Longitudes
Longitudes cuts across Latitudes’ projects and research with news, updates, and reportage.
Interview between Christina Li and Latitudes on 'Incidents of Travel' for Witte de With's 'Witness to Moderation(s)' blog
Tue, May 7 2013From April 2013 onwards, writer and curator Christina Li (HK/NL) takes up the role of a designated Witness to Moderation(s) the year-long programme of exhibitions, performances and residencies that unfolds between Witte de With in Rotterdam and Spring in Hong Kong. As such, Li is invited to post regular blog entries responding to the multi-faceted projects part of Moderation(s).
2013, Casa del Lago, Christina Li, Heman Chong, Hong Kong, Incidents of Travel, interview, latitudes, Moderations, México, Spring Workshop, tours, Witte de With
Christina Li has been a part of Moderation(s) since its inception, and participated in the research and development workshop that took place at Witte de With in October 2012. Li will also be one of the four curators –together with Lee Ambrozy, Amira Gad, and Xiaoyu Weng– organising the day-long conference Stories And Situations: The Moderation(s) Conference to take place on 5 October 2013 at Witte de With.
The interview published below between Li and Latitudes was originally published on Witte de With's website on May 2, 2013.
Christina Li: “Incidents of Travel” in Hong Kong is the second iteration of a project that you started in Mexico D.F in 2012, could you talk a little bit about how the idea of inviting artists to plan an itinerary functioning as both an artistic encounter an alternative studio visit came about?
Latitudes: The idea of the tour guide is of course not new. Back in 2009 while we were doing a year-long project in the Port of Rotterdam, we organised a series of bus tours to the port where we would present projects by Jan Dibbets, Lara Almarcegui or Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller, etc. Listening to the feedback of the group that took part during those tours, we realised there was something very valuable about the idea of being (kindly) trapped in a bus for a day and to be taken around with a group of people whom you shared interests or even friendship with. Some were co-workers and took the day to talk about non-work related issues, to admire the landscape, to listen to the soundtrack that accompanied the bus tour and basically to enjoy a day away from the keyboard. We wanted to repeat what we thought was a successful format and thought our trip to Mexico DF was a perfect occasion for that.
While preparing a small exhibition of our eight years of practice for Casa del Lago in México DF, we felt we needed to add a ‘here and now’ contribution, and suggested inviting five artists (Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Diego Berruecos, Terence Gower and Jerónimo Hagerman) to develop a day-long tour for us. The choice of artists was mixed, some we had met before (Jerónimo or Terence) but didn’t know their work in much detail, and others (Tania, Minerva and Diego) we had been following their work for a while, but never met them in person. Our invitation was very open, our idea was for them to develop an itinerary that helped us understand their creative world, and that included them taking us to their favourite (or hated!) museums, libraries, markets, monuments, housing states, shops, restaurants, etc. that were special to their lives or to their artistic practice. We offered all artists a fee, covered all food and tickets-related expenses and had a car to take us around 9am–6pm, after that, we used public transport. Experiencing any city accompanied by a local friend always offers a much deeper insight into any city, but navigating it with an artist whose work you admire, is even more meaningful as each site amplifies a personal connection.
Li: Did you choose to adopt a different approach in your invitation to the artists in the Hong Kong edition? As far as I understood, Nadim Abbas’ tour was open to the public, while Yuk King Tan’s, Ho Sin Tung’s and Samson Young’s were conducted in a more intimate manner within a smaller group; what was the reason behind this decision? What were the responses to Nadim Abbas’ tour?
Latitudes: No, the invitation was the same in both occasions, though in Hong Kong we mostly used public transport. We also had more time to prepare and digest information, as were a month in residence at Spring. In the end it worked out as one tour per week as that suited best the artists’ schedule. Nadim’s tour was the first and was indeed open to the public, it has been the only tour so far with this aspect, although it was still a small group, initially of around fifteen people. We were interested in pushing the format and of course this meant that Nadim had to consider practical issues like distances and locations more carefully (ie. avoiding long walking distances, accessibility for groups, food availability…) in order to be realistic with the timings. A few people joined on and off, some engaged more actively than others. It was wonderful to see that Hong Kongers were also discovering sites they had never been to, like the Waterfall Bay Park or the nearby Waterfall Bay. Somehow we were all tourists for a day.
