platform (Avda. Can Roquetas, Sant Cugat del Vallès). To book a seat in the bus: [email protected] / 93 451 0064
14h: Arrival at ADN Platform and light lunch. Exhibitions: Micro-actions of Emergency #2 [Curated by Colectivo de vuelta y vuelta (Claudia Segura & Inés Jover)] and The Margins of the Factory by Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum [Curated by Latitudes].
14:15h: 15 min. voice and instrumental performance by Nathaniel Robin Mann, as part of The Margins of the Factory.
16/16:30h: Buses return from ADN Platform (Sant Cugat) towards ADN Galería (Barcelona).
The Margins of the Factory presents two recent projects by Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum that are motivated by their interest in art's relationship with labour. Each explores sculptural form and manufacturing processes from the perspective of artists who have not usually made objects. Jaio & van Gorkum undertake what are in part sociological investigations by documenting the local, marginal effects of the displacement of manufacturing industries over the last two generations with the emergence of the global market. Emerging from the artists' personal history and implicating the direct effects of their own vocation as well as work they ask of others, the projects are moreover complicit in asking what kind of industriousness brings value and what political life objects might have.
The exhibition opening will also feature a performance by British “avant-folk” musician Nathaniel Robin Mann, developed in collaboration with Jaio & van Gorkum around the raw footage of Work in Progress and the tradition of work song. Mann interprets the Basque popular song “Oi Peio Peio” – a dialogue between a woman worker and her cruel boss, who insists that she carries on working throughout the night. First collected in Cancionero Popular Vasco in 1918, the song was popularized by singer–songwriter Mikel Laboa, founder of “Ez Dok Amairu” (“No Thirteen”), the cultural movement of Basque poets, musicians and artists whose name was a suggestion of sculptor Jorge Oteiza.
Central to Producing time in between other things (2011) is a selection of wooden objects made by retired factory worker Jos van Gorkum – Gorkum’s grandfather – which the artists documented in the homes of his relations, friends and former neighbours across the Netherlands. During this process, the artists located the original lathe on which these items had been crafted and began to teach themselves woodturning. The forms which they made as they worked at learning a hobby become the means to support the display of the original objects, presented alongside three videos and photography.
Work in Progress (2013) immerses itself in the manufacturing industry of Markina-Xemein, the rural Basque village where Jaio comes from. A video documents the mass-production of rubber car parts, following the pieces from the assembly line in a worker-owned factory to subcontracted workshops where informal workers finish them by hand. Several of these workers are employed by the artists to cast hundreds of replicas of small modernist sculptures. These are displayed on mass-produced shelving to evoke the "Chalk Laboratory" of Basque sculptor Jorge Oteiza, a fierce critic of the commodification of art.
Visit adnplatform:
Avda. Can Roquetas (corner with Victor Hugo)
08173 Sant Cugat del Vallès
[email protected]
Tel. (+34) 93 451 00 64
By appointment only
Location map
Download the A3 invite-as-poster-as-leaflet of the exhibition (Spanish & English versions).
Producing time in between other things was produced as part of the Latitudes-curated Amikejo exhibition season at MUSAC, León, in 2011, supported in part by the Mondriaan Foundation (now Mondriaan Fonds). Work in Progress was produced with support from the Eremuak program of the Basque Government and from the Centrum Beeldende Kunst Rotterdam.
Related content:
"Focus Interview: Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum", frieze, Issue 157, September 2013 (14 October 2013).
–
This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
2014, ADN Platform, Amikejo, Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, MUSAC, Rotterdam, Solo show
Opening programme:
12h: Opening at ADN Galería (c/ Enric Granados 49, Barcelona). Exhibition: “This is not Just Fucking Business” by Carlos Aires
13:15h: Buses depart from ADN Galería towards ADN Platform (Avda. Can Roquetas, Sant Cugat del Vallès). To book a seat in the bus: [email protected] / 93 451 0064
14h: Arrival at ADN Platform and light lunch. Exhibitions: Micro-actions of Emergency #2 [Curated by Colectivo de vuelta y vuelta (Claudia Segura & Inés Jover)] and The Margins of the Factory by Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum [Curated by Latitudes].
