Longitudes

Report: Latitudes' participation in the festival TODAY IS OUR TOMORROW initiated by PUBLICS in Helsinki

 04 Oct 2019
Poster announcing the festival in a street in central Helsinki. Photo: Latitudes.



As partner organisation in the transdisciplinary festival ‘Today Is Our Tomorrow’ initiated by PUBLICS, Latitudes participation consisted in inviting Argentinian-born, Amsterdam-based artist Mercedes Azpilicueta, to perform at Club Kaiku on September 13, 2019.

Façade of Kaiku, Helsinki.

A day earlier, Latitudes and Mercedes maintained an open conversation introducing her artistic practice and, in particular advancing details of both her ‘Yegua-Yeta-Yuta’ performance taking place a day after, her forthcoming solo exhibition at CentroCentro, Madrid, opening October 3, 2019, and her solo presentation as part of Van Abbemuseum's ‘Positions #5’, a series of exhibitions presenting the work of artists working in the Netherlands.

September 12, 2019, 5:30–6:30h: (Above and below) Mercedes, Mariana and Max (Latitudes) in conversation at Club Kaiku. Photo: Jonni Korhonen/PUBLICS.
Photo: Jonni Korhonen/PUBLICS.
Photo: Aman Askarizad/PUBLICS.

Azpilicueta performed ‘Yegua-yeta-yuta’ (2015-ongoing), an evolving solo performance that is part scripted, part improvised. Composed from a litany of hundreds of pejorative, abusive, and vulgar insults directed at women in Argentina, it transforms the everyday language of misogyny and harassment into a kind of tragicomic exorcism. Many of the words derive from the street slang of Buenos Aires, especially Lunfardo, a colloquial and cryptic dialect that first arose among working-class Italian-immigrant and tango communities in Argentina and Uruguay during the late 1800s. For example, yegua literally means a mare – a female horse, a slur for a “difficult” woman. A yeta is a person who brings bad luck, while a yuta is someone corrupt or unscrupulous, and slang for the police. Accompanied by a percussive beat, Azpilicueta reclaims the power to offend, distorting and distending the epithets into something powerful and playful rather than weak and degrading. Azpilicueta performed to the beat of a new soundtrack produced for the occasion in collaboration with Chilean choreographer Rodrigo Sobarzo de Larraechea.


Photo: Aman Askarizad/PUBLICS.
Mercedes Azpilicueta during her performance ‘Yegua-Yeta-Yuta’ (2015-ongoing) for TODAY IS OUR TOMORROW festival, organised by PUBLICS, Helsinki. Photo: Latitudes.

Photo: Jonni Korhonen/PUBLICS.
Photo: Aman Askarizad/PUBLICS.
Photo: Kush Badhwar/PUBLICS.
Photo: Kush Badhwar/PUBLICS.
Photo: Kush Badhwar/PUBLICS.
Photo: Kush Badhwar/PUBLICS.
Photo: Latitudes.

Mercedes Azpilicueta is an Argentinian visual and performance artist based in Amsterdam. Her practice has spanned theatrical mises-en-scènes and video installations, textile sculptures and drawing, sound works and 3D animation. With a particular interest in notions of the vulnerable or collective body, and the primal or dissident voice, her works have drawn inspiration from sources as diverse as Baroque painting, text messaging, medieval tapestries, street slang, and literary fiction, as well as singular figures including the Italian art critic and feminist activist Carla Lonzi (1931–1982), the Argentine-French performance artist Lea Lublin (1929–1999), the French futurist Valentine de Saint-Point (1875–1953), and the Costa Rican-born Mexican ranchera singer Chavela Vargas (1919–2012). A major survey of Azpilicueta’s work to date, ‘Cuerpos Pájaros’ (Body-birds) was recently staged by the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art (November 2018–April 2019 — see Latitudes' Buenos Aires report). On October 3, 2019, she presents ‘Bestiario de Lengüitas’ (Bestiaire of Tonguelets), curated by Virginie Bobin, at CentroCentro, Madrid, an exhibition which will then tour to Museion, Bozen, and CAC Brétigny in 2020. Later in 2019, she will have a solo presentation as part of ‘Positions #5’ at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.


(Above) Mercedes during her performance ‘Oh, Eduarda!’ on April 14, 2019, presented at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires. Photo: Latitudes.



→ RELATED CONTENTS
 2019, conversations, documentation, Helsinki, in photos, Latitudes-curated, Mercedes Azpilicueta, partner organisation, performance, PUBLICS, report

Partner organisation in ‘Today Is Our Tomorrow’, participation with Mercedes Azpilicueta, PUBLICS – club Kaiku, Helsinki, 12–14 September 2019

 02 Sep 2019
Graphic identity of the art festival. Design: julia.studio.


‘Today Is Our Tomorrow’ is a collaborative, collective, and transdisciplinary festival initiated by Helsinki-based curatorial agency PUBLICS, produced in partnership with local and international organisations, initiatives and institutions. The programme will include a co-commissioned and collaboratively curated programme of temporary public art commissions, live performance, music, dance, theatre, literature and symposia, and will pilot in Club Kaiku complex in Kallio, an underground music venue renowned for hosting an innovative lineup of DJs, and the neighbouring spaces Kieku and Stidilä.

