LONGITUDES

Longitudes cuts across Latitudes’ projects and research with news, updates, and reportage.

Latitudes’ “out of office” 2023-24 season

 

Work by David Shrigley.

Time to put work-related activities on ice. Below is an account of some of the projects, texts, trips, exhibition preparations, talks, and research conducted by Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes this past season. 

Check earlier OUT OF THE OFFICE posts from 2008–92009–102010–112011–122012–132013–142014–152015–162016–172017–182018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 and 2022–23. All photos are by Latitudes unless otherwise noted in the photo caption. For further notes, inspirations, and more, check out our Instagrams, here and here. See you in September!


23 August–3 September 2023: The second part of “The Pilgrim” research residency took us to Dublin, Sligo (including an excursion to Carrowkeel Megalithic Cemetery), Askeaton (with day trips to Foynes Flying Boat & Maritime Museum, the Rock of Cashel, Holycross Abbey, Philip Quinn’s stone-carving workshop, and the Ardnacrusha Power Station), and Limerick to attend the opening events of EVA International. See photos here.

As part of our thinking around relics, pilgrimage, and twinning, the team of Askeaton Contemporary Arts (ACA) asked Michael Holly to put together a video in part inspired by The Pilgrim. Tour guide maestro Anthony Sheehy not only appears giving his account of the Pilgrim’s story in the former Franciscan Friary, but also plays a song on his harmonica. It was through one of Anthony’s tours back in 2018 – he has led tours of the Friary and the Castle for 56 years! – that Latitudes first learned about the Barcelona pilgrim who is buried in Askeaton’s friary. 

Train from Dublin to Sligo.

Our host Ruth Clinton (right) playing the violin at Mc Lynn’s Bar, Sligo.

Photo: Eulàlia Rovira

(Left to right) Mariana, tour guide Anthony Sheehy, Eulàlia, and her son Nil and Max in front of Askeaton's former Franciscan Friary. Photo: Aníbal Parada.

Latitudes, filmmaker Michael Holly and Michelle Horrigan of ACA discussing locations around the Friary. Photo: Eulàlia Rovira.

Anthony Sheehy is being filmed. Photo: Eulàlia Rovira.

Anthony Sheehy playing his harmonica in the Abbey. Photo: Eulàlia Rovira.

Michelle Horrigan of ACA talking to Michael Holly's camera, and (below) Eulàlia Rovira discusses her artistic practice.



September 2023: Montse Badia writes about Gallery Climate Coalition and GCC Spain in Bonart magazine #198, September 2023–February 2024 issue. Read in Català, Español, English or in Français.

Photo: María Gracia de Pedro.


27 September 2023: Max travels to Bilbao to cover the exhibition “Picasso escultor. Materia y cuerpo” [Picasso Sculptor. Matter and Body] at the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, for what will be a two-part Picasso review for frieze magazine. In line with Latitudes’ Environmental Policy to reduce our carbon footprint, and as a 2022 Active Members of the Gallery Climate Coalition, Max took the train to cover this 6h50min journey.


Exhibition curator Carmen Giménez was interviewed during the press tour.

(Above and below) Views of “Picasso escultor. Materia y cuerpo” [Picasso Sculptor. Matter and Body] at the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao. 




October 2023: The October 2023 issue (#238) of frieze magazine includes a printed version of Max Andrews’ review of Miralda’s exhibition at Bombas Gens Centre d'Art, València, published online on June 29. This turns out to be the last exhibition we'll see in this venue, as a few months later, their programme sadly took a radical change to become (yet another) digital centre programming virtual exhibitions – beginning with an immersive show dedicated to Dalí. 😖



9 October 2023: 6h15min train to Málaga to join the press trip organised by the Museo Picasso to celebrate its 20th anniversary and the exhibition “The Echo of Picasso”. The exhibition will be featured in an upcoming two-part review for frieze magazine by Max Andrews. Both the exhibition and the one seen a few days back in Bilbao, are organised within the framework of the international celebrations marking the fiftieth anniversary of the death of Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). 

For this trip, Latitudes used its 2022 Strategic Climate Fund (SCFs) of €190 to cover the journey costs to reduce our carbon emissions (a return train journey from Barcelona to Málaga emits 0.01 tCO2e, a return flight – although considerably cheaper – emits 0.21 tCO2e according to GCC’s Carbon Calculator). This made it possible for Mariana to visit the exhibition and other art spaces including Pompidou Málaga and CAC Málaga. 

Following GCC’s revised 2021 SCFs guidelines and adapting to the financial possibilities of our modest freelance operation, financing effective lower-carbon options is a direct way to achieve real and short-term changeGoing forward, instead of tying the calculation of our SCF to our previous emissions, we will follow GCC's 2023 revised recommendation and set aside a percentage of our year's revenue to be allocated to our 2024 needs. 


Sunset over Málaga from the 14th floor of the hotel.

Museo Picasso Málaga from the roof terrace. At the top is the 11th-century Muslim Palace-fortress Alcazaba.

Views from the terrace of Palacio de Buenavista (Museo Picasso Málaga), towards the Iglesia de San Agustín and the Cathedral de la Encarnación de Málaga. 