Li: Since these tours have always been meant for you both to converse privately with each selected artist and to get to know their practices and the city, has opening these tours up conjure a different perspective of how these tours could function for you both initially? How has this attempt challenge your thinking in mediating and presenting the immediate experience and documentation of these tours to a larger audience?
Latitudes: The tours were conceived from the point of view of research, and we haven’t wanted to necessarily burden the artists or the format with the expectations that they were participatory performances or some kind of touristic spectacle. We’ve tried to keep them quite casual and inconspicuous in this sense, and to respect the notion of hospitality in the same way that if we came to your house for dinner, you wouldn’t expect us to bring a group of strangers with us! Indeed this was literally the case in the day with Yuk King Tan, which concluded with a household of Filipina domestic workers making dinner for us – women whose trust and friendship she had earned through her personal affiliations and the concerns of her art. It is really not a question of us making the tours exclusive or private – we have not actually prohibited anyone else from coming along if the artist suggested it or was anyway okay with it. Yet it somehow seemed important to be able to commit to spending an entire day with them, and as soon as there is definitely something like an audience present (that might expect to be entertained or decide to leave) the dynamics and the logistics change.
The tours in México DF took place during five consecutive days right after our arrival, so the way we shared the photographic material was more direct via our Facebook at the end of each day. The exhibition at Casa del Lago opened only two days after we concluded the last tour, so had to come up with a fast solution to present our explorations: we projected a selection of 200 images as a slideshow, and displayed a selection of printed photos on the wall alongside a large map of the city with pins that located the sites we visited and the actual itineraries we followed written by the artists, which contained short descriptions of each site (we printed extra copies of these and made them available in the exhibition so one could pick them up and follow the route. These are now available to download from our website.)
In Hong Kong we were able to tweet during the tours, so it was an interesting process of documentation-on-the-go, of keeping a live diary of one’s journey, and to receive real-time responses from colleagues all over the world – the tweets have now been archived alongside some thirteen sound recordings, Facebook and blog posts. We also published blog posts of each of the tours which include extensive photo-documentation (by us and colleagues who took part) of the day interconnecting each photo with paragraphs of the itineraries are written by the artists and our own impressions.
Li: You also have been to some other more specialised tours on offer during your stay in Hong Kong, were there more specific aspects of Hong Kong you were hoping to explore which guided your choices in attending these tours as a sightseer and a cultural tourist?
Latitudes: We were interested in studying what kind of readings the city offered away from the usual tourist sites (the Tian Tan Buddha, Victoria Peak, shopping tours, a day in Macau,…). We wanted to see if we could find more ‘marginal’ sculptures or sites that presented vernacular displays far from the polished and pre-packaged tourist experience.
We picked up hundreds of leaflets in the information office and found a couple interesting ones offered by the Walk Hong Kong company we thought were somehow out of the usual menu. We have always been interested in environmental issues and wanted to approach the high density of Hong Kong from another angle, from its relation to the surrounding nature. We visited the Mai Po Nature Reserve in the New Territories, a wetland on the Australasia migratory route, and ended the day in Long Valley in Sheung Shui, observing birds and farmers collecting large amounts of lettuces and watercress. This also tied in with another wetland we visited later with Ho Sin Tung, the Nam Sang Wai area, in the northwest of Hong Kong. This is to say that our own interests ended up tying in nicely with the sites, we visited with the artists. Samson Young took us to a nearby area on his tour, to the border fence that separates Hong Kong with mainland China where we listened to “Liquid Borders”, a soundtrack he has been recording placing contact microphones in the wired fencing and mixing it with the sound of water of the Shenzhen River.
Another tour we joined was the Feng Shui tour led by Susan Braun. We started visiting Norman Foster’s Hong Kong HSBC building in Admiralty built according to strict Feng Shui principles and finished at the Chi Lin Nunnery. The final one was with Martin Heyes, a former British Army officer and passionate World War II specialist, who took us to Devil’s Peak at the eastern extremity of Kowloon and to the Museum of Coastal Defence, to learn everything about the 1941 Japanese invasion of Hong Kong.
Li: As a whole, what would you say about the kinds of insights you have gained about the city from these tours, which might be seen as complements to the knowledge produced from the more casual encounters you have had through “Incidents of Travel”?