The 2019 edition of ‘Today Is Our Tomorrow’ is curated, commissioned, organised in collaboration with the Finnish partners: Academy of Fine Arts, Baltic Circle, Globe Art Point, IHME Helsinki, Kohta Gallery, Live Art and Performance Studies (LAPS), and Museum of Impossible Forms, and the international partners Index Foundation from Stockholm, osloBIENNALEN from Oslo, the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art from Riga, and Latitudes from Barcelona.

The programme looks at ‘other’ versions of the present already being lived in Finland and globally: from Alternative futures to Indigenous-futures, to Afro-futures, to Asian-futures, to Eco-futures, to Bio-futures, to Queer and Feminist futures, and to non-hegemonic futures.

Graphic identity of the art festival.


At the invitation of PUBLICS to participate in the festival, Latitudes has invited Buenos Aires-born, Amsterdam-based artist Mercedes Azpilicueta to present her performance ‘Yegua-yeta-yuta’ at Kieku (ground loor, next to Stidilä) on Friday 13 September, 11–11:30pm. A day earlier, on Thursday 12 September, Latitudes will be in conversation with the artist at 5:30h also at Kieku.

‘Yegua-yeta-yuta’ (2015-ongoing) is an evolving solo performance by Azpilicueta that is part scripted, part improvised. Composed from a litany of hundreds of pejorative, abusive, and vulgar insults directed at women in Argentina, it transforms the everyday language of misogyny and harassment into a kind of tragicomic exorcism. Many of the words derive from the street slang of Buenos Aires, especially Lunfardo, a colloquial and cryptic dialect that first arose among working-class Italian-immigrant and tango communities in Argentina and Uruguay during the late 1800s. For example, yegua literally means a mare – a female horse, a slur for a “difficult” woman. A yeta is a person who brings bad luck, while a yuta is someone corrupt or unscrupulous, and slang for the police. Accompanied by a percussive beat, Azpilicueta reclaims the power to offend, distorting and distending the epithets into something powerful and playful rather than weak and degrading. Azpilicueta will perform to the beat of a new soundtrack produced for the occasion in collaboration with Chilean choreographer Rodrigo Sobarzo de Larraechea. 

Mercedes Azpilicueta performing ‘Yegua-yeta-yuta’ during the 2017 CA2M Picnic Sessions, Móstoles (Madrid). Photo: Arantxa Boyero.


Mercedes Azpilicueta is an Argentine visual and performance artist based in Amsterdam. Her practice has spanned theatrical mises-en-scènes and video installations, textile sculptures and drawing, sound works and 3D animation. With a particular interest in notions of the vulnerable or collective body, and the primal or dissident voice, her works have drawn inspiration from sources as diverse as Baroque painting, text messaging, medieval tapestries, street slang, and literary fiction, as well as singular figures including the Italian art critic and feminist activist Carla Lonzi (1931–1982), the Argentine-French performance artist Lea Lublin (1929–1999), the French futurist Valentine de Saint-Point (1875–1953), and the Costa Rican-born Mexican ranchera singer Chavela Vargas (1919–2012). A major survey of Azpilicueta’s work to date, ‘Cuerpos Pájaros’ (Body-birds) was recently staged by the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art (November 2018–April 2019). In October 2019 she will present ‘Bestiario de Lengüitas’ (Bestiaire of Tonguelets), curated by Virginie Bobin, at CentroCentro, Madrid, an exhibition which will then tour to Museion, Bozen, and CAC Brétigny in 2020. Later in 2019, she will have a solo presentation as part of ‘Positions #5’ at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven.

(Above) ‘Bestiario de lengüitas’ (2017-ongoing) pieces included in Mercedes Azpilicueta's solo show ‘Cuerpo pájaros’ recently programmed at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires. Photo: Latitudes.

Running parallel during the same week (9–14 September), Latitudes will attend the ‘Gathering for Rehearsing Hospitalities’, a six-day event organised by Frame Contemporary Art Finland in which artists, curators, researchers, and audiences in the field of contemporary art ‘are invited to rehearse and debate hospitality towards diverse ways of knowing and challenging of dominant knowledges’. Alongside the public programme, Frame will arrange studio visits, one-on-one meetings and networking situations.

(Two Above) Moments from the performance ‘Oh, Eduarda!’ on April 14, 2019, also presented at the Museo de Arte Moderno in Buenos Aires. Photos: Latitudes.