Sharing the great knowledge of an excited librarian who has worked in the museum for +20 years. 

Browsing publications found these shots of Picasso’s paintings and sculptures being shipped in the 1960s, a much more relaxed era of art handling and insurance protocols.

(Above and below) “The Echo of Picasso” exhibition curated by Éric Troncy had delightful moments such as the above pairing of Louise Bourgeois’ “Woman in a Shape of a Shuttle” (1947–49) and a 1928 ”Couple of the Seaside” by Picasso, and great works such as Francis Bacon's “Portrait of Michel Leiris” by and a Philip Guston drawing. Yet, on the ground floor, the gear changes (for the worse) starting with an overhang display of sculptures and paintings by (all by men) Markus Lüpertz, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons, Rashid Johnson, Markus Jahmal, Miquel Barceló, Georg Baselitz and the puzzling inclusion of a “Downton Abbey” (2022) family portrait by Genevieve Figgis.



25 October 2023: Launch at Onomatopee, Amsterdam, of the publication “Sketches of Transition. An Atlas on Growth and Decay”, edited by Italian-born, Amsterdam-based artist Michele Bazzoli. The book includes a reprint of Latitudes’ text on Lara Almarcegui’s project “Graves” originally commissioned to accompany Almarcegui's solo exhibition at Centre d’Art la Panera, Lleida, curated by Cèlia del Diego and on view between February and June 2021. More here.



Reprint scans courtesy of Michele Bazzoli.


27 October 2023: Max Andrews’ reviewCelebrating Five Decades of the Picasso-Industrial Complex” goes live on frieze website. The review focuses on the two concurrent shows at Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and Museo Picasso Málaga appraising the artist’s legacy, although taking a troubling tour through an ethical minefield.

“What else is there to know about Pablo Picasso 50 years after his death? Something, evidently. With the support of the French and Spanish governments, the Musée Picasso–Paris and the artist’s grandson and heir, Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, are marking the anniversary with a programme of some 50 exhibitions and events worldwide. ‘Picasso Sculptor. Matter and Body’ at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and ‘The Echo of Picasso’ at the Museo Picasso Málaga are two of the more prominent exhibitions of this “Picasso Celebration 1973–2023” series. But what exactly is being celebrated?” Continue reading


Read the review here.


11 November 2023: Visual artist Laia Ventayol presented in Palma, Mallorca, a lecture on Eulàlia Rovira’s video “A knot which is not” (2020-21) in the framework of the LXVIII Anglo-Catalan Society Conference at the Universitat de les Illes Balears. Rovira’s video was commissioned for the exhibition “Things Things Say” (October 2020-January 2021 – watch the trailer with the artist as the narrator of the exhibition) at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, and was premièred online once the exhibition ended, and the exhibition spaces were once again empty. 

Read more here (in Spanish).

Photo: @laia_ventayol

20 November 2023: Heath Lowndes, Managing Director and co-founder of Gallery Climate Coalition, gives a short presentation of GCC during his participation in the “II Jornadas de Instituciones Artísticas y Sostenibilidad”, organised by Fundació MACBA in Madrid. During his presentation, Lowndes talked about the (so far) six International Chapters, one of which (GCC Spain) we have the pleasure of being part of. On Heath’s long train journey from London to and back from Madrid, he stopped over in Barcelona where we had the chance to finally meet in person. Fundació MACBA’s Jornadas continued on November 20 in Barcelona.

Photo: @max.andrews

Photo: mlopezambrana

Photo: @galerialuciamendoza


24–28 November 2023: Trip to Madrid to see some shows at Fundación March, Fundación Mapfre, Museo Reina Sofía, La Casa Encendida, Museo Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo, CentroCentro, Sala Alcalá 31, Museo Nacional del Prado and TBA21, as well as in commercial galleries such as NoguerasBlanchard, Travesía Cuatro, Galería Ehrhardt Flórez, Elba Benítez, Mira1 and Maisterravalbuena. One of the highlights was attending the preview of the long-awaited solo show of Ibon Aranberri at the Museo Reina Sofía, titled “Vista Parcial” (Partial view) which featured as our December 2023 cover story.

Press presentation of Ibon Aranberri’s exhibition (with microphone).


Aranberri and (back) Bea Herráez (curator of the exhibition with Manuel B. Villel, and director of ARTIUM, Vitoria)

16 January 2024: First general assembly of GCC Spain members and non-members to present the activities carried out by the Committee in 2023 and forthcoming plans for 2024, resolved questions about membership and carbon reporting.


31 January 2024: #TrainToARCOmadrid Instagram campaign is shared between the ARCOmadrid, Gallery Climate Coalition, and GCC Spain, as part of GCC’s ongoing campaign promoting #ClimateConsciousTravel choices. The initiative encourages visitors to address their travel habits, particularly those in Spain and mainland Europe. Changing long-held norms together can have a transformative impact.


16 February 2024: Exhibition preview & publication launch of “Betwixt 2024”, an exhibition and book showcasing the work of 20 emerging artistic practices from Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, and Sheffield taking place across four sites in central and north London between 17–23 February 2024. One of the participants is the artist, writer, and researcher Crystal BennesLatitudes wrote the text on her latest work “O (Copper, cotton, cobalt, crude, naphtha, bauxite, palm)” (2024) for the publication accompanying this Freelands Foundation initiative. 