Latitudes: The Walk Hong Kong tours were an opportunity for us to specifically learn about birds, marshlands, Feng Shui and the 1941 Japanese invasion, but most importantly it was an opportunity to discuss with our tour leaders issues that went beyond the tour script so to speak, issues like immigration, recent historical events such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, the current economic climate, the relationship to mainland China, etc. Curiously, all of the tour leaders were expats that had lived in Hong Kong for many years, so for us it was very interesting to hear how it was to live there today. The same goes for the artists, we absorbed a great wealth of information from each other beyond discussing the sites we were taken to. We talked about books, films, about the art world, what it is to be an artist and a curator today, etc.
‘Incidents of Travel’ and our residency was very much in line with what Heman Chong, moderator of the Moderation(s) the program, explained during the January press conference: Moderation(s) is about stretching time. Not surprisingly, the image he chose to illustrate the long term collaboration between Spring Workshop and Witte de With was a clock. That image stood out very clearly during our time there. The offered time gave us the chance to generate conversations with the artists, to find a common ground, to generously share and exchange some kind of knowledge, and to engage in multiple and repeated dialogues with locals and expats, a rare luxury one is not often given.
Related contents:
13 Soundscapes of "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong";
Social media archive"Incidents of Travel";
Flickr album of the four tours of "Incidents of Travel".
–
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
The interview published below between Li and Latitudes was originally published on Witte de With's website on May 2, 2013.
Christina Li: “Incidents of Travel” in Hong Kong is the second iteration of a project that you started in Mexico D.F in 2012, could you talk a little bit about how the idea of inviting artists to plan an itinerary functioning as both an artistic encounter an alternative studio visit came about?
Latitudes: The idea of the tour guide is of course not new. Back in 2009 while we were doing a year-long project in the Port of Rotterdam, we organised a series of bus tours to the port where we would present projects by Jan Dibbets, Lara Almarcegui or Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller, etc. Listening to the feedback of the group that took part during those tours, we realised there was something very valuable about the idea of being (kindly) trapped in a bus for a day and to be taken around with a group of people whom you shared interests or even friendship with. Some were co-workers and took the day to talk about non-work related issues, to admire the landscape, to listen to the soundtrack that accompanied the bus tour and basically to enjoy a day away from the keyboard. We wanted to repeat what we thought was a successful format and thought our trip to Mexico DF was a perfect occasion for that.
Tour with Lara Almarcegui and botanist Remko Andeweg around the Port of Rotterdam, 8 November 2009. Photo: Latitudes. More images of the tour here.
While preparing a small exhibition of our eight years of practice for Casa del Lago in México DF, we felt we needed to add a ‘here and now’ contribution, and suggested inviting five artists (Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Diego Berruecos, Terence Gower and Jerónimo Hagerman) to develop a day-long tour for us. The choice of artists was mixed, some we had met before (Jerónimo or Terence) but didn’t know their work in much detail, and others (Tania, Minerva and Diego) we had been following their work for a while, but never met them in person. Our invitation was very open, our idea was for them to develop an itinerary that helped us understand their creative world, and that included them taking us to their favourite (or hated!) museums, libraries, markets, monuments, housing states, shops, restaurants, etc. that were special to their lives or to their artistic practice. We offered all artists a fee, covered all food and tickets-related expenses and had a car to take us around 9am–6pm, after that, we used public transport. Experiencing any city accompanied by a local friend always offers a much deeper insight into any city, but navigating it with an artist whose work you admire, is even more meaningful as each site amplifies a personal connection.
Photo: Eduardo Loza
Li: Did you choose to adopt a different approach in your invitation to the artists in the Hong Kong edition? As far as I understood, Nadim Abbas’ tour was open to the public, while Yuk King Tan’s, Ho Sin Tung’s and Samson Young’s were conducted in a more intimate manner within a smaller group; what was the reason behind this decision? What were the responses to Nadim Abbas’ tour?
Latitudes: No, the invitation was the same in both occasions, though in Hong Kong we mostly used public transport. We also had more time to prepare and digest information, as were a month in residence at Spring. In the end it worked out as one tour per week as that suited best the artists’ schedule. Nadim’s tour was the first and was indeed open to the public, it has been the only tour so far with this aspect, although it was still a small group, initially of around fifteen people. We were interested in pushing the format and of course this meant that Nadim had to consider practical issues like distances and locations more carefully (ie. avoiding long walking distances, accessibility for groups, food availability…) in order to be realistic with the timings. A few people joined on and off, some engaged more actively than others. It was wonderful to see that Hong Kongers were also discovering sites they had never been to, like the Waterfall Bay Park or the nearby Waterfall Bay. Somehow we were all tourists for a day.
