Longitudes
Longitudes cuts across Latitudes’ projects and research with news, updates, and reportage.
Latitudes’ "out of office" 2022–23 season
Tue, Jul 25 2023
Sunset on our way to Mallorca aboard the Cecilia Payne ferry, 6 June 2023.
With the summer in full flow, and thoughts turning to holidays, we once more share a series of behind-the-scenes moments and encounters: trips, dinners, kind messages, postal surprises, follow-ups of artists we have worked with, and serendipitous situations that have happened in the background of our more visible curatorial practice seen on our website or in the Longitudes section. Plus some further notes and inspiration beyond our Instagrams – here and here.
Happy summer, apply and reapply sun protection!
September 2022: Between September and November, we mentored Matheus Calderón, winner of the first [ON RESIDENCE] residency, an online curatorial mentorship programme awarded to young Peruvian curators organised by TROPICAL PAPERS, and supported by Artus.
As one of the mentors, we embarked on six bi-monthly conversations focusing on what values are at stake today in our profession. Through sincere dialogue, we discussed the multiple realities of being an independent curator both in Lima and Barcelona, and we accompanied Matheus in shaping his approach to his forthcoming group exhibition project “El rodeo (el velo, la mancha o la grieta)” [working title]. Our conversations progressively became a space to share, pause and reflect during a time of ongoing political and societal tension in Lima in autumn 2022.
Introductory Zoom with Tropical Papers, Latitudes and Matheus on 31 August 2022.
13 September 2022: Received a copy of Kunsthalle Wilhelmshaven’s catalogue “By The Sea. Land Art, Performance and Minimal Art” including photos Latitudes provided of Jan Dibbets’s “6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective” (2009).
19 September 2022: Final episode of “Incidents (of Travel)” with Jorge Satorre. By complete chance, this episode takes place on September 19, 2022, exactly ten years later to the day of the first tour commissioned for the first phase of Incidents (of Travel), a day Latitudes spent with Minerva Cuevas around Mexico City’s city centre on the 27th anniversary of the deadly 1985 earthquake.
Visiting the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco with Minerva Cuevas, the first of five “Incidents of Travel” itineraries around Mexico City, 19 September 2012. Photo: Eunice Adorno.
Episode #20 culminates Latitudes’ collaboration with KADIST, producers of 20 fantastic episodes published online between 2016 and 2022 as part of their programme of online projects.
The dispatch went live on October 26, 2022. Read here.
27 September 2022: Published “‘Minor’ Ornithologies. Laia Estruch”, a podcast hosted by Latitudes’ curator, writer (and lifelong birder) Max Andrews for TBA21 on st_age. Accompanying Laia Estruch’s performance project “Ocells Perduts V67” (2022) for TBA21 on st_age, the podcast takes flight into the realm of birds, looking at politics and practices that disrupt dominant historical narratives, and exceed scientific and cultural boundaries. It features Alex Holt, a spokesperson for Bird Names for Birds, a movement to decolonise bird names, and zoömusicologist Dr Hollis Taylor, who specialises in birdsong. Through their perspectives, we glimpse new and speculative kinds of human–bird narratives – “minor” ornithologies.
→ Listen here (34' 03'')
→ Transcript here
(📷 ↑↓) PUBLICS Youth with Irina Mutt during their workshop in Lammassaari, 3 August 2022. Photos: Micol Curatolo.
18 October 2022: Organised a casual networking dinner to mingle with local art professionals with a group visiting from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Switzerland. Organised by the Mondriaan Fund, the Orientation Trip 2022 took them this time to Portugal and Spain.
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| Foto: Haco de Ridder. |
21 October 2022: Post looking back at the first anniversary of MACBA exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”, highlighting works by Antoni Hervàs, El Palomar, Claudia Pagès and Rosa Tharrats, four artists that participated in Panorama and whose shows in Frankfurt, Donostia and Marseille present work produced or derived from their MACBA presentation.
Installation view of “Akaal / Selene \ Uluru” (2021) in Bombon Projects’ stand in Art-O-Rama, Marseille, August 2022. Photos: © Aurélien Meimaris.
Antoni Hervàs, “Under the firelight, the ash shines like glitter”, 2021-2022, installation view Frankfurter Kunstverein 2022, Photo: Norbert Miguletz, ©Frankfurter Kunstverein, Courtesy: the artist.
El Palomar, Schreber is a Woman, 2020, installation view Frankfurter Kunstverein 2022, Photo: Norbert Miguletz, ©Frankfurter Kunstverein, Courtesy: the artists.
Still from the video interview with Claudia Pagès about her video work “Gerundi Circular” (2021) (in Spanish with Basque subtitles).
26 October 2022: New and concluding dispatch of Incidents (of Travel) led by Jorge Satorre in Barcelona, narrated by Latitudes, creators and editors of the project since 2012. This is the 20th episode published by Kadist as part of their online programme since 2016 and also marks the 10th anniversary of the project.
Below are some photos that for one reason or another, didn't make it to the final selection of 31 images.
Small bus del barri [neighbourhood bus] route # 111 around Vallvidrera.
Analysing footprints.
(Above and below) From the Curator’s Commentary: “(...) We’re here to see what is, after the Collserola Stone, the only other known megalith in Barcelona: the Pedralbes Menhir. The builders of the monastery in the fourteenth century respected the powers of this standing stone to such a degree that they not only preserved it but constructed a gateway in the perimeter wall around it. The bulk of the stone lurks below the paved surface like a lithic iceberg, its obstinate presence in a doorway from the middle ages a kind of rude protuberance of prehistory and geologic time into a continuous present.”
Jorge admires the Egyptian-inspired pantheon of the cotton industrialists Batlló family.
28 October 2022: A surprise message from Tara McDowell sharing that after 2 years, Nino Kvrivishvili and her were finally able to meet in person in Tbilisi, Georgia! Together they followed their itinerary around the city’s former silk industry commissioned for the Incidents (of Travel) series (episode 12). Due to the pandemic, Tara’s plans to travel from Melbourne to Tbilisi had to be cancelled, so Nino “in an act of radical Georgian hospitality” – as Tara wrote in her curator’s commentary – shared her itinerary with Tara via a WhatsApp call.
In a wonderful turn of events, during their IRL meeting, Nino opened a small pop-up exhibition at Aleksandre Utmazyan's textile shop, one of the locations that appeared on Nino’s itinerary, an event that counted with the surprise visit of Georgian President, Salomé Zurabishvili.
Tara McDowell and Nino Kvrivishvili. Photo courtesy of these and three below by Tara McDowell.
View of Nino Kvrivishvili’s pop-up exhibition at the Textile shop on Queen Tamar Ave. 17, Tbilisi.
Curator Data Chigholashvili in Nino Kvrivishvili’s exhibition at the Textile shop on Queen Tamar Ave. 17 in Tbilisi.
Opening of Nino Kvrivishvili’s exhibition at the Textile shop on Queen Tamar Ave. 17 in Tbilisi. Left to right: Nino Kvrivishvili (artist), Salome Zourabichvili (President of Georgia), Aleksandre Utmazyan (the shop owner) and Data Chigholashvili (curator).