→ RELATED CONTENTS:
 2019, artist talk, conversations, Helsinki, Latitudes-curated, Mercedes Azpilicueta, participation, partner organisation, performance

Joan Morey awarded the Botín Foundation's International Visual Arts Grant

 22 Jul 2019
Joan during the installation of the exhibition 'COLAPSO' in Fabra i Coats. Centre d'Art Contemporani, September 2018. A three-part project curated by Latitudes. Photo: Max Andrews.


Latitudes congratulate Joan Morey, one of the eight beneficiaries of the 27th edition of the Botín Foundation's International Visual Arts Grants. His project ‘LA INFLUYENTE’ will be exhibited at the Botín Centre in 2021. 
‘LA INFLUYENTE’ is a research and artistic creation project around the mechanisms of conversion of the body into symbolic capital, a speculative element and product of veneration, which takes the relics of Saint Teresa of Ávila as its starting point.


Performance by Joan Morey, "POSTMORTEM. Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu" (2006-2007). Reenactment by Sònia Gómez programmed within the framework of the exhibition "COLLAPSE. Desiring machine, working machine", Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats, 27 September 2018. Curated by Latitudes. Photo: Noemi Jariod. Courtesy the artist.


Last year, Latitudes curated Morey's three-venue project ‘COLLAPSE’ presented at the Centre d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats (20 September 2018–13 January 2019), the Centre d'art Tecla Sala in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat (15 November 2018–13 January 2019), and a new site-specific performance presented at the former prison La Model (10 January 2019) in Barcelona's Eixample district.


(Above and below) View of the exhibition by Joan Morey, ‘COLLAPSE. Social Body’ at the Centre d'art Tecla Sala, Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona), 15 November 2018–13 January 2019. Photos © ArtWorkPhoto.eu Courtesy of the artist.



Joan Morey, ‘Schizophrenic Machine’ site-specific performance at the former Panopticon-inspired prison La Model, Barcelona, 10 January 2019. Copyright: Photo by Noemí Jariod. Courtesy of the artist.


A year earlier, the artists Antoni Hervàs and Anna Moreno were also beneficiaries of the Botín Foundation visual arts grant. Both Moreno and Hervàs were awarded Barcelona Producció Visual Arts grants in 2017 and 2016, respectively, and both their projects were tutored by Latitudes.


View of Antoni Hervàs solo exhibition ‘El misterio de Caviria’, La Capella, Barcelona Producció 2016. Photo: Pep Herrero / La Capella.

Anna Moreno's publication project ‘The Drowned Giant’ awarded in Barcelona Producció 2017. Photo: Anna Moreno.


→ RELATED CONTENTS:
  • Profile – ‘Joan Morey’, THE SEEN—Chicago’s International Journal of Contemporary & Modern Art, Issue #8, April 2019, pp 100–113.
  • ‘COLLAPSE. Schizophrenic Machine’ at the former prison La Model, Barcelona 21 January 2019
  • Full performance programme
  • Antoni Hervàs's exhibition "El Misterio de Caviria" awarded the Visual Arts prize of the Premis Ciutat de Barcelona 2016 1 February 2017
  • Actividades programadas durante la exposición "El Misterio de Caviria" de Antoni Hervàs en La Capella 7 noviembre 2016
  • Documentación de la exposición "El Misterio de Caviria" de Antoni Hervàs en La Capella 23 September 2016
  • Exposición “El misterio de Caviria” de Antoni Hervàs en La Capella, 16 septiembre–13 noviembre 2016 16 September 2016
  • dOCUMENTA (13) artists and Latitudes 24 August 2012
 2019, Anna Moreno, Antoni Hervàs, Award, Barcelona Producció, Centre d'Art Barcelona, fabra i coats, grant, Joan Morey, Latitudes-curated, mentoring

Cover Story–February 2019: Schizophrenic Machine

 01 Feb 2019
Latitudes' home page www.lttds.org

The February 2019 Monthly Cover Story “Schizophrenic machine” is now up on Latitudes' homepage: www.lttds.org

“Schizophrenic machine, the concluding performance of the Latitudes-curated Joan Morey project COLLAPSE, took place on the freezing evening of 10 January. One hundred and thirteen pre-vetted audience members, each complying with a rigid all-black dress code, were driven by coach to the previously undisclosed location: the former La Model prison in Barcelona’s Eixample neighbourhood. More strictures were barked by a balaclava-clad doorman upon arrival: silence! single file! No mobile phones, no bathrooms, no chance to leave. The reverberation of a door slamming. More than two hours in the darkness and cold.”

—> Continue reading
—> After December it will be archived here.

Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial activities.