Nadim Abbas tour, 19 January 2013. Waterfall Bay Park's waterfall. Photo: Trevor Young
Li: Since these tours have always been meant for you both to converse privately with each selected artist and to get to know their practices and the city, has opening these tours up conjure a different perspective of how these tours could function for you both initially? How has this attempt challenge your thinking in mediating and presenting the immediate experience and documentation of these tours to a larger audience?
Latitudes: The tours were conceived from the point of view of research, and we haven’t wanted to necessarily burden the artists or the format with the expectations that they were participatory performances or some kind of touristic spectacle. We’ve tried to keep them quite casual and inconspicuous in this sense, and to respect the notion of hospitality in the same way that if we came to your house for dinner, you wouldn’t expect us to bring a group of strangers with us! Indeed this was literally the case in the day with Yuk King Tan, which concluded with a household of Filipina domestic workers making dinner for us – women whose trust and friendship she had earned through her personal affiliations and the concerns of her art. It is really not a question of us making the tours exclusive or private – we have not actually prohibited anyone else from coming along if the artist suggested it or was anyway okay with it. Yet it somehow seemed important to be able to commit to spending an entire day with them, and as soon as there is definitely something like an audience present (that might expect to be entertained or decide to leave) the dynamics and the logistics change.
The tours in México DF took place during five consecutive days right after our arrival, so the way we shared the photographic material was more direct via our Facebook at the end of each day. The exhibition at Casa del Lago opened only two days after we concluded the last tour, so had to come up with a fast solution to present our explorations: we projected a selection of 200 images as a slideshow, and displayed a selection of printed photos on the wall alongside a large map of the city with pins that located the sites we visited and the actual itineraries we followed written by the artists, which contained short descriptions of each site (we printed extra copies of these and made them available in the exhibition so one could pick them up and follow the route. These are now available to download from our website.)
Photo: Adrián Villalobos
Li: You also have been to some other more specialised tours on offer during your stay in Hong Kong, were there more specific aspects of Hong Kong you were hoping to explore which guided your choices in attending these tours as a sightseer and a cultural tourist?
Latitudes: We were interested in studying what kind of readings the city offered away from the usual tourist sites (the Tian Tan Buddha, Victoria Peak, shopping tours, a day in Macau,…). We wanted to see if we could find more ‘marginal’ sculptures or sites that presented vernacular displays far from the polished and pre-packaged tourist experience.
1km of floating boardwalks, Deep Bay, Mai Po Marshes. Photo: Latitudes.
We picked up hundreds of leaflets in the information office and found a couple interesting ones offered by the Walk Hong Kong company we thought were somehow out of the usual menu. We have always been interested in environmental issues and wanted to approach the high density of Hong Kong from another angle, from its relation to the surrounding nature. We visited the Mai Po Nature Reserve in the New Territories, a wetland on the Australasia migratory route, and ended the day in Long Valley in Sheung Shui, observing birds and farmers collecting large amounts of lettuces and watercress. This also tied in with another wetland we visited later with Ho Sin Tung, the Nam Sang Wai area, in the northwest of Hong Kong. This is to say that our own interests ended up tying in nicely with the sites, we visited with the artists. Samson Young took us to a nearby area on his tour, to the border fence that separates Hong Kong with mainland China where we listened to “Liquid Borders”, a soundtrack he has been recording placing contact microphones in the wired fencing and mixing it with the sound of water of the Shenzhen River.
Another tour we joined was the Feng Shui tour led by Susan Braun. We started visiting Norman Foster’s Hong Kong HSBC building in Admiralty built according to strict Feng Shui principles and finished at the Chi Lin Nunnery. The final one was with Martin Heyes, a former British Army officer and passionate World War II specialist, who took us to Devil’s Peak at the eastern extremity of Kowloon and to the Museum of Coastal Defence, to learn everything about the 1941 Japanese invasion of Hong Kong.
A group of Japanese tourists visit the battery on Devil's Peak. Photo: Latitudes
Li: As a whole, what would you say about the kinds of insights you have gained about the city from these tours, which might be seen as complements to the knowledge produced from the more casual encounters you have had through “Incidents of Travel”?