On 16 March 2024, following the London presentation, Bennes participated in a group show at Talbot Rice Gallery, the public art gallery of the University of Edinburgh, in a survey featuring ten Scotland-based artists from the last two cohorts of the Freelands Artist Programme, the nationwide initiative launched in 2018 that has supported 80 artists across the UK. Involving tapestry, sculptural installation, video, and live 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. 


Betwixt 2024. Courtesy Freelands Foundation.




(Above and two below) Installation view of Crystal Bennes’s “O (copper, cotton, cobalt, crude, naphtha, bauxite, palm)”, 2024. Including a bespoke table, conservation boxes, constructed archive, Financial Times pink paint and divination robe – with scheduled performances. Three photos by Sally Jubb, courtesy of the artist and Talbot Rice Gallery.



6 March 2024: Max Andrews writes “What to See During This Year’s ARCOmadrid” for frieze.com. This year there are prominent solo shows and projects dedicated to women – most notably in the Museo CA2M dedicating exhibitions to Ana Gallardo, Asunción Molinos Gordo and Teresa Solar Abboud. Another highlight is Precious Okoyomon's intervention in la Montaña Artificial de El Retiro de Madrid and TBA21’s solo show of Filipino-Canadian artist Stephanie Comilang. And of course, Ibon Aranberri's solo show before it tours to ARTIUM, Vitoria.

6–8 March 2024
: Trip to ARCOmadrid. This year we are proud of Gallery Climate Coalition’s presence at the fair with two walls providing information about the coalition and some infographics on travel to/from Madrid. Additionally, in the ARCOmadrid 2024 Special / “Focus (eco)systems”, the magazine Exibart features an interview with one of GCC Spain's founding members, Carolina Grau, and a dedicated second section on GCC’s activities including highlights on some of its Effective Actions guidelines. 


Walls in pavilions 7 and 9 of ARCOmadrid. 


Article in Exibart magazine (issue #5, March 2024) on Gallery Climate Coalition.


21 March 2024: Starting today and until April 14, the Fundación Díaz-Caneja is screening Jan Dibbets’ film “6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective” (2009). The Fundación is a contemporary art museum in Palencia dedicated to landscape, the environment and rurality.

The production of the 8-minute-long film was the inaugural project of Portscapes, a series of commissions taking place throughout 2009 in and around Maasvlakte 2, the 2,000-hectare expansion of the Port of Rotterdam. The film premiered at the FutureLand information centre of the Port of Rotterdam in June 2009 and during Latitudes’ participation in the New York festival No Soul For Sale – A Festival of Independents (24–28 June 2009). Portscapes was produced by the Port of Rotterdam Authority in collaboration with the sadly now-defunct internationally operating Dutch cultural organisation SKOR | Foundation Art and Public Space (1999–2012).


23 March 2024: Three-hour online session for the third module on “The Curatorial Imagination”, part of the postgraduate diploma on EXHIBITIONS. Curatorship, Design and Spaces, a course organised by EINA Centre Universitari de Disseny i Art de Barcelona, and led by Manuel Cirauqui, director of EINAidea.  


9 April 2024: We are pleased to be on the second cohort of 125 Active Members announced by Gallery Climate Coalition. As part of Latitudes’ ongoing environmental commitment, and as Committee members of GCC Spain, we submitted our individual 2023 carbon footprint calculations to Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) to renew our status for the second year running. We are committed to reducing our carbon footprint in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 13 “Climate Action”, as well as the Paris Agreement to reduce global carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and as custodians of the Reduce Art Flights website, a campaign devised by artist Gustav Metzger in 2007.

Latitudes’ carbon emissions were 17.4tCo2e (2019), 3.8tCo2e (2022), and 1.5tCo2e (2023). We reduced our emissions by 78% in the first year of the calculations, and over 60% in the second year. The calculation of our carbon footprint considers emissions across various work-related activities: travel (train, air, coach, taxi, car, and ferry), hotel accommodation, and energy consumption (water usage in 2019 and 2022, and gas usage from 2023 onwards). We use the GCC Carbon Calculator (primary calculator) and DEFRA conversion factors to ensure consistent and accurate reporting.

Our 2024 Strategic Climate Fund is €75 (calculated at €50 per tonne emitted in 2023). We set these funds aside to spend on low-carbon purchasing options that would otherwise be unaffordable.




April 2024: Max contributed artwork descriptions and other texts alongside Sofia Lemos, for the publication “Meandering: Art, Ecology, and Metaphysics”, edited by Lemos and copublished by TBA21–Academy and Sternberg Press. The book is part of the namesake art and ecology research programme curated by Lemos at TBA21–Academy “exploring social and environmental justice through the lens of community-oriented practice, presenting a case for the role of artistic research and public programs in revealing our interbeing and shaping new convergences between interdisciplinary and interfaith studies.” 


10 April 2024: Max was commissioned to contribute a text for Secundino Hernández’s catalogue published by This Side Up as part of accompanying his solo exhibition “Problematic Corners”, at Victoria Miro Gallery opening today in London, and on view until 18 May 2024. The gallery is also an Active Member of the Gallery Climate Coalition.