RELATED CONTENT:
  • Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
  • Photo documentation of COLLAPSE.
  • Cover Story—January 2019: “Seesaw” (7 January 2019)
  • Cover Story—December 2018: "Treasures! exhibitionism! showmanship!" 1 December 2018
  • Cover Story—November 2018: "Joan Morey—postmortem judgement reenactment" 1 November 2018
  • Cover Story–October 2018: "I can’t take my eyes off you: Eulàlia Rovira and Adrian Schindler" 1 October 2018
  • Cover Story–September 2018: Harald Szeemann’s travel sculpture, 10 September 2018
  • Cover Story–August 2018: Askeaton Joyride, 2 August 2018
  • Cover Story–July 2018: No Burgers for Sale 2 July 2018
  • Save the date: 13 September, 6–9pm. Latitudes-curated exhibition ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, 21 June 2018
  • Cover Story—June 2018: Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group, 4 June 2018
  • Cover Story – May 2018: Shadowing Roman Ondák, 7 May 2018
 2018, 2019, Barcelona, Centre d'Art Barcelona, commissions, cover story, Joan Morey, Latitudes-curated, performance, site-specific

‘COLLAPSE. Schizophrenic Machine’ site-specific performance by Joan Morey at the former prison La Model, Barcelona, 10 January 2019

 21 Jan 2019


‘Schizophrenic Machine’ site-specific performance by Joan Morey at the former Panopticon-inspired prison La Model, Barcelona, 10 January 2019. © All photographs by Noemí Jariod. Courtesy of the artist.







‘Schizophrenic Machine’ was the closure of the three-part project ‘COLLAPSE’ by Joan Morey. This new site-specific performance took place on January 10, 2019, in the former prison La Modelo, a location that was kept in secret up until the 113 guests were driven in coaches from either Centre d'art Contemporani - Fabra i Coats, or the Centre d'art Tecla Sala. 

The audience previously registered to attend the closed-door performance and agreed to comply with the strict dress code. The performance script integrated the 1904 chilling architecture of the prison through voice and technological devices such as drones, surveillance cameras, strobe lighting, and an architecture scanning laser. Each one activated and deactivated the building's memories making ‘Schizophrenic Machine’ be Morey's first performance with no human actors as protagonists. ‘Schizophrenic Machine’ continued Morey's long-standing exploration of power structures and control of the body.



 ‘Schizophrenic Machine’ took the physical and discursive past of La Model as a scenario for performance where bodies were not acting and the protagonist was the architecture itself. The Panopticon-inspired prison was inaugurated on June 9, 1904, and was conceived as a model for the Spanish penitentiary system: an example of the reintegration of criminals into society through discipline, isolation and religious morality. La Model was one of the main sites of political repression and social control in the city. Followers of all political persuasion passed through its cells, aside from common criminals, yet during the long totalitarian dictatorship of General Franco (1939–1975), it was especially notorious as a site for the repression of political dissidents. La Model closed on June 8, 2017, 113 years after its inauguration. 


 ‘Schizophrenic Machine’ took over the unoccupied building and created a phantasmagoric presence that activated and deactivated its own memory. Conceived as an all-encompassing experience the event took on a singular awareness of the building and the site. The sequential dramatisation of its radial spaces articulated a dystopian representational device. A cast of technological interpreters —voices, sound, lights, cameras, drones and other devices— took the place of performing bodies. Moreover, the panopticon architecture itself seemed to address spectators through a female voice that spoke on the principles of control, power and the paradigm of a surveillance society. La Model became a schizophrenic machine, an imperious disciplinary mechanism for the 21st century. 

 Produced by the Contemporary Art Center of Barcelona - Fabra i Coats as the third and final part of the ‘COLLAPSE’ project.












 Share: #JoanMoreyColapso

RELATED CONTENT:
  • Wakelet archive of social media content
  • Selección de reseñas, videos y entrevistas (31 Diciembre 2018)
  • Inscripción para asistir a la performance ‘Máquina esquizofrénica’ de Joan Morey (11 Diciembre 2018)
  • December 13, 2018, 7pm: Performance reenactment of "TOUR DE FORCE. El cos utòpic" (2017) by Joan Morey 10 December 2018
  • December 13, 2018, 7 pm: Performance reenactment of "TOUR DE FORCE. El cos utòpic" (2017) by Joan Morey (10 December 2018)
  • "Joan Morey presenta "Col·lapse. Cos social", programa Taquilla Inversa, L'Hdigital Mitjans de Comunicació de L'Hospitalet, 29 Novembre 2018
  • Pía Cordero, "COL·LAPSE, o l’avenir il·limitat de l’obscenitat", www.nuvol.com, 6 Desembre 2018
  • November 29, 2018, 5–8pm: Performance reenactment of "IL LINGUAGGIO DEL CORPO. Pròleg" (2015-16) by Joan Morey 26 November 2018
  • November 15, 2018, 7 pm: Performance reenactment of "BAREBACK. Fenomenología de la comunión" (2010) by Joan Morey 12 November 2018
  • October 25, 7pm: Performance reenactment of "GRITOS Y SUSURROS" (2009) by Joan Morey 22 October 2018
  • October 11, 2018, 7pm: Performance reenactment of ‘LLETANIA APÒRIMA’ [APORIC LITANY] (2009) by Joan Morey 8 October 2018
  • Performance programme in the context of Joan Morey's exhibition ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ 24 September 2018
  • Maria Palau, "Contra l'abús de poder", El Punt Avui, p. 32, 23 Setembre 2018 (Catalan)
  • Full performance programme
  • NOTA DE PRENSA: ‘Joan Morey. COLAPSO’, diversos espacios, Barcelona, 20 septiembre 2018–13 enero 2019, 19 September 2018
  • Save the date: 19 September at 7pm, opening of the solo show by Joan Morey ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring machine, working machine’, Centre d'Art Contemporani Barcelona - Fabra i Coats, 3 September 2018
 2018, 2019, Barcelona, Centre d'Art Barcelona, commissions, exhibition-making, in photos, Joan Morey, Latitudes-curated, performance, site-specific, Tecla Sala