Nino and Data participated in Haus der Kulturen Welt’s programme “They Are There, Sometimes” where Nino presented her Incidents itinerary around Tbilisi (video from min 36:09).
18 November 2022: Claudia Pagès is awarded Radio Nacional de España’s Premio El Ojo Crítico de Artes Visuales 2022 for “her ability to turn words and language into an artistic tool in every possible form, a vehicle for a political message that is not afraid of confrontation and places the individual and collective body at the centre of her creative practice”.
As highlighted in this post, in 2021 Claudia presented her video installation “Gerundi Circular” at the Latitudes-curated exhibition “Panorama 21. Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls” commissioned for MACBA’s exhibition and produced with the support of ELAMOR.
Those in the curatorial business will understand that besides enjoying the art side, our analytical eyes are peeled, taking mental and photographic notes on how things are practically put together. This goes from looking at how temporary walls are built, how AV equipment is hidden, types of vitrines, how clear signage is, and of course often taking in some curious exhibition labels and poorly displayed art. Here are some random photos that only make sense for research or reference purposes. Going very meta now, behind the behind-the-scenes...
28 November 2022: First online introduction of “The Pilgrim” team, a project Latitudes curates in collaboration with Askeaton Contemporary Art in Co. Limerick, southwest Ireland, and involving Barcelona-based artist Eulàlia Rovira, and Sligo-and-Leitrim-based Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty. To be continued...
29 November 2022: DART Festival awardees announced: Premio Laie DART 2022 a la Mejor Dirección (Laie DART 2022 Award to the Best Direction): “J’ai retrouvé Christian B.” (France, 2020) directed by Alain Fleischer. The documentary is an intimate portrait tracing the relationship between two contemporary creators, the artist Christian Boltanski and the filmmaker Alain Fleischer, who shared a friendship that lasted half a century.
Premio Laie DART 2022 de la Crítica (Laie DART 2022 Critics Award): “The Melt Goes On Forever: The Art and Times of David Hammons” (EEUU, 2021). Directed by cultural journalist Judd Tully and filmmaker Harold Crooks, the documentary focuses on the elusive figure of African-American artist David Hammons, whose artistic practice spans six decades and foregrounds social criticism in the United States.
Screening at Cinemes Girona. Courtesy: DART Festival.
17 January 2023: Second Zoom of members affiliated with Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) based in Spain. In the following weeks, we organised a gathering in ARCOMadrid to explain GCC’s objectives to potential new members and meet with GCC’s volunteer groups in Berlin and Italy to learn from their experiences of building a team.
1 February 2023: Newsletter out announcing our next research and residency project “The Pilgrim” in collaboration with Askeaton Contemporary Art in Co. Limerick, Ireland, and involving the artists Eulàlia Rovira, Ruth Clinton and Niamh Moriarty.
→ More details here.
Left to right: Eulàlia Rovira (photo: Aníbal Parada), Ruth Clinton (photo: Colm Keating) and Niamh Moriarty (photo: Cian Flynn).
22–24 February 2023: During ARCOmadrid we are jurors, alongside Markus Reymann (co-director TBA21), and Marta Cardoso, of the first Six Senses Sustainable Art Award given to an artist whose work honours an awareness around sustainability and environmental urgencies. We studied and discussed the work of more than 40 artists whose work is presented at the art fair and unanimously decided to award Zé Carlos Garcia (1973, Aracajú, BR) for his presentation at the stand of Buenos Aires’s gallery PASTO.
The jury stated: “We were intrigued to discover the practice of Zé Carlos García and to learn how his enchanting carved and turned wooden sculptures are embedded in such an inventive and resourceful approach to art, environmental responsibility, decolonial practice, and land restoration. The wood he uses comes from a small tract of a forest he oversees in Brazil where non-native trees such as pines and eucalyptus were once planted by Swiss settler colonists to give the landscape a more European feel. Over the centuries these thirsty species have had a detrimental effect on the indigenous ecosystem and Zé has been removing the invasive species over the last decade, repurposing the resultant wood as a resource for his art practice, while bringing back native trees to the Mata Atlántica.”
Zé Carlos Garcia holding the sign announcing his award (above) and the award (below). Photos ARCOmadrid 2023.
The catalogue “Futuros Abundantes / Abundant Futures”, accompanying the homonymous exhibition in Córdoba, was also launched during ARCOmadrid. The 336-page book includes Latitudes’ newly commissioned essay “Un suelo para las historias del arte del futuro” [Soil for Future Art Histories] – read an abstract here (in Spanish).
(Above and below) Launch of Futuros Abundantes in ArtsLibris during ARCOmadrid 2023. Photos: IFEMA / ARCOmadrid.
“Futuros abundantes / Abundant Futures” catalogue, copublished by TBA21 and Turner, 2023. Photos: Enrico Fiorese.
After a few work sessions over Zoom, we attended the first IRL Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) gathering on February 22nd. This inaugurates the soft launch of the new formation of GCC Spain, a new national working group aligned with GCC’s core environmental targets and commitments.
GCC is an international membership non-for-profit organisation with over 800 members from 40 countries, providing environmental sustainability guidelines for the art sector, whose primary targets are to facilitate a reduction of the visual art sector’s greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 50% by 2030 (in line with the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping global warming to below 1.5°C) and promote zero-waste practices. More info.
GCC Spain is a newly formed semi-autonomous volunteer team (joining working groups in Berlin, Italy, Los Angeles, London, and Taiwan) that works to develop a dedicated platform of environmental resources for Spanish-based art organisations and professionals.
Informative gathering about GCC Spain at ARCOmadrid on @galleryclimatecoalition. Photo: Max Andrews.
March 2023: As part of Latitudes’ ongoing environmental commitment, and as new members of the Gallery Climate Coalition, we publish the first edition of our Environmental Responsibility Statement on our website (extended version here) and submit individual calculations of our Carbon Footprint from 2019 (our baseline from which reductions will be made) and 2022 to the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC). Below is a simple graphic showing the comparison of the two years. Latitudes’ carbon emissions were 17.4tCo2e in 2019 and 3.8tCo2e in 2022.
Our 2023 Strategic Climate Fund is €190. This is calculated by multiplying our 2022 carbon footprint (3.8tCo2e emissions) by €50 per tonne. We set these funds aside to be spent on low-carbon purchasing options that would otherwise be unaffordable for us.
beginning of May 2023: Checking out the Arxiu Històric de la Ciutat de Barcelona (aka Casa de l'Ardiaca), the Cathedral and its cloister, MACBA, and more with “The Pilgrim” guest resident artists Niamh Moriarty and Ruth Clinton. Aptly, as their work has often been related to the Transatlantic relations between Ireland and the United States, their stay coincides with a visit of the Obamas (and Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks) to Barcelona to catch the beginning of Bruce Springsteen's tour.
Throughout the Spring, Latitudes researched documentation in the city archives with the hopes of finding evidence of Askeaton's Pilgrim, browsing certificates of docking in the Port of Barcelona, licences of the board of health, details of boat captain promotion, health patents, and plague-free certificates. With little to no factual data on Askeaton’s Pilgrim – besides his name (Don Martínez de Mendoza), his date of death (Askeaton, 1784), that he was a Barcelona merchant from the mid-18th Century who had a flagship called Isabella, and a daughter called Beatrice (¿Beatriz / Beatriu?) – we weren't able to find further evidence of his existence.