14:15h: 15 min. voice and instrumental performance by Nathaniel Robin Mann, as part of The Margins of the Factory.
16/16:30h: Buses return from ADN Platform (Sant Cugat) towards ADN Galería (Barcelona).
The Margins of the Factory presents two recent projects by Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum that are motivated by their interest in art's relationship with labour. Each explores sculptural form and manufacturing processes from the perspective of artists who have not usually made objects. Jaio & van Gorkum undertake what are in part sociological investigations by documenting the local, marginal effects of the displacement of manufacturing industries over the last two generations with the emergence of the global market. Emerging from the artists' personal history and implicating the direct effects of their own vocation as well as work they ask of others, the projects are moreover complicit in asking what kind of industriousness brings value and what political life objects might have.
The exhibition opening will also feature a performance by British “avant-folk” musician Nathaniel Robin Mann, developed in collaboration with Jaio & van Gorkum around the raw footage of Work in Progress and the tradition of work song. Mann interprets the Basque popular song “Oi Peio Peio” – a dialogue between a woman worker and her cruel boss, who insists that she carries on working throughout the night. First collected in Cancionero Popular Vasco in 1918, the song was popularized by singer–songwriter Mikel Laboa, founder of “Ez Dok Amairu” (“No Thirteen”), the cultural movement of Basque poets, musicians and artists whose name was a suggestion of sculptor Jorge Oteiza.
 |
| Installation of Producing time in between other things. Courtesy of the artists. Photo: MUSAC. |
Central to Producing time in between other things (2011) is a selection of wooden objects made by retired factory worker Jos van Gorkum – Gorkum’s grandfather – which the artists documented in the homes of his relations, friends and former neighbours across the Netherlands. During this process, the artists located the original lathe on which these items had been crafted and began to teach themselves woodturning. The forms which they made as they worked at learning a hobby become the means to support the display of the original objects, presented alongside three videos and photography.
 |
| Still from the video "Work in Progress". Courtesy of the artists. |
Work in Progress (2013) immerses itself in the manufacturing industry of Markina-Xemein, the rural Basque village where Jaio comes from. A video documents the mass-production of rubber car parts, following the pieces from the assembly line in a worker-owned factory to subcontracted workshops where informal workers finish them by hand. Several of these workers are employed by the artists to cast hundreds of replicas of small modernist sculptures. These are displayed on mass-produced shelving to evoke the "Chalk Laboratory" of Basque sculptor Jorge Oteiza, a fierce critic of the commodification of art.
Visit adnplatform:
Avda. Can Roquetas (corner with Victor Hugo)
08173 Sant Cugat del Vallès
[email protected]
Tel. (+34) 93 451 00 64
By appointment only
Location map
Download the A3 invite-as-poster-as-leaflet of the exhibition (Spanish & English versions).
Producing time in between other things was produced as part of the Latitudes-curated Amikejo exhibition season at MUSAC, León, in 2011, supported in part by the Mondriaan Foundation (now Mondriaan Fonds). Work in Progress was produced with support from the Eremuak program of the Basque Government and from the Centrum Beeldende Kunst Rotterdam.
Related content:
"Focus Interview: Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum", frieze, Issue 157, September 2013 (14 October 2013).
–
This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
"Focus Interview: Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum", frieze, Issue 157, September 2013
Mon, Oct 14 2013
'Work in Progress', 2013, production still. All images courtesy: the artists
The image of ‘work’ and the relation between art and labour
Max Andrews: I’d like to talk about your current project, provisionally titled Work in Progress, set in the Lea-Artibai district of the Basque Country where Iratxe grew up. It began with your curiosity about the informal factories in the area where women trim moulded rubber parts destined for the car industry. What drew you to this subject?
Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum: When we encountered these groups of women sitting in a circle in their makeshift workspaces, surrounded by crates and boxes, performing tedious repetitive tasks together, it struck us as an incredibly complex and layered image. Although it echoed a traditional and communal way of life in what is still a mainly rural area, instead of spinning wool or mending fishing nets these women were working with abstract industrial forms which had no direct use-value to them. A closer inspection of the pieces revealed the brand names of multinational corporations such as Renault, Mercedes and Volkswagen. The women are from countries like Moldova, Peru or Senegal, yet it’s a scene that is at once domestic, local and Basque, while being replete with the contradictions of global capitalism.
MA: You are dealing with a representation of working, while also interweaving your own labour by making a film.
IJ & KvG: We have a long-standing interest in the image of ‘work’, and in the relation between art and labour. So we took this scene as the starting point for a cinematic analysis of production processes, both in these semi-clandestine workshops as well as in the main factory itself. Our approach has been strictly dispassionate, free from any superficial attempt to give the workers a voice. Instead, we focused our camera on the disciplinary conditions and rationalization of these processes, reproducing them in the montage by breaking up complex scenes into smaller units and stitching them back together again.
MA: How has Jorge Oteiza’s Laboratorio de Tizas (Chalk Laboratory, c.1972–4) – thousands of small sculpture-studies made by the late Basque sculptor, yet never conceived as art works per se – come to play a key role in the project?
IJ & KvG: To extend the analogy between editing a movie and working on an assembly line, we wanted to ‘splice’ ourselves into the relations of production at the factory by inventing an artistic task that resembled the one already being performed by the workers. So we hired the factory workers to make synthetic resin casts of Oteiza’s ‘Tizas’. Turning Oteiza’s experimental sculpture laboratory into a mass-production line, and recording it on camera is, in essence, a formal exercise that juxtaposes the production of Modernist sculpture with industrial manufacturing. It also allowed us to stage an image of the artist at work, and to superimpose it onto that of the wage-worker, ultimately presenting both as ideologically loaded social constructions.
Producing time in between other things, 2011, installation view at MUSAC, León.
MA: Is this project also a way for you to obliquely address the idea of Basque sculpture, from Oteiza and Eduardo Chillida through to Ibon Aranberri or Asier Mendizabal, for example?
IJ & KvG: The legacy of Basque Modernism loomed over this project long before we decided explicitly to include a reference to the work of Oteiza – although, in hindsight, it seems inevitable. But to speak of ‘Basque sculpture’ is to turn it into a closed-off category. We prefer to consider how the political function and significance that was once attributed to the language of abstract sculpture in Basque society holds up under contemporary conditions.
MA: In combining a study of the serial production of art with a social investigation into industrial manufacturing, you’re also reflecting on yourselves as cultural labourers. This was an important motif in your 2011 work Producing time in between other things (a project I co-curated with Mariana Cánepa Luna). Do you find it hard to be artists who make objects?
IJ & KvG: Oteiza once said that it wasn’t he who made the sculptures, but that the sculptures made him a sculptor. And now that he is a sculptor, why should he create more? In a way, we have been travelling in the opposite direction. We’ve always referred to ourselves as artists who do not make objects, and we only started making things to be able to address the notion of practice itself. In Producing time in between other things, for example, the 50 ornamental wooden legs we manufactured were simply a by-product of the task we had set ourselves: to learn how to use the woodturning lathe left by Klaas’s late grandfather, a retired factory worker. We took his place behind the machine, and recorded our activities on camera, not just as a ‘measurement’ of the passage of time required to gain a certain skill, but also as a reflection on how the disciplinary conditions of the wage-worker’s spare time inform our notion of artistic freedom and vice versa. Yet we’re also very much indebted to those thousands of ‘How to ...’ videos on YouTube, from cooking a steak to casting polyurethane action figures. Considering the generosity of all that is being shared between the producers and the viewers of these videos, is it any wonder that actually eating the steak doesn’t even enter into the picture?
Max Andrews
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Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum live in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and have been working together since 2001. They recently completed a residency at LIPAC, Buenos Aires, Argentina. They will present a solo exhibition at FRAC Aquitaine, Bordeaux, France, opening on 4 October.