Selección de reseñas, videos y entrevistas sobre el proyecto COLAPSO de Joan Morey

 15 Jan 2019

Natàlia Farré, ‘Sumisión y frío en la Modelo’, El Periódico, 15 de enero 2019.
Maria Palau, ‘Angoixats a la Model’, El Punt Avui, 13 de enero 2019, pág 23.

Conxita Oliver, ‘El món performatiu de Joan Morey, a revisió’, eltemps.cat, 13 desembre 2018 (Catalán).


Pía Cordero, "COL·LAPSE, o l’avenir il·limitat de l’obscenitat", núvol.com, 6 desembre 2018 (Catalán).



María Muñoz, ‘Sobre el poder, la performance y el deseo’, Metal magazine, 4 diciembre 2018 (Castellano).




"Joan Morey presenta "Col·lapse. Cos social", programa Taquilla Inversa, L'H digital Mitjans de Comunicació de L'Hospitalet, 29 novembre 2018 (4'57'', Catalán).


Entrevista ‘Joan Morey, artista i performer mallorquí’ con Tania Adam, programa ‘Terrícoles’, canal betevé, 13 novembre 2018 (27', Catalán).
Vanessa Graell, ‘Anatomía de la ‘performance’’, El Mundo, 27 septiembre 2018 (Castellano).
Maria Palau, ‘Contra l'abús de poder’, El Punt Avui, 23 setiembre 2018 (Catalán).
Núria Juanico, ‘L’entrada a l’univers sinistre de Joan Morey’, Ara.cat, 25 setiembre 2018 (Catalán).


CONTENIDO RELACIONADO:
  • Proceso de inscripción para asistir a la performance ‘Máquina esquizofrénica’ de Joan Morey 11 Diciembre 2018
  • December 13, 2018, 7 pm: Performance reenactment of "TOUR DE FORCE. El cos utòpic" (2017) by Joan Morey 10 December 2018
  • November 29, 2018, 5–8pm: Performance reenactment of "IL LINGUAGGIO DEL CORPO. Pròleg" (2015-16) by Joan Morey 26 November 2018
  • November 15, 2018, 7 pm: Performance reenactment of "BAREBACK. Fenomenología de la comunión" (2010) by Joan Morey 12 November 2018
  • October 25, 7pm: Performance reenactment of "GRITOS Y SUSURROS" (2009) by Joan Morey 22 October 2018
  • October 11, 2018, 7pm: Performance reenactment of ‘LLETANIA APÒRIMA’ [APORIC LITANY] (2009) by Joan Morey 8 October 2018
  • Wakelet archive of social media content
 2018, 2019, Barcelona, Centre d'Art Barcelona, Exhibition, Joan Morey, Latitudes-curated, performance, press coverage, Reviews, Tecla Sala

December 13, 2018, 7pm: Performance reenactment of "TOUR DE FORCE. El cos utòpic" (2017) by Joan Morey

 10 Dec 2018



Event: Reenactment of "TOUR DE FORCE. El cos utòpic" (2017) by Joan Morey
Date and time: December 13, 2018, 7pm
Interpreter: Eduard Escoffet
Location: Third floor, Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats.

The reenactment is part of the live programme of six performances reactivated within Joan Morey's exhibition survey ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ at the Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats (on view until January 13, 2019).

Each of the performances of the programme is extracted from their original context as studies or scenes from earlier projects and given an independent life. These live-action fragments encompass ritualistic exercises following the artist’s rules, tableaux vivants, and dramatic orations based on texts by the artist or by playwrights such as Samuel Beckett. Whenever possible the performances maintain their original interpreters, yet inevitably they are reinforced or degraded through their repetition, adding another layer to the artist’s exploration of control.

Access to all performances is unrestricted.