Giving Ruth and Niamh a “phantom tour” of the Panorama exhibition a year and a half after its closing. Here Eulàlia explains her work “La perla”.
6 May 2023: After a few initial days in Barcelona, “The Pilgrim” guest resident artists Niamh Moriarty and Ruth Clinton present their work around relics, rubbings, and translation, alongside “The Pilgrim” co-curators Askeaton Contemporary Arts (ACA) (Michele Horrigan and Sean Lynch) at Eulàlia Rovira’s studio. What began as a vermut+talk event extended into pizzas for lunch, afternoon beers, and rolled into dinner.
→ Social Networks archived here.
10 May 2023: Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes qualified to be in the first cohort of Active Members of the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC). To achieve this status we demonstrated that we have implemented environmental sustainability best practices in line with GCC’s guidelines.
→ More info.
→ Environmental Policy Statement here.
16–18 May 2023: Work trip to València to visit Antoni Miralda’s exhibition “Miralda. Honeymoon: Unclassified” at Bombas Gens, curated by its artistic director Sandra Guimarães. The show centres on his “Honeymoon Project” (1986-1992), a series of intercontinental ceremonial actions around the romance and subsequent marriage between two historical monuments: that of Christopher Columbus, in the port of Barcelona, and the Statue of Liberty, in New York Bay. Max of Latitudes will review it for frieze’s October issue (online in June).
(Above) The “Zapato Góndola” (1990–2023) was exhibited in Bombas Gens’ patio. It has been remade in fibreglass in València, taking advantage of its fallas craft expertise. The heel now is removable becoming a gondola, and it's lighter than the original one made of wood.
The exhibition mostly comprised of letters and ephemera gathered throughout the 40 years of the making of the project, from its presentation in the 1990 Spanish Pavilion to the many drafted letters, invitations, posters and drawings of potential ideas for floats, parades and even a prenup.
early June 2023: Submitted a profile text on America-born Scotland-based artist, researcher, writer, and educator Crystal Bennes’ new project to be exhibited at Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, in February 2024. The text will be included in the forthcoming publication “Betwixt 2024”, the next iteration of publications of the Freelands Artist Programme. Involving tapestry, sculptural installation, video, and performance, Bennes’ new project addresses the rapaciousness and sophistry of commodities trading, an arena in which financial instruments are used to bet on the future value of raw materials and natural resources including crude oil, metals, coffee, and cotton.
Design study for a Jacquard weaving titled “pecunia non olete” (2023) featured on Latitudes’ homepage as the June 2023 cover story. Courtesy Crystal Bennes.
6–8 June 2023: Trip to Mallorca as guests of Art Palma Contemporani’s event Art Summer Palma. Honouring our environmental commitment, we traveled to the island and back by ferry as foot passengers. As the ferry dropped us in Alcúdia, we visited the nearby Pollença (galería Maior, Coster Art i Natura) and then took the bus to the Palma, paying a visit to Es Baluard before joining the official programme visiting the galleries Pep Llabrés, Xavier Fiol, Kewenig, M77, Aba Art Lab, Fran Reus, Baró, Pelaires, PGallery, L21 Home and L21 by foot.
(Above and three below) Views of Pollença from Coster Art in Natura, the artist-led initiative by pollensí Amador Magraner (third photo down) that began in 2022.
Works by Susana Solano and Eva Lootz (above and below).
Ludovica Carbotta ceramic oven in progress.
Amador showing us one of his sculptures “Germinacions” which began in the 1990s.
View of the collection reading curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio at Es Baluard.
Wonderful Maria Lai 1981 action “Legare Collegare” registered in video and photography on view at Es Baluard, Palma, and some more works in the M77 gallery, a new space in Palma of the Milan-based gallery.
Solo exhibition by Adrià Maryordomo (portrayed) at Galeria Fran Reus, Palma.
12 June 2023: The National Council for Culture and Arts (CONCA) plenary agreed to carry out a survey of Catalunya-based Art Critics and Curators, a tool to analyse the state of our profession from the economic, cultural, professional, and social points of view. An expert committee formed by representatives of ACCA, the Catalan Art Critics Association (amongst them Mariana of Latitudes, who recently became an ACCA member), the Platform of Catalan Artists (PAAC), and the Association of Cultural Management Professionals of Catalunya (APGCC) gathered at Palau Moja to share their feedback to create the most comprehensive possible survey, the results of which are aimed to be completed at the end of 2023.
Photo: Miquel-Àngel Codes Luna / ACCA.
19 June 2023: Zoom launch of GCC Spain, the Spanish chapter of the Gallery Climate Coalition. The event was an opportunity to introduce the London-based founders to Spanish professionals and explain the current and future challenges the Spanish volunteer team is taking on.
→ Watch the video here (40 min.)
→ Read the press release (in Spanish)
27 June 2023: Attending Joan Morey’s performance “POSTMORTEM. Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu” (2006–2007) at Fundació Palau as part of the Poesia + festival. Performed by Sònia López, the piece was the first of a cycle of performances presented as part of Morey’s solo show curated by Latitudes at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona back in 2018.
A better photo of the 2018 performance below.
Joan Morey, “POSTMORTEM. Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu” (2006-2007). Performance reenactment as part of the exhibition “COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine”, Contemporary Art Centre of Barcelona - Fabra i Coats (2018). Photo: Noemi Jariod. Courtesy of the artist.
28 June 2023: Visit to TERSA, the publicly-owned company that manages Barcelona's Metropolitan Area waste management, transforming residues into energy by incineration (this waste-to-energy plant generated 142.013 MWh of electricity in 2022). We go around the Integrated Waste Management Plant (PIVR) at Sant Adrià del Besòs, which includes two plants: the Waste-to-Energy Plant, and the Mechanical-Biological Treatment Plant, managed by Ecoparc del Mediterrani. This location processes what citizens throw into the grey containers – the remaining waste that cannot be reused or recycled (not paper, glass, plastic, or organic matter), whose process generates twice what's needed to supply the electricity grid of the city. The visit was organised as part of the public programme of the exhibition “Ciutat de sorra” [City of sand] by David Bestué at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani.
29 June 2023: Max Andrews’ review of Antoni Miralda’s exhibition at Bombas Gens (València) is published online on frieze.com (on print in the October 2023 issue).
“A giant high-heeled shoe with Venetian gondola trimmings stands in the courtyard of Bombas Gens Centre d’Art like a monument to fairy-tale slippers. Yet, this is a true-to-size stiletto, made to fit a 93-metre-tall debutante who stands in New York’s harbour: the Statue of Liberty. Created in 1990 by Antoni Miralda as a wedding gift for Liberty’s proposed symbolic marriage to another monument of similar vintage, the Columbus Monument in Barcelona, the original shoe was taken down the Grand Canal before forming the centrepiece to the artist’s Spanish Pavilion at that year’s Venice Biennale. This replica, fabricated by a Valencian fallero craftsman, is destined for the collection of the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid.”