Latitudes: The Walk Hong Kong tours were an opportunity for us to specifically learn about birds, marshlands, Feng Shui and the 1941 Japanese invasion, but most importantly it was an opportunity to discuss with our tour leaders issues that went beyond the tour script so to speak, issues like immigration, recent historical events such as the 2003 SARS outbreak, the current economic climate, the relationship to mainland China, etc. Curiously, all of the tour leaders were expats that had lived in Hong Kong for many years, so for us it was very interesting to hear how it was to live there today. The same goes for the artists, we absorbed a great wealth of information from each other beyond discussing the sites we were taken to. We talked about books, films, about the art world, what it is to be an artist and a curator today, etc.
‘Incidents of Travel’ and our residency was very much in line with what Heman Chong, moderator of the Moderation(s) the program, explained during the January press conference: Moderation(s) is about stretching time. Not surprisingly, the image he chose to illustrate the long term collaboration between Spring Workshop and Witte de With was a clock. That image stood out very clearly during our time there. The offered time gave us the chance to generate conversations with the artists, to find a common ground, to generously share and exchange some kind of knowledge, and to engage in multiple and repeated dialogues with locals and expats, a rare luxury one is not often given.
Latitudes' talk on 'Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong' and their curatorial practice during 'Open Day' at Spring Workshop, 2 February 2013.
Related contents:
13 Soundscapes of "Incidents of Travel: Hong Kong";
Social media archive"Incidents of Travel";
Flickr album of the four tours of "Incidents of Travel".
–
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Photodocumentation of Latitudes' "Incidents of Travel: México DF" a project for Casa del Lago
Thu, Nov 1 2012
As the Casa del Lago exhibition in Mexico City draws to a close (on Sunday 4th November), we would like to share photodocumentation of the "Incidents of Travel: México City" project.
Artists Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Diego Berruecos, Terence Gower and Jerónimo Hagerman were invited to develop day-long tours for Latitudes, articulating the city and their artistic practice through routes and waypoints in the metropolitan area. Documented and mapped in La Sucursal space alongside an overview presentation of Latitudes' projects ("Proyectos 2005–2012"), the project aims to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter with the capacity to bypass the convention of the studio visit through highly specific views of the city.
Artists Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Diego Berruecos, Terence Gower and Jerónimo Hagerman were invited to develop day-long tours for Latitudes, articulating the city and their artistic practice through routes and waypoints in the metropolitan area. Documented and mapped in La Sucursal space alongside an overview presentation of Latitudes' projects ("Proyectos 2005–2012"), the project aims to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter with the capacity to bypass the convention of the studio visit through highly specific views of the city.
Photos: Eunice Adorno & Latitudes
Photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
September/October Mexico City photo report
Wed, Oct 17 2012LABOR and kurimanzutto both opened on the 20th September. LABOR's solo exhibition of Terence Gower (one of the five artists invited by Latitudes as part of the 'Incidents of Travel' project documented at Casa del Lago). His 'Ottagono' exhibition presented new and old works "that extended the artist investigation into the realm of abstract art" (quote from the press release), including the 2010 video "New Utopias", "Noguchi Galaxy" (2012), the sculpture group "Display Modern (Hepworth)" (2007) as well as paintings on photographs "Latin American Architecture" (2012), amongst others.
The Museo Experimental El Eco also had a book launch that evening, and upstairs the project "FRANCE FICTION: Vinimos a soñar" by Paris-based curator Jennifer Teets could be seen.
kurimanzutto began the 2012-13 season with Untitled 2012, (All those years at No. 17E London Terrace), a collaboration between visual artist Rirkrit Tiravanija and musician Arto Lindsay, for which the artist recreated Lindsay's New York flat and copied around 2000 CDs and books he has had in storage in New York. Lindsay played the following day at Cine Tonalá and hung out in his new plywood mexican home the following week recording music and talking with visitors. Also, in the project space, was Paloma Polo's 'Posición Aparente' (recently exhibited as part of Reina Sofia's Fisuras programme). On view until 3 November. ( gob. Rafael Rebollar 94, Col. San Miguel Chapultepec, 11850 México D.F.) http://www.kurimanzutto.com
During installation we escaped for a lunch break and a visit to the recently extended Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo in the Bosque de Chapultepec. The Tamayo hosted an impressive roster of exhibitions: two group shows and three solo presentations, besides a selection of Tamayo's work: 'Primer Acto' (a group show on the idea of inauguration and the opening act), 'El mañana ya estuvo aquí' (a group show with works around the idea of retrospective visions of the future of modernity), Ryan Gander's 'Boing, boing, squirt'; Pierre Huyghe's 'El día del ojo' (a three part piece consisting of a permanent sculpture of a fish tank with blind fish and volcanic rocks; a selection of works from the Museo Tamayo y del Museo de Arte Prehispánico "Rufino Tamayo" in Oaxaca; and a publication) and the project 'Nueva Matemática' by Michael Stevenson.