Joan Morey. ‘POSTMORTEM. Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu’ (2006-2007). Performance, reenactment, 27 September 2018. Photo by Noemi Jariod. Courtesy of the artist.


Joan Morey. ‘LLETANIA APÒRIMA’ (2009). Performance, reenactment, 11 October 2018. Photo by Noemi Jariod. Courtesy of the artist.


Joan Morey. ‘GRITOS Y SUSURROS. Conflicte dramatic cinquè (ambos l’obra d’art)’ (2009). Performance, reenactment, 25 October 2018. Photo by Noemi Jariod. Courtesy of the artist.


Joan Morey. ‘‘BAREBACK. Fenomenología de la comunión’ [BAREBACK. Phenomenology of Communion]’ (2010). Performance, reenactment, 15 November 2018. Photo by Noemi Jariod. Courtesy of the artist.


A dramatic extract from the fifth act of TOUR DE FORCE (2017), which has only previously been witnessed by an audience of six people in the setting of a white limousine driving on a route through Barcelona. The project as a whole puts together a conceptual history of the HIV/AIDS pandemic—from the fear and stigma surrounding diagnosis and infection in the 1980s and 1990s to the possibility today of its management and control via pharmaceutical compliance.

This performance corresponds to the latter historical context, addressing the complexities of understanding the disease in an epidemiological sense and as a symbolic phenomenon enmeshed with global governance, human rights, and civil liberties. A performer dressed in black leather garments makes a ritualistic reading from a mobile device, listing the dates on which new antiretroviral drugs have been approved for use in the US, beginning from 1987. The brand names of each of the medications join the litany of dates, and the pill trademarks are repeated as though they were figures worthy of veneration: Saint Genvoya, Saint Stribild, Saint Odefsey, etc.

The subtitle refers to a 1966 radio broadcast by the philosopher Michel Foucault, known for his histories of healthcare and sexuality, who in 1983 became the first public figure in France to die from an AIDS-related illness.

‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ is the first chapter of a three-part project curated by Latitudes. The second part of COLLAPSE will take place at the Centre d’Art Tecla Sala, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat from November 23, 2018 (on view until January 13, 2019). Titled ‘Schizophrenic Machine’, the third comprises a major new performance event which will take place on January 10, 2019, at an especially resonant – yet, for the moment, deliberately undisclosed – location in Barcelona.

RELATED CONTENT: 
  • November 29, 2018, 5–8pm: Performance reenactment of "IL LINGUAGGIO DEL CORPO. Pròleg" (2015-16) by Joan Morey 26 November 2018
  • November 15, 2018, 7 pm: Performance reenactment of "BAREBACK. Fenomenología de la comunión" (2010) by Joan Morey 12 November 2018
  • October 25, 7pm: Performance reenactment of "GRITOS Y SUSURROS" (2009) by Joan Morey 22 October 2018
  • October 11, 2018, 7pm: Performance reenactment of ‘LLETANIA APÒRIMA’ [APORIC LITANY] (2009) by Joan Morey 8 October 2018
  • Performance programme in the context of Joan Morey's exhibition ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ 24 September 2018
  • Maria Palau, "Contra l'abús de poder", El Punt Avui, p. 32, 23 Setembre 2018 (Catalan) 
  • Full performance programme 
  • Wakelet archive of social media content
  • NOTA DE PRENSA: ‘Joan Morey. COLAPSO’, diversos espacios, Barcelona, 20 septiembre 2018–13 enero 2019, 19 September 2018
  • Save the date: 19 September at 7pm, opening of the solo show by Joan Morey ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring machine, working machine’, Centre d'Art Contemporani Barcelona - Fabra i Coats, 3 September 2018

 2018, Barcelona, Centre d'Art Barcelona, Joan Morey, Latitudes-curated, live art, performance

November 29, 2018, 5–8pm: Performance reenactment of "IL LINGUAGGIO DEL CORPO. Pròleg" (2015-16) by Joan Morey

 14 Nov 2018

Event: Reenactment of "IL LINGUAGGIO DEL CORPO. Pròleg" (2015–16) by Joan MoreyDate and time: November 29, 2018, 5–8pm
Interpreter: Catalina Carrasco and Gaspar Morey
Location: Third floor, Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats.

The reenactment is part of the live programme of six performances reactivated within Joan Morey's exhibition survey ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ at the Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats (on view until January 13, 2019).

Each of the performances of the programme is extracted from their original context as studies or scenes from earlier projects and given an independent life. These live-action fragments encompass ritualistic exercises following the artist’s rules, tableaux vivants, and dramatic orations based on texts by the artist or by playwrights such as Samuel Beckett. Whenever possible the performances maintain their original interpreters, yet inevitably they are reinforced or degraded through their repetition, adding another layer to the artist’s exploration of control.

Access to all performances is unrestricted.


Third floor of the Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats. Photo: Eva Carasol.