→ Continue reading here.
July 2023: Further schedule and reading prep for our end-of-August research trip to Dublin, Sligo, Askeaton, and Limerick, the second part of The Pilgrim residency exchange.
RELATED CONTENT:
- Latitudes’ writing – exhibition reviews, artist profiles, interviews, catalogue essays, features, and opinions.
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2021–22 season, 1 August 2022
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2020–21 season, 2 August 2021
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2019–20 season, 3 August 2020
- Latitudes’ "out of office" 2018–19 season, 1 August 2019
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2017–18 season, 2 August 2018
- Latitudes "out of office" 2016–17 season, 1 August 2017
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2015–16 season, 1 August 2016
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2014–15 season, 7 August 2015
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2013–14 season, 31 July 2014
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2012–13 season, 31 July 2013
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2011–12 season, 31 July 2012
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2010–11 season, 1 August 2011
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2009–10 season, 30 July 2010
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2008–9 season, 30 July 2009
2022 in 11 monthly Cover Stories
Tue, Dec 27 2022Since Spring 2015 we have been publishing a monthly cover story on our homepage (www.lttds.org) featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, as well as sharing our research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or travel related to our curatorial practice.
→ RELATED CONTENT:
2022, apunts per a un incendi dels ulls, cover story, gabriel Ventura, Incidents of Travel, Jorge Satorre, Laia Estruch, MACBA, online, PUBLICS, Rasmus Nilausen, Rosa Tharrats, things things say, website, writing
Here are those published in 2022, which you can read again in this archive:
Cover Story, January 2022: “Rasmus’ Doubts”, 2 January 2022.
Cover Story, February 2022: Rosa Tharrats’ Textile Alchemy, 1 February 2022.
Cover Story, March 2022: The passion of Gabriel Ventura, 1 March 2022.
Cover Story, April 2022: Mix and Match. Laia Estruch at PUBLICS, 1 April 2022.
Cover Story, May 2022: Things Things Say in print, 2 May 2022.
Cover Story, June 2022: Cyber-Eco-Feminist Incidents in Attica, 1 June 2022.
Cover Story, July–August 2022: Incidents (of Travel) from Seoul, 1 Jul 2022.
Cover Story, September 2022: The means of print production: Erick Beltrán and lumbung press, 1 September 2022.
Cover Story, October 2022: Stray Ornithologies–Laia Estruch, 3 October 2022.
Cover Story, November 2022: Incidents (of Travel), Jorge Satorre’s Barcelona, 1 November 2022.
Cover Story, December 2022: “Melt Goes On Forever. David Hammons and DART Festival”, 1 December 2022.
→ RELATED CONTENT:
- 2019 in 10 monthly Cover Stories, 23 Dec 2019
- 2020 in 11 monthly Cover Stories, 28 Dec 2020
- 2021 in 11 monthly Cover Stories, 31 Dec 2021
Cover Story, November 2022: Jorge Satorre’s Barcelona
Tue, Nov 1 2022
November 2022 cover story on www.lttds.org
The November 2022 monthly Cover Story “Jorge Satorre’s Barcelona” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org
“Below the Tibidabo Amusement Park, just where the BV-1418 and BP-1417 roads meet, there are some stairs that go up into the forest. Climbing them, a few meters up on the right, we will find a large stone hidden among the trees.” Continue reading
After November 2022 this story will be archived here.
Cover Stories are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes’ homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial projects and activities.
→ RELATED CONTENTS:
- Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
- Cover Story, September 2021: Erratic behaviour—Latitudes in conversation with Jorge Satorre, 31 August 2021
- Web of the artist about “The Erratic. Measuring Compensation”
- Publication "Robert Smithson: Art in Continual Movement” (Alauda Publications, 2012) includes an essay by Max Andrews, 28 Mar 2012
- Lecture by Max Andrews “From Spiral to Spime: Robert Smithson, the ecological and the curatorial”, 13 March, 2pm, Lecture Theatre 1, Royal College of Art, London, 12 March 2012
- Interview with Erick Beltrán & Jorge Satorre publ “Atlántica” magazine #52, 13 Feb 2012
- Proyecto producido por Jorge Satorre para “Portscapes” (2009) expuesto en la exposición colectiva “Fat Chance to Dream”, Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, 29 Mar 2011
- 2009 Video of the making of Jorge Satorre's project
- Portscapes news: Jorge Satorre's billboard on the A15 and Paulien Oltheten's small exhibition at the visitor centre Futureland and surroundings, 2 October 2009
20th and concluding dispatch of “Incidents (of Travel)” from Barcelona, Spain
Wed, Oct 26 2022
📲 TAP, SCROLL, SWIPE and 📖 READ on incidents.kadist.org
In the twentieth and concluding dispatch of Incidents (of Travel), Latitudes, the curators and editors of the project, are led by Mexican-born, Bilbao-based artist Jorge Satorre in something of a “voyage around our room”. Manifested itself all over the world since 2016 through the perspectives of other invited curators and artists, Incidents (of Travel) now takes place in our own home: Barcelona, latitude 41° 23' 19.64" N.
Satorre’s itinerary follows a route from the north to the south of the city – from Collserola to Montjuïc – tracing wild boars, two mysterious dolmens, and the devil’s hoof prints along the way.
By chance, this episode takes place on September 19, 2022, exactly ten years later to the day of the first tour commissioned for the first phase of Incidents (of Travel), a day we spent with Minerva Cuevas around Mexico City’s city centre on the 27th anniversary of the deadly 1985 earthquake.
Episode #20 culminates Latitudes’ collaboration with KADIST, producers of 20 wonderful episodes published online between 2016 and 2022 as part of their online projects. In 2015, KADIST hosted another three tours during Latitudes’ residency at their San Francisco hub. In 2013, Spring Workshop in Hong Kong produced four itineraries within the frame of the long-term multi-part project “Moderation(s)” in partnership with (then known as) Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam, and in 2012, at the invitation of UNAM’s Casa del Lago, Latitudes commissioned the first five itineraries around Mexico City.
The second dispatch came from Jinja in Uganda, where curator Moses Serubiri invited photographer Mohsen Taha to explore Jinja's Indian architectural legacy and Idi Amin's notorious expulsion of Uganda's Asian minority in 1972.
The third episode took place while curator Yu Ji and poet Xiao Kaiyu hiked on Dong Shan (East Mountain), 130 km west of Shanghai, on a peninsula stretching into Tai Hu lake near the city of Suzhou, China.
The fourth dispatch came from Lisbon, where Galician curator Pedro de Llano visited key locations that marked the life and work of Luisa Cunha.
The fifth episode took place in April 2016, when curator Simon Soon and artist chi too visited the Malaysian North Eastern state of Terengganu, where chi spent some time in 2013, surrounded by “men and women who work(ed) multiple jobs as fishermen, housebuilders, boat builders, farmers, coconut pickers, food producers, and everything else that matters.”
The sixth episode narrates a walking itinerary conducted by curator Marianna Hovhannisyan with Vardan Kilichyan, Gohar Hosyan, and Anaida Verdyan in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, documenting the transformed, disappeared, or permanently-closed art institutions in the city centre.