Titled “The Problematic Corners in Question? Or, Fleeing Forward?”, the essay ends “Let’s end with a question? Would it be problematic to conclude that each series of paintings is a way of going beyond your duty as an artist? In other words, are you not keenly aware of wanting to do more than is strictly necessary when something else would still be acceptable? Precisely not cutting corners, then? A method of fuga hacia adelante, fleeing forward? Painting in other words?”


Secundino Hernández's work “Myrtle Beach” (2024), acrylic, vinylic emulsion and dye-transfer print on canvas, 370 x 278cm) in his studio in Madrid.


10 April 2024: Launch of the report Radiography of the Profession of Art Criticism and Curating at the Fundació Miró. The study analyses the professional, economic and social conditions under which Catalunya-based Art Critics and Curators work, and was promoted by the National Council for Culture and Arts (CONCA). The study was supported by an independent expert committee formed by representatives of several organisations and profiles such as ACCA (the Catalan Art Criticism Association, amongst them Mariana of Latitudes who joined as a member last year), the Platform of Catalan Artists (PAAC), and the Association of Cultural Management Professionals of Catalunya (APGCC). 

The report can be downloaded here (pdf, 71 pages, in Catalan), and the recording of the event here (in Catalan).


25–27 April 2024: Trip to Bilbao to visit Jorge Satorre's studio and to continue preparations for his solo exhibition at Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), scheduled for February 2025. We had the chance to see exhibitions by Armando Andrade Tudela at CarrerasMugica, June Crespo and Giovanni Anselmo at the Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao, as well as the wonderful rooms of the Museo de Bellas Artes filled with Sergio Prego’s pneumatic sculptures. From there we take an hour-long bus to attend the double opening of Ibon Aranberri and Patricia Dauder at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo del País Vasco-Artium Museoa in Vitoria-Gasteiz. Max will review Aranberri’s “Entresaka” for frieze magazine.

Read the review here.

(Above and below) Sergio Prego at the Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao.


(Above and below) June Crespo’s solo exhibition “Vascular”, Museo Guggenheim Bilbao.


(Above) Armando Andrade Tudela at galería CarrerasMugica, Bilbao.

(Above and below) View of Ibon Aranberri’s Entresaka, ARTIUM Museoa, Vitoria. 


(Above and below) View of Patricia Dauder “Unform”, ARTIUM Museoa, Vitoria. 


1–5 May 2024: +72K steps visiting the 2024 Venice Biennale curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Beyond the art circuit of the biennial and collateral events, we also visited the Palazzo Grassi, Punta della Dogana, Fondazione In Between Art Film, TBA21, Fondazione Prada, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Also, we had time to visit the stunning Palazzo Grimani and a delightful vaporetto ride with a lightning storm on the horizon.

A much-needed Spritz and cicchetti after long art days.

6 May 2024: Mariana concludes her involvement as a member of the 2024 Acquisition Committee of the Col·lecció Nacional d'Art Contemporani of the Government of Catalunya. This year’s acquisition fund rose to €850,000 (from €599.399,51 in 2023). Once the Committee selects the artworks, they undergo review by a qualification board. From there, they proceed through legal departments for draft contracting, finance, and shipping for their final journey to museums around the region. This process spans the entire year.

A press conference in early 2025 will announce the 2024 acquisitions—including works of contemporary art, photography, cultural artefacts, comics and illustration, postwar art, and the second avant-garde—publicly. Behind this forthcoming announcement are long days reviewing the 434 applications received, followed by 8 online sessions lasting 3 to 4 hours each debating proposals alongside the members of this year’s Committee.



30 May 2024: Private screening of the documentary “Artefacto 71 –¿Qué hace un artista?” (What does an artist do?), directed by Argentinian-born, Mataró-based artist Carlos Essmann. The film synopsis states “One thing is clear: the contemporary artist can dispense with his or her manual skills and give as much or more importance to intellectual work than to the artistic object. So what does an artist do? Artefacto 71 attempts to answer this question by reviewing the activity of a working-class artist like the Catalan Martí Anson, establishing a dialogue between artist and filmmaker as equals.” 

The film includes footage of “Mataró Chauffeur Service” (2010), a project Latitudes with the artist in the context of their participation in the “NO SOUL FOR SALE–A festival of independents” organised in the context of Tate Modern’s 10th-anniversary. In response to the need to travel to London, Martí Anson set up the Mataró Chauffeur Service company in honour of his hometown and drove the curators from Barcelona to London and back. Designing the livery of the single-vehicle fleet, his uniform, and the journey to Tate Modern and back (including the ferry journey from Santander to Portsmouth) all formed a part of the project. The car formed the basis of Latitudes’ temporary office encampment in Tate's Turbine Hall and was parked up for the weekend alongside a picnic scenario of camping chairs, a folding table, and a parasol as well as a slideshow of images of the journey. The car interior became a comfortable space to watch films and “making of” videos produced as part of ‘Portscapes’, the Latitudes-curated commissions series produced for the Port of Rotterdam in the context of Maasvlakte 2: a five-year construction of 2,000 hectares of new land in the North Sea, which extended by 20% the largest seaport and industrial area in Europe. 