Preparatory study of the project THE LANGUAGE OF THE BODY (2015), in which the human body is considered as an ambiguous channel of communication. It is a tableau vivant that bridges Greco-Roman sculpture and minimalist dance, following dancer and choreographer Yvonne Rainer’s No Manifesto (1965), a set of rules that pare down dance to its essential elements. A nude male dancer adopts a dynamic, sinuous pose from classical statuary, described by the term contrapposto [counterpoise], while adhering to the apparently incompatible decrees from No Manifesto, which requires embodying a “No to spectacle... No to style. No to camp”. At the same time, a female choreographer dressed in black repeatedly reads a transcription of a radio broadcast entitled The utopian body given in 1966 by the French philosopher Michel Foucault. Foucault notes that the ancient Greeks had no real word for body except to designate a corpse, and he draws on a first-person account of sensory experience to suggest that the body has its special “placeless places” that are even more potent than all the myths about trapped souls.

 ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ is the first chapter of a three-part project curated by Latitudes. The second part of COLLAPSE will take place at the Centre d’Art Tecla Sala, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat from November 23, 2018 (and on view until January 13, 2019). Titled ‘Schizophrenic Machine’, the third comprises a major new performance event which will take place on January 10, 2019, at an especially resonant – yet, for the moment, deliberately undisclosed – location in Barcelona.

Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats
c/ Sant Adrià, 20 
08030 Barcelona
centredart.bcn.cat

RELATED CONTENT:
  • November 15, 2018, 7 pm: Performance reenactment of "BAREBACK. Fenomenología de la comunión" (2010) by Joan Morey 12 November 2018
  • October 25, 7pm: Performance reenactment of "GRITOS Y SUSURROS" (2009) by Joan Morey 22 October 2018
  • October 11, 2018, 7pm: Performance reenactment of ‘LLETANIA APÒRIMA’ [APORIC LITANY] (2009) by Joan Morey 8 October 2018
  • Performance programme in the context of Joan Morey's exhibition ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ 24 September 2018
  • Maria Palau, "Contra l'abús de poder", El Punt Avui, p. 32, 23 Setembre 2018 (Catalan) 
  • Full performance programme 
  • Wakelet archive of social media content
  • NOTA DE PRENSA: ‘Joan Morey. COLAPSO’, diversos espacios, Barcelona, 20 septiembre 2018–13 enero 2019, 19 September 2018
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 2018, Barcelona, Centre d'Art Barcelona, Joan Morey, Latitudes-curated, live art, performance

November 15, 2018, 7 pm: Performance reenactment of "BAREBACK. Fenomenología de la comunión" (2010) by Joan Morey

 12 Nov 2018

Event: Reenactment of "BAREBACK. Fenomenología de la comunión" (2010) by Joan Morey
Date and time: November 15, 2018, 7 pm
Interpreter: Manuel Segade
Location: Third floor, Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats.

The reenactment is part of the live programme of six performances reactivated within Joan Morey's exhibition survey ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ at the Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats (on view until January 13, 2019).

Each of the performances of the programme is extracted from their original context as studies or scenes from earlier projects and given an independent life. These live-action fragments encompass ritualistic exercises following the artist’s rules, tableaux vivants, and dramatic orations based on texts by the artist or by playwrights such as Samuel Beckett. Whenever possible the performances maintain their original interpreters, yet inevitably they are reinforced or degraded through their repetition, adding another layer to the artist’s exploration of control.

Access to all performances is unrestricted.


Third floor of the Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats. Photo: Eva Carasol.

This reading was originally conceived as the closing performance of BAREBACK: Power and death (2010), which took place at the former chapel of La Casa de la Misericòrdia in Palma de Mallorca. The speaker, dressed in the clerical attire of a priest, delivers a personal and theoretical address, a form of self-reflective homily or sermon, accompanied by an image of a billboard showing an unmade double bed with the hollows left by two heads in the pillows. This image documents artist Félix González-Torres’s Untitled (1991), a public art project about private loss, a memorial to the artist’s partner who had recently died of an AIDS-related illness. 

 The text begins as a reflection on the experience of the act of lending authority to the voice and announces itself as a series of digressions around its ostensible topic: the practice of unprotected sex and the homosexual “barebacking” subculture, in which the risk of HIV infection is considered irrelevant or even desirable. The speech hinges on the elision of the words community—in particular, the gay community—and communion. While acknowledging the Christian ceremonial connotations of the latter, the text more abstractly deals with communion as the intimate union of feelings and bodies, and the compounding of the private, political, and philosophical spheres in the life and work of individuals such as Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, and the speaker himself.

‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ is the first chapter of a three-part project curated by Latitudes. The second part of COLLAPSE will take place at the Centre d’Art Tecla Sala, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat from November 23, 2018 (and on view until January 13, 2019). Titled ‘Schizophrenic Machine’, the third comprises a major new performance event which will take place on January 10, 2019, at an especially resonant – yet, for the moment, deliberately undisclosed – location in Barcelona.