The seventh episode comes from Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. It is narrated by curator Camila Marambio, following an itinerary devised by artist Lucy Bleach. They spent the day "encircling the outer limits of human understanding by visiting the histories, both past, and present, of attempts to reach beyond our sensory capacities through governance, technology, and reverie", and ended the day cooking at Lucy's home-sharing their mutual love for quinces.
In the eighth 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch Móvil co-founder and curator Alejandra Aguado followed the itinerary devised by the artist Diego Bianchi around Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Their exploration took them from the self-regulated community Velatropa to the buzzing commercial area of Once, identifying human and non-human flows and interactions. This became an entry point for discussing Bianchi's interests in how, as consumers, we define a particular zeitgeist and appropriate trends that enable us to affirm our identities.
In the ninth dispatch, Canadian curator Becky Forsythe and Icelandic artist Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir navigate Reykjavík's surroundings considering Þorgerður's “current interest in Icelandic Spar (a form of transparent calcite), its double refraction and light-polarizing properties. In a race with daylight, they travel between sites collecting moments and considering the ways in which geologic time surfaces in the context of human time.”
The tenth dispatch begins with an itinerary proposed by Barcelona-born, Rio de Janeiro-based artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané and is followed by images and videos recording a day roaming Rio's natural and artistic landscapes with Bogotá-born, Mexico City-based curator Catalina Lozano, who narrates their day spent together.
In the 11th episode, Swiss curator Sandino Scheidegger (Random Institute) visits Panama City in preparation for a solo exhibition by Donna Conlon and Jonathan Harker at Casa Santa Ana in 2021.
The places Sandino, Donna and Jonathan visited together pointed to the origin of some of their video works, the ideas behind them, or simply served as stages in their pieces, turning into “an exercise in sneaking through fences to reach former recycling plants, imagining how things looked before the skyscrapers took over, and navigating the complex social fabric of Panama City — all while getting a taste of local food between every stop.”
The 12th episode from Tbilisi, Georgia, set a different tone in the online series as it was programmed to take place in late May 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The 12th episode from Tbilisi, Georgia, set a different tone in the online series as it was programmed to take place in late May 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The itinerary set by Tbilisi-based artist Nino Kvrivishvili to lead Melbourne-based Associate Professor Tara McDowell became a WhatsApp video tour/conversation around Nino's artistic practice and the Georgian silk industry — a production that began in Tbilisi in the 5th century and continued until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s.
In the 13th dispatch, and on week 23 of lockdown, Sofía Gallisá and Marina Reyes begin their day together driving to the Cabo Rojo Salt Flats where Sofía researched her 2018 film ‘Assimilate & Destroy I’. They later end up in Poblado de Boquerón, the queer capital of Puerto Rico's south where a large public beach and a usually busy street still show traces of 2017’s devastating Hurricane Maria.
In the 14th dispatch, Singapore-based curator Kathleen Ditzig joins artists Fyerool Darma and Nurul Huda Rashid nearby ‘Safe Entry‘ (2020), a mural presented at the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) by the artist Heman Chong that repeats a single, enlarged QR code, “the new digital skin of the city”, as Nurul points out. From there, they head towards the boardwalk connecting Harbourfront with Sentosa Island, the pleasure island home to many tourist attractions. Fyerool and Nurul weave in stories of past pirates and deities against the backdrop of the glass-green waters that stage the “blue aesthetics against the imported sands [from Indonesia] of reclaimed lands.”
In the 15th dispatch curator Àngels Miralda (current participant of de Appel's Curatorial Programme 2020-21) and artist Salim Bayri (current resident at Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten 2019–21) follow a tour created during the winter 2021 Covid-19 restrictions in the Netherlands.
Their day in Amsterdam together features public sports locations as social meeting spaces, as well as urban architecture, a visit to a supermarket chain, and a food takeaway.
In the 16th dispatch, curator Marie-Nour Hechaime navigates Beirut with artist-filmmaker Panos Aprahamian a year after the August 2020 explosion, when hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate stored for six years without safekeeping in the port of the Lebanese capital were set on fire and exploded. The blast killed more than 200 deaths, 6,500 wounded, 300,000 displaced and great destruction in the city [1]. “I say that I am living with ghosts—of people, places, memories, stories”, she reflects. “He answers that Beirut is disintegrating in front of our very eyes.”
In the 17th dispatch, curator Inga Lāce and artist Linda Boļšakova forage for environmental histories in Riga. The day that takes them from manicured park lawns to a thicket of sea buckthorn bushes near a “post-apocalyptic” sauna, and from a housing project allotment to the laboratories of the National Botanic Garden of Latvia.
In the 18th dispatch, curator Xenia Kalpaktsoglou and artist Pegy Zali conceive an itinerary and a screenplay-like commentary that takes us through the Attica peninsula, from a mysterious inscription sprayed at the site of a railway sabotage that transpired near Piraeus Port in 2010, to the vestiges of an enormous wildfire that consumed the forest around Alepochori in 2021. Formed through their long-standing friendship and shared research interests, this episode flows around Greece’s links with the emerging infrastructure of China’s New Silk Road, and the “cyber-eco-feminist” traces of the goddess Gaia.
In the 19th episode of Incidents (of Travel), curator Sooyoung Leam reports on a day exploring Yongsan-gu, a district at the heart of Seoul, and the neighbourhood of artist Jeong Yeoreum. Documented by photographer and videographer Swan Park, Sooyoung and Jeong explore this conflicted territory that served as the headquarters of the Imperial Japanese Army between 1910 and 1945, and subsequently as a US military base.