Artefacto 71 –¿Qué hace un artista?” was selected to participate in the Official Competition Documentary Section at the 27th Malaga Festival, where it had its world premiere, and won the Biznaga de Plata Ex aequo for Best Director.

Watch a trailer of the doc here.


The artist and the curators on their way to Tate Modern, May 2010.

The car was parked on the bridge of Tate Modern in May 2010. Below is a screening of the commissioned films and making of videos produced for “Portscapes” (2009-10).


(Above and two below) Views of Turbine Hall. Photos: Tom Medwell/NSFS.




3 June 2024: Max Andrews’ first contribution to Artforum magazine is out. It reviews “Refugia”, the first solo exhibition of Rosa Tharrats at Bombon Projects in Barcelona, which opened on March 20. 

Read the review here

View of Rosa Tharrats exhibition “Refugia” at Bombon Projects. 





June 2024: 20 years of Max contributing to frieze magazine! Max’s first review featured an exhibition of Danish artist Jesper Just at Midway Contemporary, written while he was living in Minneapolis as a Curatorial Intern at the Walker Art Center. 

Over the last two decades, Max has published +60 texts covering topics in ecology, institutional thinking, open call fatigue, the history of IVAM – Spain’s First Modern Art Museum – and Barcelona’s cultural politics, amongst others. He has reviewed art events and exhibitions presented in Arlès, Bordeaux, Bregenz, London, Madrid, Málaga, Montpellier, Venice, and Zurich, and profiled the work of Spanish-based artists such as Ibon Aranberri, David Bestué, Lúa Coderch, Dora García, Adrià Julià, Rasmus Nilausen, Miralda, Xavier Ribas, Eulàlia Rovira, Francesc Ruiz, Julia Spínola, and Teresa Solar Abboud, as well as the international practices of Maria Thereza Alves, Duncan Campbell, Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum, Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige, Lucy Skaer, Nicholas Mangan or Bruno Zhu.

Other reviews, opinion columns, profiles, and features are here.



Reviews, opinion columns, profiles, and features here.


4 June 2024: Visited Espinavessa in the Alt Empordà, where Andrew Birk and Sira Pizà run Spiritvessel, with a gorgeous day-long opening of “Llaç” (Ribbon), a new project by Martín Llavaneras. The day was fueled by passion fruit margaritas, tacos de cochinita pibil and, of course, art conversations.

@andrewbirk

27 June 2024: Premiere of “Pass Me, For I Am Strange”, a short film by Askeaton Contemporary Arts’ long-term collaborator Michael Holly, presented during ACA’s yearly festival “Welcome to the Neighbourhood” curated by Michele Horrigan – in which we participated back in 2018.

The film “engages with myths and histories associated with the Franciscan Friary, one of the most extensive sites of its kind in Ireland. Holly’s film listens closely to points of view from characters embedded in the very stonework of the friary, including Fitzgerald, one of its reputed founders; Don Martínez de Mendoza, a repentant Catalonian nobleman who took shelter there, and a now faceless stone carving of Saint Francis. Considering the interpretation of Askeaton’s medieval heritage as an experiment in time and space, Pass Me, For I Am Strange is developed collaboratively through research, dialogue and contributions by and with fellow artists Niamh Moriarty, Ruth Clinton, Carl Doran, Eulàlia Rovira and historian Anthony Sheehy, in association with “The Pilgrim”, a residency programme developed between Askeaton Contemporary Arts and Latitudes, Barcelona.” (Text from Askeaton's website)

Listen to Carl Doran’s audio narration of “The Pilgrim” from an article published in Askeaton-Balysteen Community News, Summer 1984. 

Watch the short film here.

Reading the pilgrim inscription while shooting the film.  




2 July 2024: We received a copy of the latest book by our former RCA tutor, Dr Claire Bishop, titled Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance Today” (Verso Books, 2024). It includes a photograph we took in 2010 of Wolfgang Tillmans’ work “Truth Study Center” (2005–) while we live-edited a weekly tabloid that ultimately constituted the ten-part catalogue of “The Last Newspaper” (October 2010–January 2011) exhibition at the New Museum. Tillmans’ work shared the floor with our temporary office and is a project he began in 2005 with a show at his London gallery Maureen Paley. 

More on this here.





Looking forward

In the Autumn of 2023, Lisa LeFeuvre, Executive Director of the Holt/Smithson Foundation, invited Latitudes to contribute to the foundation's Scholarly Text Program, writing on one artwork by Nancy Holt and/or Robert Smithson. The works written about range from landmark earthworks and texts to lesser-known drawings, moving image works, and rarely-seen two-dimensional works. Max decided to write on Robert Smithson’s text “Aerial Art” (Studio International, February—April 1969), and Mariana on Nancy Holt's “Ventilation Systems” (1985–1992). The essays will be published on the Foundation's website in October and November 2024 and include images, a short bibliography, endnotes pointing to the author’s references and an ISBN.

And some further announcements in the autumn!


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Latitudes' "out of office": wrap up of the 2017–2018 season

This is possibly our favourite post of the year. Not just because it means we’ll shortly be taking a deserved summer break. But also because it brings a sense of accomplishment to look back at what has happened during the last twelve months — to remember the many conversations we’ve had, the places we’ve been privileged to visit and to refresh all those ideas and plans we intended to move forward. Onwards!