 Share: #JoanMoreyColapso

Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coatsc/ Sant Adrià, 20 
08030 Barcelona
centredart.bcn.cat


RELATED CONTENT:
  • Wakelet social media archive.
  • October 25, 7 pm: Performance reenactment of "GRITOS Y SUSURROS" (2009) by Joan Morey 22 October 2018
  • October 11, 2018, 7 pm: Performance reenactment of ‘LLETANIA APÒRIMA’ [APORIC LITANY] (2009) by Joan Morey 8 October 2018
  • Performance programme in the context of Joan Morey's exhibition ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ 24 September 2018
  • Maria Palau, "Contra l'abús de poder", El Punt Avui, p. 32, 23 Setembre 2018 (Catalan)
  • Full performance programme 
  • Wakelet archive of social media content
  • NOTA DE PRENSA: ‘Joan Morey. COLAPSO’, diversos espacios, Barcelona, 20 septiembre 2018–13 enero 2019, 19 September 2018
  • Save the date: 19 September at 7pm, opening of the solo show by Joan Morey ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring machine, working machine’, Centre d'Art Contemporani Barcelona - Fabra i Coats, 3 September 2018
 2018, Barcelona, Centre d'Art Barcelona, Joan Morey, Latitudes-curated, live art, Manuel Segade, performance

October 25, 7pm: Performance reenactment of "GRITOS Y SUSURROS" (2009) by Joan Morey

 22 Oct 2018

Event: Reenactment of "GRITOS Y SUSURROS. Conflicte dramàtic cinquè (amb l'obra d'art)" (2009) by Joan Morey
Date and time: October 25, 2018, 7pm
Interpreter: Carme Callol y Tatin Revenga
Location: Third floor, Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats.

The reenactment is part of the live programme of six performances reactivated within Joan Morey's exhibition survey ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ at the Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats (on view until January 13, 2019).

Each of the performances of the programme is extracted from their original context as studies or scenes from earlier projects and given an independent life. These live-action fragments encompass ritualistic exercises following the artist’s rules, tableaux vivants, and dramatic orations based on texts by the artist or by playwrights such as Samuel Beckett. Whenever possible the performances maintain their original interpreters, yet inevitably they are reinforced or degraded through their repetition, adding another layer to the artist’s exploration of control.

Access to all performances is unrestricted.


Third floor of the Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats. Photo: Eva Carasol.

This dramatisation consists of a fragment of the last performance panel of the five that comprised CRIES & WHISPERS: Conversations with Radicals (2009). A female interpreter wears religious garments of a Catholic religious order and a black leather orthopedic boot with spurs. The artist directs the performer’s reading of a Catalan script based on excerpts from Éperons : Les styles de Nietzsche [Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles] (1978), Jacques Derrida’s analysis of fellow philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s discordant conception of women in his work. The performer receives abrupt indications when the oration must be commenced or continued, and her body is summarily moved into various positions without warning, forcing the register of her voice and her delivery of the words to compensate differently each time. In the final position, the nun character is made captive, shrouded in a black sack, merely a detached head. 

‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ is the first chapter of a three-part project curated by Latitudes. The second part of COLLAPSE will take place at the Centre d’Art Tecla Sala, L’Hospitalet de Llobregat from November 23, 2018 (and on view until January 13, 2019). Titled ‘Schizophrenic Machine’, the third comprises a major new performance event which will take place on January 10, 2019, at an especially resonant – yet, for the moment, deliberately undisclosed – location in Barcelona.

 Share: #JoanMoreyColapso

Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats
c/ Sant Adrià, 20
08030 Barcelona
centredart.bcn.cat


RELATED CONTENT:
  • October 11, 2018, 7pm: Performance reenactment of ‘LLETANIA APÒRIMA’ [APORIC LITANY] (2009) by Joan Morey 8 October 2018
  • Performance programme in the context of Joan Morey's exhibition ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ 24 September 2018
  • Maria Palau, "Contra l'abús de poder", El Punt Avui, p. 32, 23 Setembre 2018 (Catalan)
  • Full performance programme 
  • Wakelet archive of social media content
  • NOTA DE PRENSA: ‘Joan Morey. COLAPSO’, diversos espacios, Barcelona, 20 septiembre 2018–13 enero 2019, 19 September 2018
  • Save the date: 19 September at 7pm, opening of the solo show by Joan Morey ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring machine, working machine’, Centre d'Art Contemporani Barcelona - Fabra i Coats, 3 September 2018
 2018, Barcelona, Centre d'Art Barcelona, Joan Morey, Latitudes-curated, live art, performance

Founded in 2005 by Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna, Latitudes is a curatorial office based in Barcelona, Spain, that works internationally across contemporary art practices.

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Latitudes
2005—2019