Episode #19 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by curator Sooyoung Leam and artist Jeong Yeoreum from Seoul, 22 June 2022
Episode #18 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by curator Xenia Kalpaktsoglou and artist Pegy Zali from Attica, 18 April 2022
Episode #17 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by curator Inga Lāce and artist Linda Boļšakova from Riga, 28 December 2021
Episode #16 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marie-Nour Hechaime and Panos Aprahamian from Beirut, 3 October 2021
Episode #15 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Àngels Miralda and Salim Bayri from Amsterdam, 13 May 2021
Episode #14 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Kathleen Ditzig and artists Fyerool Darma and Nurul Huda Rashid from Singapore, 21 December 2020
Episode #12 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Nino Kvrivishvili and Tara McDowell from Tbilisi, 25 Jun 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=7159211982397983135/episode-12-of-incidents-of-travel
Episode #11 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Sandino Scheidegger and Donna Conlon & Jonathan Harker from Panama City, 9 April 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=4425215029591365006/11-episode-of-incidents-of-travel
Tenth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Catalina Lozano and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané from Rio de Janeiro,
29 January 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=144735152408473327/tenth-episode-of-incidents-of-travel
The ninth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Becky Forsythe and Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir, 8 February 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=6371927610418460689
The eighth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Alejandra Aguado and Diego Bianchi, 6 September 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=8721104601538735691
The seventh episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Camila Marambio and Lucy Bleach from Hobart, Tasmania, 28 June 2018
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=1055853895543348027
The sixth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marianna Hovhannisyan and students from the National Center of Aesthetics from Yerevan, Armenia, 1 March 2018
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=5887133486742947361
The fifth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Simon Soon and chi too from Terengganu, Malaysia, 26 April 2017
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4083951540089486920
The fourth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Pedro de Llano and Luisa Cunha from Lisbon, Portugal, 2 March 2017
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4185860148466062617
The third episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Yu JI and Xiao Kaiyu reporting from Suzhou, China, 6 September 2016
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1437935620149738144
Second 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch by Moses Serubiri and Mohsen Taha reporting from Jinja, Uganda, 30 June 2016
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=2504250800654900933
Kadist and Latitudes present 'Incidents (Of Travel)' online, 31 May 2016
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1076947282278624159
Episode #13 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marina Reyes and Sofía Gallisá from Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, 27 Sep 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=7159211982397983135/episode-12-of-incidents-of-travel
Episode #11 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Sandino Scheidegger and Donna Conlon & Jonathan Harker from Panama City, 9 April 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=4425215029591365006/11-episode-of-incidents-of-travel
Tenth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Catalina Lozano and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané from Rio de Janeiro,
29 January 2020
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=144735152408473327/tenth-episode-of-incidents-of-travel
The ninth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Becky Forsythe and Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir, 8 February 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=6371927610418460689
The eighth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Alejandra Aguado and Diego Bianchi, 6 September 2019
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=8721104601538735691
The seventh episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Camila Marambio and Lucy Bleach from Hobart, Tasmania, 28 June 2018
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=1055853895543348027
The sixth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Marianna Hovhannisyan and students from the National Center of Aesthetics from Yerevan, Armenia, 1 March 2018
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=5887133486742947361
The fifth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Simon Soon and chi too from Terengganu, Malaysia, 26 April 2017
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4083951540089486920
The fourth episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Pedro de Llano and Luisa Cunha from Lisbon, Portugal, 2 March 2017
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=4185860148466062617
The third episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Yu JI and Xiao Kaiyu reporting from Suzhou, China, 6 September 2016
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1437935620149738144
Second 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch by Moses Serubiri and Mohsen Taha reporting from Jinja, Uganda, 30 June 2016
https://www.lttds.org/longitudes/index.php?id=2504250800654900933
Kadist and Latitudes present 'Incidents (Of Travel)' online, 31 May 2016
http://www.lttds.org/blog/blog.php?id=1076947282278624159
2021 in eleven monthly cover stories
Fri, Dec 31 2021Since Spring 2015, Latitudes has published a monthly cover story on its homepage www.lttds.org featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, as well as ongoing research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects, or travel related to our curatorial practice. Here's how 2021 looked like on our homepage.
Cover Story–May 2021: RAF goes viral, 2 May 2021
Cover Story–June 2021: Fitness food: Salim Bayri's Amsterdam, 31 May 2021.
Cover Story, July–August 2021: A wide view from a fixed point, 1 July 2021.
Cover Story–September 2021: Cover Story, September 2021: Erratic behaviour—Latitudes in conversation with Jorge Satorre
Cover Story–October 2021: Fear and Loathing in Lebanon, 1 Oct 2021
Cover Story–November 2021: Notes for an Eye Fire, 2 Nov 2021
Cover Story, December 2021: Between Meier and Meller: Toni and Pau at the Teatre Arnau, 1 Dec 2021
- 2019 in 10 monthly Cover Stories, 23 Dec 2019
- 2020 in 11 monthly Cover Stories, 28 Dec 2020
Conversación en línea con Jorge Satorre, 22 de septiembre a las 19h UTC
Tue, Sep 14 2021
Jorge Satorre, “The Erratic. Measuring Compensation” (2009). Cortesía del artista.
El 22 de septiembre 2021 a las 19h (UTC -5) se transmitirá a través de Facebook Live del Museo Amparo una conversación que mantuvimos con el artista Jorge Satorre (Ciudad de México, 1979). La conversación quedará registrada en el canal Youtube del museo.
Programada dentro del ciclo ‘‘Diálogos con artistas de la Colección de Arte Contemporáneo”, la conversación se enmarca dentro de la programación de la exposición “El tiempo en las cosas” curada por Tatiana Cuevas en las Salas de Arte Contemporáneo del Museo Amparo en Puebla, México.
La conversación giró entorno al proceso de producción de “The Erratic. Measuring Compensation” (2010), actualmente incluída en la exposición “El tiempo en las cosas”, realizada por Satorre y comisionada por Latitudes como uno de los diez proyectos producidos a lo largo del 2009 en el espacio público del Puerto de Rotterdam, en los Países Bajos.
Durante el verano de 2009, Satorre buscó y localizó una de las gigantescas rocas que los glaciares llevaron a los Países Bajos desde Escandinavia durante la última Edad de Hielo. A raíz de la fascinación del artista por los proyectos de compensación medioambiental que se llevaron a cabo durante el proyecto de ampliación portuaria Maasvlakte 2 (2008–13), Satorre con la ayuda de un equipo de científicos identificó el lugar de origen de un bloque errático y lo devolvió a su lugar de origen, un acto de restitución sintética y compensación escultórica transnacional.
El gesto geológico inverso de Satorre además de reflejar la construcción monumental de Maasvlakte 2 como una escultura de la forma de la tierra que, como la acción del deshielo pero en un tiempo mucho más corto, está alterando para siempre la morfología de los Países Bajos. La acción también se refleja en el hecho de que gran parte de la defensa marítima existente y futura en la zona portuaria se hará con roca traída de Escandinavia. Satorre ofrece un relato del proceso de devolución a través de dibujos que incorporan detalles reales e imaginarios. Uno de estos detalles representa una protesta imaginada al comienzo del viaje de vuelta a casa de la roca y fue presentado a modo de prólogo del proyecto en una valla publicitaria en el Puerto de Rotterdam, el puerto más grande de Europa.
Portscapes fue un encargo de la Autoridad Portuaria de Rotterdam con el asesoramiento y apoyo de la desaparecida organización SKOR (Fundación Arte y Espacio Público, Ámsterdam), y fue curado por Latitudes. En este contexto se encargaron proyectos a Lara Almarcegui, Bik van der Pol, Jan Dibbets, Marjolijn Dijkman, Fucking Good Art, Ilana Halperin, Christina Hemauer & Roman Keller, Paulien Oltheten, Hans Schabus y a Jorge Satorre, quien realizó “The Erratic. Measuring Compensation” (2010).
Jorge Satorre, “The Erratic. Measuring Compensation” (2009). Cortesía del artista. Foto: B. Wind.