September 11—October 6, 2017
: Lead Faculty of the month-long "Geologic Time" residency at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada.


In this blog post, we shared some lithic impressions of the four weeks we spent leading a programme in Alberta's Rocky Mountains.

One of the epic moments of the month: a gorgeous hike to Stanley Glacier.
At the base of Mount Stanley, we found 505-million-year-old Burgess Shale trilobites, soft-body fossils from the Eldon formation.
Snow surprised us on our final week in Banff.

Welcome coffee with third week Guest faculty Sean Lynch.
A fun evening at High Rollers bowling alley in Banff town.

The closing event of "Geologic Time" was conceived as a two-hour infiltration into the pages, shelves, and display possibilities of The Banff Centre library. Featuring storytelling, documentation, annotation, sculpture, video, conversation and other live situations, the event presented some sediments of the ten participants’ ongoing research and geological collaborations. Pdf of the event programme.

Posters communicating some of the seminars and excursions programmed during the four weeks. Design/Photos: Latitudes.

Intervention by Semâ Bekirovic, based in Amsterdam. Bekirovic employed a number of external hard drives to act as pedestals for small stones. How many terabytes can a hunk of rock hold? What fragments of data detritus, chunks and grains of documents, broken off images, or weathered files, might be read and written, stored or retrieved?

Intervention by Caitlin Chaisson based in Vancouver. Chaisson researched a former experimental farm station in Agassiz, British Columbia, and a forgotten centennial time capsule buried under a granite marker there. Caitlin also presented a cut-and-paste station on the table next to the photocopier, and a display for the tall vitrine just behind it.

Intervention by Caroline Loewen, based in Calgary. Caroline delves deep into the story of sandstone in Alberta, a rock that gained widespread favour for building and decorative use following Calgary’s Great Fire of 1886. The black-and-brown Rundle Rock that was once quarried at the base of Banff-Centre-neighbour Mount Rundle and was used extensively in creating the Banff Springs Hotel also joins a conversation that anticipates an exhibition scheduled for next summer at Lougheed House in Calgary.

Intervention by Justy Phillips & Margaret Woodward (A Published Event) based in Hobart. Described by the Hobart-based duo as “an accumulative event of mineralogical, metaphysical and metallurgical telling”, the books that have come into the world to date have been incorporated into the library’s holdings alongside a glossary and can be found in the geology section upstairs.

An audio narration drafted by Penelope Smart was also heard on the upper floor, near the “memoirs and narrative” section. Here, an image of the exquisite marble bust by Giovanni Strazza animated Penny’s writing during the last weeks. It came to St.John’s, Newfoundland, in 1856. Ring the bell to the right of the main door of the Presentation Convent adjoining the Basilica in St.John’s and maybe one of the sisters will let you see it.

Remnants of the 2-hour event.

For the final event on October 5th, participants Becky Forsythe and Camila Sposati decided to collaborate through a performance using the library photocopier on the main floor. ‘"Receding Agate" and "Receding Rhodochrosite" was a collection of pages produced during a procedural artwork that slowly and methodically extracted copies of Agate and Rhodochrosite from Roger Caillois' "The Writing of Stones". Each page is a copy of the last, so text begins to harden into pebble-like shapes, and images begin to simplify as darker forms in an experiment of accumulation and sedimentation.’




Far Afield, the artistic-curatorial initiative led by the also participant Caitlin Chaisson, hand-bound the resulting two-part publication for Far Afield's library, a platform for "collecting and sharing publications that support experimental art practices".


      Photos by Far Afield's library.

27 October 2017: Cabaret at La Capella space, a public programme organised by the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona in the context of their Joan Brossa exhibition. The Capella space was decorated with fragments of Antoni Hervàs "El Misterio de Caviria" scenography, presented only a year earlier at the other La Capella space as part of the 2016 BCN Producció season. The project was mentored by Latitudes. Following Hervàs’s interests in Barcelona’s dwindling cabaret scene, he invited Gilda Love and castanets master Juan de la Cruz "el Rosillo" (who sadly passed away a few months after) to interpret a moving repertoire of popular Spanish copla, against the backdrop of parts of his scenography. 


Gilda Love and castanets master Juan de la Cruz "el Rosillo". Photos by Dani Cantó/MACBA.

5 November 2017: The 1878 painting by Alfred Roll "The Old Quarryman" is exchanged with Alfred Smith's "The Grave Docks" (1884) in the Latitudes-curated exhibition "4.543 billion" at the CAPC musée. The show remains on view another two more months, until January 7, 2018.

Photo: Lysian Gauthier © Musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux.

Photo: Alice Cavender.

(Unframed) Alfred Smith's (Bordeaux, 1854–Paris, 1936) “Le Quai de la Grave” [The Grave Docks] (1884). Collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux.

15 November 2017: Study day at CAPC musée "The Return of the Earth. Ecologising Art History in the Anthropocene." With a keynote by science historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, and a conversation between artists Xavier Ribas and Ângela Ferreira—the latter both featured in the exhibition—the event convened by '4.543 billion'-curators Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna, saw art practice and historical research intertwining with environmental and geological narratives, and vice versa.