Wilfredo Prieto's red carpet welcomes visitors.
SUPERFLEX's visitor counter outside the museum.
Central courtyard with Pierre Huyghe's fish tank with blind fish and volcanic rocks (background and below); a selection of works from the Museo Tamayo y del Museo de Arte Prehispánico "Rufino Tamayo" in Oaxaca.
The day after our Casa del Lago opening we visited the Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) which had shows of Edgardo Aragón ("Por amor a la resistencia"), an impressive Teresa Margolles
piece, "La Promesa", following the focus of her long-term investigation
on Ciudad Juárez as a political and social context, and "Ejercicios de
Resistencia" by Nicolás Paris. Downstairs there was an archival display of Felipe Ehrenberg's collection fund.
Façade of the museum in the University (UNAM) campus.
Entrance foyer and lower level.
"Ejercicios de
Resistencia" by Nicolás Paris.
Stairs to the restaurant, auditorium and library.
Downstairs archival material of Felipe Ehrenberg's collection fund.
At MUCA-Roma we visited the group show "Colección: El crimen fundacional, crítica del museo'
curated by first graduating students in the Curatorial Programme of
UNAM's Art History degree, which included Mariana Castillo Deball's
piece 'It
rises or falls depending on whether you're coming or going. If you are
leaving, it's uphill; but as you arrive it's downhill' (2006), presented in 2007 in the Latitudes'-curated exhibition 'Extraordinary Rendition'. The piece revisits a popular legend around the looting and
transportation of the colossal stone statue of Tláloc to the National
Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City in a series of lithographs. 
Our final stop was Proyectos Monclova, which has relocated to a new and much larger space in Colima 55 (Col. Roma) with a solo show of architect Eduardo Terrazas (best known for his graphic design for Mexico's 1968 olympics realised in collaboration with Lance Wyman and Manuel Villazón.) Terrazas was concurrently exhibiting some works at the Casa Luis Barragán. The final gallery space was screening a fantastic slideshow with the 1968 work "Imagen México" accompanied with a soundtrack of 1969 songs. The exhibition finished on 29 September. See video of the opening here (via Vernissage TV) and a recent newspaper article.
Façade of the gallery.
Central gallery space.
Some of Terraza's works on view in the central space.
1970-1972 works on view in the back gallery space.
Showroom nearby the gallery offices.
On Saturday 29th there was a tour (Ruta de Galerias, see video by Vernissage TV) around San Miguel Chapultepec and Tacubaya art spaces (participants included: Archivo Diseño y Arquitectura, Casa Luis Barragán, Central Art Projects, Galería de Arte Mexicano, Gallé Antigüedades, Jan Mot, kurimanzutto, Labor, Estacionamientos San Miguel Chapultepec, and Fundación Alumnos47). We started the day at the Museo de Arte Moderno, with a launch of the publication "History of the World" and in conversation between L.A.-born Guadalajara-based artist Eduardo Sarabia and Patrick Charpenel, collector and director of the Colección Jumex.
The tour was followed by a quick burger lunch at Café Zena in the corner of Gob. Potasio Pérez de Tagle and Antonio de León.
...and then back to kurimanzutto, where Arto Lindsay was having a conversation with Carlos Icaza, discussing a selection of his books and CDs, talking about the changes in music technology and supports (from vinyl to CDs), mexican, brazilian and japanese musicians.
On our final evening in Mexico City we went to Sala Arte Público Siqueiros, where cuban artist Wilfredo Prieto celebrated the beginning his 45-day project "Dejándole algo a la suerte" (Leaving something to chance, until 12 November). For the duration of the exhibition Prieto occupies the upper gallery of the SAPS which has been turned into a studio from where he develops and conceptualises works to be presented on a daily basis on the lower gallery space (see here for those who have already taken place). On October 4th, the (non) opening day, the project began with 'Dos Tiempos': the encounter of a hare (named Raúl) and a terapin (Anastasia).