→ CONTENIDO RELACIONADO:
- Cover Story, September 2021: Erratic behaviour—Latitudes in conversation with Jorge Satorre, 31 August 2021
- Portscapes project page
- Portscapes photo documentation
- Web of the artist about ‘The Erratic. Measuring Compensation’
- Review of the exhibition "What cannot be used is forgotten" in the May issue of frieze 29 April 2015
- Publication "Robert Smithson: Art in Continual Movement" (Alauda Publications, 2012) includes essay by Max Andrews, 28 Mar 2012
- Lecture by Max Andrews "From Spiral to Spime: Robert Smithson, the ecological and the curatorial", 13 March, 2pm, Lecture Theatre 1, Royal College of Art, London, 12 March 2012
- Interview with Erick Beltrán & Jorge Satorre publ 'Atlántica' magazine #52, 13 Feb 2012
- Proyecto producido por Jorge Satorre para 'Portscapes' (2009) expuesto en la exposición colectiva 'Fat Chance to Dream', Maisterravalbuena, Madrid, 29 Mar 2011
- 2009 Video of the making of Jorge Satorre's project
- Portscapes news: Jorge Satorre's billboard on the A15 and Paulien Oltheten small exhibition at the visitor centre Futureland and surroundings, 2 October 2009
Cover Story, September 2021: Erratic behaviour—Latitudes in conversation with Jorge Satorre
Tue, Aug 31 2021September 2021 cover story on www.lttds.org
The September 2021 monthly Cover Story “Erratic behaviour—Latitudes in conversation with Jorge Satorre” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org
“In 2008 the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the largest in Europe, began a dramatic project to extending its land by 20% into the sea. Known as Maasvlakte 2, the construction involved bringing more than 5 million tons of rock from Scandinavia for the construction of dikes and dams, alongside a programme of ecological offsetting. ”
→ After September 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
- Cover Story–July-August 2021: Panorama: a wide view from a fixed point, 2 July 2021
- Cover Story–June 2021: ‘Fitness food: Salim Bayri’s Amsterdam’, 1 June 2021
- Cover Story–May 2021: RAF goes viral, 2 May 2021
- Cover Story—April 2021: Cover Story – April 2021: Lara Almarcegui at La Panera, 2 Apr 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
Review of the exhibition "What cannot be used is forgotten" in the May issue of frieze
Wed, Apr 29 2015
Entrance to the group exhibition "Ce qui ne sert pas s'oublie".
As reported earlier in this channel, at the end of last January we visited the exhibition 'Ce qui ne sert pas s’oublie' (What Cannot be Used is Forgotten)' (on view until 3 May 2015) at CAPC musée d'art coontemporain in Bordeaux.
Curated by Mexico-based Colombian-born curator Catalina Lozano, the exhibition presents the work of Mathieu K. Abonnenc, Sven Augustijnen, Mariana Castillo Deball, Sean Lynch, Pauline M’Barek, Museo Comunitario del Valle de Xico, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Uriel Orlow, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz and Jorge Satorre.
Below is a fragment of Max Andrews' frieze review, published in the May 2015 issue of frieze magazine (#171):
‘What cannot be used is forgotten’ proposed a biographical approach to objects and the histories and allegiances they can constitute. With an emphasis on eroding the legacy of colonial-era ethnography and archaeology, the exhibition comprised the contributions of ten artists who emphasized the accrual and dispersal of objects' meaning over time. Objects were broken apart, animated, revered, rumoured, memorized, melted; or – as in Pauline M’Barek’s sculptures mimicking display stands for imagined wooden masks – missing altogether. Sometimes, objects were not comfortably objects at all, but textiles or techniques. Occasionally they were alibis employed to provoke historical revision and necessitate textual commentary. In Uriel Orlow’s A Very Fine Cast (110 years) (2007), works ingested past traces of such commentary (captions taken from European museums’ descriptions of the Benin Bronzes robbed by the British punitive Benin Expedition of 1897).
– Max Andrews
Installation view of Sean Lynch's 'A blog-by-blow account of stone-carving in Oxford' (2014).
General view of the exhibition. (Right Wall) Museo Comunitario del Valle de Xico (Community Museum of the Xico Valley).
Report from Bordeaux: Visit to CAPC/Musée d'Art Contemporain's shows of Franz Ehrard Walther and the group show "Ce qui ne sert pas s'oublie" (27 January 2015)
Review of Maria Thereza Alves' exhibition at CAAC Sevilla published in frieze magazine (9 March 2015)
art-agenda review on Andrea Büttner show "Tische", at NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona (21 July 2014)
–
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.
Report from Bordeaux: Visit to CAPC/Musée d'Art Contemporain's shows of Franz Ehrard Walther and the group show "Ce qui ne sert pas s'oublie"
Tue, Jan 27 2015
Views of Franz Erhard Walther's show "Le Corps décide" from CAPC's mezzanine.
The exhibition 'Franz Erhard Walther: Le Corps décide' was initiated by WIELS Centre d’Art Contemporain, in Brussels – see a video of its iteration here – and has been co-produced together with CAPC musée d'art contemporain in Bordeaux, alongside The Franz Erhard Walther Foundation. The exhibition is accompanied by a beautiful publication that includes brightly colored pop up shapes that spread throughout the book.
From Wiels' website... "Franz Erhard Walther’s exhibition offers an in-depth look at an influential German artist whose pioneering work straddles minimalist sculpture, conceptual art, abstract painting, and performance all while positing fundamental questions about the conventional idea of the artwork as an immutable, obdurate pedestal or wall-bound thing. Bringing together pivotal works made between the 1950s and the present, this exhibition focuses on Walther’s ability to transform notions of object-hood and perception through drawings, paintings, fabric sculptures, participatory forms, language-based works, photographic documentation and archival material."
On the second floor, CAPC just opened 'Ce qui ne sert pas s’oublie' (What Cannot be Used is Forgotten) (22 January–3 May 2015) a group show curated by Mexico-based Colombian-born curator Catalina Lozano, that includes works by Mathieu K. Abonnenc, Sven Augustijnen, Mariana Castillo Deball, Sean Lynch, Pauline M’Barek, Museo Comunitario del Valle de Xico, Wendelien van Oldenborgh, Uriel Orlow, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz and Jorge Satorre.
The exhibition "deals with the mutating statuses of objects in relation to the possible historical narratives, especially those related to colonial past an present and the layers of cultural, spiritual and identity production that stem from them. Objects carry a wealth of immaterial aspects in and around their materiality, constituted by means of the relations they form with others, both human and non-human... This exhibition seeks to understand how our relation to the material world entails endless processes of assimilation, acculturation, re-appropriation, ritualisation which in their complexity whiteness and embody the historical binds in which they are caught." [this and following quotations describing each work are taken from the exhibition leaflet].
The exhibition is accompanied by a French/Spanish publication (Les Presses du Réel, 2015) with contributions by Mathieu K. Abonnenc, Mariana Castillo Deball, Catalina Lozano, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz and Jorge Satorre.
The exhibition "deals with the mutating statuses of objects in relation to the possible historical narratives, especially those related to colonial past an present and the layers of cultural, spiritual and identity production that stem from them. Objects carry a wealth of immaterial aspects in and around their materiality, constituted by means of the relations they form with others, both human and non-human... This exhibition seeks to understand how our relation to the material world entails endless processes of assimilation, acculturation, re-appropriation, ritualisation which in their complexity whiteness and embody the historical binds in which they are caught." [this and following quotations describing each work are taken from the exhibition leaflet].