(Top) Left to right: Max Andrews, Xavier Ribas, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and Ângela Ferreira during the debate. (Below) Ângela discussing her work in the exhibition. Photos (Above and below): Latitudes.


22 November 2017: Launch of Anna Moreno's "The Drowned Giant" publication at the Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya alongside architect and researcher Lluis A. Casanovas. Moreno's project is part of the BCN Producció 2017–18 programme of which Latitudes' is a jury member and mentor. 

Video of the presentation (in Catalan).

Photos (this and following): Pep Herrero / La Capella—Barcelona Producció 2017.




(Above) Photo: Anna Moreno.

Earlier that week we spent two intense mornings unpacking, hand spraying, numbering, inserting poster and booklet and re-packaging the limited edition of 300 vinyl records in the former Escola Massana, nearby La Capella. 

A short video on the project was screened on betevé tv (in Catalan, starting 04:24min).


Photos (Above and below): Latitudes.




1 December 2017: Latitudes introduces the documentary "Harald Szeemann. The Life of a Dreamer" premiered at Cinemes Girona as part of the first edition of Dart Festival 2017, the Festival of Documentary Cinema on Contemporary Art.


Photo: Latitudes.

9 December 2017: Mariana of Latitudes led the first "Parlem" [Let's talk] guided tour around the exhibition "Rosemarie Castoro. Focus at infinity", curated by Tanya Barson, MACBA's Chief Curator, a free event repeated on March 10 and March 31st.

Photo: Latitudes.

December 2017: Transition from Storify to Wakelet to archive all the social media stories related to Latitudes' projects.
Latitudes' Wakelet profile.

20 December 2017: Max Andrews of Latitudes (and Contributing Editor of frieze magazine) looks back at 2017 from Barcelona and beyond, at some art highlights from a tumultuous 2017, including Amie Siegel, Pierre Huyghe, Lúa Coderch, Francesc Torres, Adrià Julià, Jordi Mitjà, Eulàlia Rovira & Adrian Schindler, Joan Morey, and Claudia Pagès. 

2017 from Barcelona and beyond.

23 January 2018: Opening of the exhibition "Artengo2000" by Magda Vaz and Camille Orny at the sala petita of La Capella. This is the third and final Barcelona Producció project mentored by Latitudes.


(Above and below) View from "Artengo2000", an exhibition by Camille Orny and Magda Vaz at the Sala Petita in La Capella. Photo: Pep Herrero / La Capella.




23 January 2018: The online platform arteinformado.com publishes three artist recommendations by five Spanish-based curators. Mariana Cánepa of Latitudes selected Gerard Ortín, Martín Llavaneras and Anna Moreno.

25 January 2018: Print proofs of the forthcoming John Kørner's monograph published by Roulette Russe with texts by Oliver Basciano, Marie Nipper and Max Andrews' of Latitudes, published on the occasion of his recent mid-career retrospective "Altid Mange Problemer" at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen (17 June–13 August 2017).



2 February 2018: Roulette Russe publish an image of John Kørner's book hot off the press.























9–10 February 2018: Trip to Montpellier to attend the opening of "Crash Test" at La Panacée/Centre d'art Contemporain MoCo.

16 February 2018: Max Andrews of Latitudes wrote a review of the show for frieze magazine published online and in the printed issue in April.

Installation piece by Alice Channer.
Work by Agnieszka Kurant (foreground) and Aude Pariset (background).

Detail of a vitrine piece by Bianca Bondi.

15 February 2018: Award ceremony of the 2017 Premis Ciutat de Barcelona, of which Mariana was a jury member in the Visual Arts category. Joan Morey was the awarded visual artist.

20–23 February 2018: Trip to ARCOmadrid fair, below some social media posts.






Photo: Roberto Ruiz.

Lola Lasurt presented ‘Donació’ (Donation) in the Galeria Joan Prats booth, a body of work produced for the ‘Composiciones’ commissioning series Latitudes curated for the Barcelona Gallery Weekend 2016. Lasurt was also exhibiting as part of La Casa Encendida's "Generación 2018".

22 February 2018: Max Andrews' review of Lúa Coderch's solo show "The girl with no door on her mouth" at àngels barcelona, is published online. The text is also be included in the printed issue in April. 
Review of Lúa Coderch's solo show "The girl with no door on her mouth" at àngels barcelona.


26 February 2018: After nearly two years in development, the sixth ‘Incidents (of Travel)dispatch from Yerevan, Armenia, is finally live! 

In her day-long tour Yerevan-born, San Diego-based curator and researcher Marianna Hovhannisyan extended the invitation to Vardan Kilichyan, Gohar Hosyan, and Anaida Verdyan, three students from the studio college at the National Center of Aesthetics. The purpose was to document transformed, disappeared, or permanently-closed art institutions in the city centre. The shared inquiry was based on how knowledge transmission and generational exchanges in the Armenian contemporary art field could be approached—particularly in terms of exploring the fragmented histories of its institutional work. As they were putting together the touches on this online version of the offline day, the studio-college itself closed down permanently at the end of 2017.

http://incidents.kadist.org/yerevan

2 March 2018: Book launch of John Kørner's monograph in Copenhagen. Published by Roulette Russe with texts by Oliver Basciano, Marie Nipper and Max Andrews.