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Inauguración de 'Incidentes de viaje' & 'Proyectos 2005–2012' en La Sucursal, Casa del Lago, México DF, 27 de septiembre 19:30h
Tue, Sep 25 2012
Alongside 'Projects 2005–2012' – a visual index of the thirty projects of Latitudes realized since 2005 – Latitudes has originated 'Incidents of Travel' from its temporary office in Casa del Lago's La Sucursal. Artists Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Jerónimo Hagerman, Diego Berruecos, and Terence Gower have been invited to develop day-long tours for Latitudes, articulating the city and their artistic practice through routes and waypoints in the metropolitan area. Documented and mapped in La Sucursal, the project aims to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter with the capacity to bypass the convention of the studio visit through highly specific views of the city.
Minerva observing the murals by Marion Greenwood at the Mercado Abelardo L. Rodríguez.
View from Minerva's studio roof (Torre Latinoamericana on the horizon).
Browsing the 'Mexican Art Section' at a bookstore on Calle Donceles.
The route proposed by Minerva Cuevas focused on the concept of the public and its socio-economic associations. The tour began in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, continued to the Tepito and Lagunilla neighbourhoods, and from there visited nearby markets, public squares in the historic centre of Mexico City. It concluded with a visit to the Torre Latinoamericana, a symbol of modernity of the city in the 1950s. Throughout the course of the journey, rural elements that constitutes an integral part of the city are highlighted.
Exploring Insurgentes with Tania Pérez Córdova and photographer Eunice Adorno.
Browsing Av. Insurgentes's lottery stands, copy & pawn shops, wedding outlets, tacos stands...
View of nearly collapsing 19 floor "Canadá" building on Av. Insurgentes.
The tour proposed by Tania Pérez Córdova traced the route of a stretch of Avenida de los Insurgentes – the longest avenue of Mexico City which extends from the Mexico-Pachuca to the Mexico-Cuernavaca highways. The tour focused on certain points up and down this thoroughfare, becoming a mental journey with the daily commute of the artist as its starting point.
Av. Universidad 1601. When Miguel de la Madrid left the Mexican Presidency in 1988, this apartment block was fitted with angled concrete blinds in order to block residents' views of his garden and house across the road.
Tacos of maciza (like pulled pork) and chicharrón (fried pork rind) made by Don Tomás at El Venadito, Avenida Universidad near the corner of Miguel Angel de Quevedo.
Murals and canvases on "Freud, the revolution and its elements" by Vlady at the Biblioteca Nacional Lerdo de Tejada. The library gathers the archive of the Secretaria de Hacienda y Crédito Público. Its collection is one of the most important archives in Latin America dating from the 18th Century onwards and focusing on economics.
Diego Berruecos's tour encompassed several points in the city where he found the raw material for his ongoing investigation PRI: Genealogy of a Party. The itinerary takes in the Hemeroteca of the UNAM, where he photocopied obituaries relating to the 2007 sudden death Monica Pretelini, wife of the then governor of the State of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto. From there, brunch was enjoyed at El Venadito, which, according to the artist, "serves the best carnitas tacos in the city". This is a regular spot for the artist and is next to a major building in his research, which inspired one of the most interesting branches of his artistic genealogy: the series 'Architecture of Power'. This building is located in front of the home of the recently deceased Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, 52nd president of Mexico. Finally, a visit to the Biblioteca Miguel Lerdo de Tejada and the Library of Congress, and end at El Sella restaurant "which serves the best chamorro in the city".
Estación de metro La Raza - Túnel de las ciencias: a metro transfer turned into an educational experience.
Unidad
Habitacional el Rosario: a 1972 condominium with its characteristic
cube-shapped 'zotehuelas' (windowless cantilevered kitchen patios).
Torres
de Satélite - a 1958 collaboration between architect Luis Barragán and
sculptor Mathias Goeritz in Ciudad Satélite, northern part of Naucalpan,
Mexico City.
Terence Gower's
tour, 'Urban Models (Zacatenco to Tlalnepantla)' looked at universalist
urbanism models in the northern sectors of Mexico City. The tour started
at the 1963 campus of the Instituto Politécnico Nacional,
an expression of order and building technology that perhaps hadn't
quite arrived in Mexico at the time of its construction. The tour next
visited two housing complexes: Unidad Habitacional El Rosario
was from the post-war building boom that produced complexes like
Tlatelolco, employing the urbanistic principals of density and land-use
of Le Corbusier and the Athens Charter. The second, the Unidad Habitacional de San Buenaventura,
is a recent "cookie-cutter" style private development in which
identical houses are built in rows that blanket the landscape. Similar
to the Politécnico scheme, these recent developments are attempts at
imposing order on the chaos of Mexico City. Finally the tour visits
Satélite, a low-density suburban-US style development that has generated
its own unique culture. Lunch was at Solo Veracruz es Bello, and concluded with a visit to Metro La Raza.