The exhibition is accompanied by a French/Spanish publication (Les Presses du Réel, 2015) with contributions by Mathieu K. Abonnenc, Mariana Castillo Deball, Catalina Lozano, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz and Jorge Satorre.
Entrance to the group exhibition "Ce qui ne sert pas s'oublie".
The first room of the exhibition featured 'Killing Pots' (2013–14), a series of sculptural works by Jorge Satorre (1979, Mexico). Information about these pieces can be found in this extensive text by curator Caterina Riva.
Sean Lynch (1978, Ireland), 'A blog-by-blow account of stone-carving in Oxford', (2014) an installation composed of photographs, sculptures and a video projection "exploring the oeuvre of nineteenth-century stone-carvers John and James O’Shea, who carved monkeys, cats, owls and parrots on buildings in Oxford and Dublin."
(Left) 'Nocturne' (2015) a video by Beatriz Santiago Muñoz (1972, Puerto Rico); (right) Mathieu K. Abonnenc (1977, French Guyana) 'Sas titre (des corps entassés'), (2012) and 'Names and surnames' (2012-13).
The show closes with two works produced in 2007 by Uriel Orlow (1973, Switzerland): "Lost Wax" and "A Very Fine Cast (110 Years)". The first deals with the production of brass-casting artefacts in Benin City, Nigeria, produced via this already out of use technique. The latter (below) is a series of 28 engravings displaying descriptions of artefacts from museum cataloguing systems, revealing the racist and colonial narratives that lie within the looted objects that are now part of European museum collections.
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.
Sean Lynch, 'A blog-by-blow account of stone-carving in Oxford' (2014).
(Left) 'Nocturne' (2015) a video by Beatriz Santiago Muñoz (1972, Puerto Rico); (right) Mathieu K. Abonnenc (1977, French Guyana) 'Sas titre (des corps entassés'), (2012) and 'Names and surnames' (2012-13).(Left) Sven Augustijnen (1970, Belgium) series of photographs 'L'Histoire Belge' (2007) "question the monumentality of Belgium's history and any optimistic relation to its past, including its colonial incursions in Africa"; (right) 'Nocturne' (2015) a video by Beatriz Santiago Muñoz (1972, Puerto Rico) focusing on syncretic religions from the Caribbean, namely Haitian Vodou, characterised by the flexibility they show towards drastic change, be it geographical, social, material or natural".
General view of the exhibition. (Right wall) Museo Comunitario del Valle de Xico (Community Museum of the Xico Valley), a community organisation founded in 1996 "entrusted with the safeguard and display of pre-colonial remains found by the neighbours of the locality over the past few decades."
(Above) Detail of Mariana Castillo Deball (1975, Mexico) "Le Problème de Molyneux" (2001) "addressing the immediacy of experiencing an object without seeing it and the subjective construction of its image".
Room with "Showcase" (2012), "Rope" (2013), "Trophy stands" (2011) and "Semiophores" (2013), all works by Pauline M'barek (1979, Germany).
(Above) Wendelien van Oldenborgh (1972, The Netherlands), "La Javaise" (2012). "Shot in the former Colonial Institute in Amsterdam, explores the links between colonialism and globalisation through the example of Vlisco, a Dutch firm producing textiles for the African market."
The show closes with two works produced in 2007 by Uriel Orlow (1973, Switzerland): "Lost Wax" and "A Very Fine Cast (110 Years)". The first deals with the production of brass-casting artefacts in Benin City, Nigeria, produced via this already out of use technique. The latter (below) is a series of 28 engravings displaying descriptions of artefacts from museum cataloguing systems, revealing the racist and colonial narratives that lie within the looted objects that are now part of European museum collections.
Related Content:
- Report from the Amsterdam Art Weekend, 27–30 November 2014 (2 December 2014)
- Report from London's Frieze week 2014 (27 October 2014)
- Report from Madrid: Exhibitions during Apertura 2014 Gallery Weekend (15 September 2014)
- Report from Glasgow: Lecture at The Common Guild and studio and gallery visits (4 December 2013)
- Report from Paris: FIAC week, 21–28 October 2013 (5 November 2013)
- Report from Athens: "AGORA", 4th Athens Biennale 2013 (4 November 2013)
- Report from New York: Gramsci Monument, visiting critics at ISCP, Carol Bove at The High Line and galleries route (23 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)
Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Publication "Robert Smithson: Art in Continual Movement" (Alauda Publications, 2012) includes essay by Max Andrews
Wed, Mar 28 2012 |
| Cover of the publication. All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org |
We just received a copy of the wonderful and long-awaited publication "Robert Smithson: Art in Continual Movement" (Alauda Publications, 2012) for which Max Andrews of Latitudes contributes the essay "A Dark Spot of Exasperation: From Smithson to the Spime" (an essay which was the basis of his recent lecture at the Royal College of Art in London).
Pages 44-45, with the section "Art, Research, Ecology".
Robert Smithson's seminal Land Art work Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (Emmen, The Netherlands, 1971) is treated as a case study that opens up to a
number of topics, still relevant in contemporary art: 'Models of
Spectatorship', 'Art, Research, Ecology', 'Documentation', 'Museum,
Media, Society' and 'The Cinematic'."
Above: pages with Max Andrews' essay "A Dark Spot of Exasperation: From Smithson to the Spime".
Max Andrews' essay "A Dark Spot of Exasperation: From Smithson to the Spime".
In his text, Andrews stresses that Smithson's innovations in terms of post-studio practice are not about "the question where, or what is the work of art?", but about investigating the structure of the multiple elements which constitute the form of an art project and its place in the world. According to Andrews, the essential feature of Smithson's kinship to post-studio practice is not so much his institutional critique, but a move away from the museum and the curator as existing power structures to a "curatorial function which incorporates a social ecology: a new meaning- and value-generating system in and around art." In his essay, Andrews traces the points of congruence between Smithson and the practices of contemporary artists like Lara Almarcegui, Jorge Satorre and Cyprien Gaillard.
Documentation pages, clippings from 1987.
Pages 150-151, Section "A Living Archive – Film"
Page 194-195, Section "A Living Archive"
Pages 208-209, Section "A Living Archive"
The 240-page monograph publication will be launched on 30 March 2012 in The Hague during the symposia Rethinking Robert Smithson organised by the publishers in cooperation with Leiden University Institute for Cultural Disciplines.
Initiator and publisher: Alauda Publications
Edited by: Ingrid Commandeur and Trudy van Riemsdijk-Zandee
Authors: Max Andrews, Eric C.H. de Bruyn, Stefan Heidenreich, Sven Lütticken, Anja Novak, Vivian van Saaze
Design: Esther Krop
ISBN: 9789081531481
Edited by: Ingrid Commandeur and Trudy van Riemsdijk-Zandee
Authors: Max Andrews, Eric C.H. de Bruyn, Stefan Heidenreich, Sven Lütticken, Anja Novak, Vivian van Saaze
Design: Esther Krop
ISBN: 9789081531481
Price: 39,95 Euro
Available in bookshops or order online: alaudapublications.nl
Available in bookshops or order online: alaudapublications.nl
Related links:
- September 2011 blog post on The Land Art Contemporary programme in Denthe, The Netherlands.