Jerónimo Hagerman's
visit delved into some situations, phenomena or cases in which he finds
a particular, intense and emotional relationship between Mexico City,
its inhabitants, with the outdoors, the wilderness and the nonhuman
nature. The tour visited public and private spaces of different kinds,
starting with the house-studio of architect Luis Barragán, followed by a tree invaded by ivy in colonia Polanco, the Espacio Escultórico of the UNAM, and a food tour around the chinampas (artificial islands) in Xochimilco. The day ended with a drink at Bellini, the WTC revolving restaurant which offers panoramic views of the city and a night visit to the Mercado de Jamaica.
"Copa de oro" and ivy in Casa Barragán, México.
Colourful
trajineras in Xochimilco take tourists and city residents alongside the
170km canals and chinampas (artificial islands, a vestige of
Xochimilco's pre-Hispanic past).
Black lava flow, lush greenery, concrete and red crushed tezontle at the incredible Espacio Escultórico at the UNAM. A 1978-1980 collaborative work by Federico Silva, Mathias Goeritz, Helen Escobedo, Manuel Felguérez, Hersúa y Sebastián.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
'Projects 2005–2012 / Incidents of Travel', La Sucursal, Casa del Lago, Mexico D.F., México, 27 September–5 November 2012
Mon, Sep 17 2012
Casa del Lago. Photo: Fabiola Iza
| UK |
Opening: Thursday 27 September, 19.30h
Opening: Thursday 27 September, 19.30h
Latitudes has been invited to participate in La Sucursal (The Branch), one of the programme strands of Casa del Lago for which self-organised, self-funded or non-profit organisations temporarily move their offices to Casa del Lago in order to expose the cultural strategies of such forms of organisation.
Alongside 'Projects 2005–2012' – a visual index of the thirty projects realized since 2005 – Latitudes will originate 'Incidents of Travel' from its temporary office in La Sucursal. Artists Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Jerónimo Hagerman, Diego Berruecos, and Terence Gower will develop day-long tours for Latitudes, articulating the city and their artistic practice through routes and waypoints in the metropolitan area. Documented and mapped in La Sucursal, the project aims to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter with the capacity to bypass the convention of the studio visit through highly specific views of the city.
Casa del Lago. Photo: Fabiola Iza| ES |
Inauguración: Jueves, 27 de septiembre, 19.30h
Latitudes ha sido invitada a participar en La Sucursal, una de las cinco plataformas que estructuran la programación de Casa del Lago en la que iniciativas autoorganizadas o sin fines de lucro, utilizan el espacio de Casa del Lago
como una sucursal de operaciones, una suerte de oficina temporal, con
el fin de exponer sus propias estructuras de organización.
Junto a 'Proyectos 2005-2012' – un índice visual de treinta proyectos realizados desde el 2005 – Latitudes realizará el proyecto "Incidentes de viaje" desde su oficina temporal en La Sucursal. Los artistas Minerva Cuevas, Tania Pérez Córdova, Jerónimo Hagerman, Diego Berruecos y Terence Gower, desarrollarán tours de un día de duración para Latitudes, articulando su práctica artística y la ciudad a través de rutas y puntos de interés en el área metropolitana. Documentado y cartografiado en La Sucursal, el proyecto tiene como objetivo explorar la idea de itinerario como un formato de encuentro y eludir la convencional visita de estudio a través de puntos específicos de la ciudad.
+ info
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
+ info
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Newsletter #45 – Summer 2012
Mon, Jul 2 2012
Newsletter #45
http://mad.ly/c60ad2 (in English)
http://mad.ly/32fed2 (en Español)
#OpenCurating, BCN Producció 2012 Research Grant, throughout 2012 + info...
Facilitators of the second Nature Addicts Fund Travelling Academy, 11–15 September, Kassel. Organised within the Maybe Education and Public Programs of dOCUMENTA (13). + info...
'Projects 2005–2012 / Incidents of Travel', in La Sucursal, Casa del Lago, Mexico City, Mexico, 27 September–5 November 2012. + info...
2005–12 Newsletters here.