 (Above and below). Courtesy Roulette Russe. Photos by Finn Wergel Dahlgren.






March 10 and 31, 2018: Second and third guided visits to Rosemarie Castoro's exhibition at MACBA led by Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes.

MACBA's Instagram story announcing the talk.

March 20, 2018: Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes reviews ‘Allora & Calzadilla’ at the Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona, for art-agenda."A piercing whistle punctuates the blaring of a trumpet. But in the columned central space of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, the only visible instrument is a grand piano. For three days a week throughout the course of the exhibition, the instrument is played—and, one could say, worn—by a pianist who stands in a hole cut into its center."

Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes reviews ‘Allora & Calzadilla’ at the Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona, for art-agenda.

The same day, we sent the Spring newsletter to our contacts, in English and in Spanish.

12—14 April 2018: Three performances by Les Brontë, Quim Pujol and Eliana Beltrán over three consecutive evenings at La Capella, part of the BCN Producció 2017–18 programme of which Latitudes' is a jury member and mentor.


(Above and below) "Fine Cherry" performance by Les Brontë. Photos: Latitudes.





"Verde Croma" by Quim Pujol. Photos: Latitudes.

"Reading Room #3" by Eliana Beltrán. Photos: Latitudes.


1 May 2018: Max Andrews' profile on Madrid-based artist Teresa Solar Abboud goes online on frieze website.



28 April–4 May 2018: Trip to Berlin during the Gallery Weekend, and later to Cologne to visit Haegue Yang's mid-career retrospective ‘ETA 1994–2018’ at Museum Ludwig, and Ana Jotta's first solo exhibition in Germany at the Temporary Gallery. More on this blog post and on this Wakelet feed.





23–29 May 2018: Trip to London to visit +35 exhibitions, friends, and family – highlights below, full photo report here. Short day trip to Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum (a favourite of ours), the Natural History Museum and Modern Art Oxford. 

 (Above and below) Cinthia Marcelle's "The Family in Disorder" (2018) at Museum and Modern Art Oxford.
(Above) The incredible main hall of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.
 (Above) The opening of Leonor Antunes's "a thousand realities from an original mark" at Marian Goodman.Polycarbonate and brass screens and rope sculptures. Each screen corresponds to the exact measurements of one of the glass panels in the Upper Lawn Pavilion in Wiltshire, built between 1959 and 1962 by the British architects Alison and Peter Smithson (1928-1993 and 1923-2003). 

 Fantastic assembly of Markus Lüperz's tent paintings at Michael Werner Gallery, which the artist painted at age 24 using distemper on canvas.

 Batia Suter's work at The Photographers' Galery. One of the nominees for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2018, finally won by Luke Willis Thompson with his striking film "autoportrait".
   (Above) Antoni Hervàs studio at Gasworks during his 3-month residency.
   (Above) View of Trafalgar Square with Michael Rakowitz's "The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist" featuring on the Fourth Plinth commission.
(Above) Peter Gabriel discussing his during the internet interspecies symposium "The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish" curated by Lucia Pietroiusti and Filipa Ramos for the Serpentine Gallery at the London Zoo.

Things that make us very happy: when a friend travels half the world to find one of our publications (Amikejo catalogue by Mousse Publishing in 2011) in the library of TEORética in Costa Rica and shares a snapshot on Twitter :-)

28 June 2018: The seventh ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ dispatch from Hobart, Tasmania, goes live on http://incidents.kadist.org/ On this occasion, the offline conversation took place between curator Camila Marambio and artist Lucy Bleach. We're also working on the eighth destination: Buenos Aires.
Throughout June–July 2018: Intense writing period in preparation for two forthcoming exhibitions: ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’ (Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, opening on September 13 and, on view until October 14) and ‘COLLAPSE’, a solo exhibition by Joan Morey opening on September 19 over two floors of the Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats, with the following chapters at the Centre d'Art Tecla Sala (23 November 2018–13 January 2019) and a new commission at a yet-undisclosed location (10 January 2019).


18–29 July 2018: Two days in Dublin followed by a 10-day residency in Askeaton, as part of Askeaton Contemporary Art's (ACA) thirteenth annual event "Welcome to the neighbourhood". In 2018 ACA invited artists Matt Calderwood, Jonny Lyons, Ruth Clinton, and Niamh Moriarty, alongside curators Gareth Bell-Jones (Flat Time House, London) and Latitudes. More on this post.

Desmore castle undergoing restoration.
Artists and POW workers after the tour.
RUSAL Aughinish alumina plant from afar, this is the largest alumina refinery in Europe.
Group trip to Lismore Castle upper garden in County Waterford.
The gardens featured works by Franz West (above) and Rashid Johnson (below).

The Grange Stone circle.



During the residency, we learnt of the story of ‘the Pilgrim’, a merchant from Barcelona who arrived in Askeaton around 1767 and who lived out his life in the Franciscan friary, dying there in 1784. Digging further in the local library, we came across a 1984 article written by Tim Kelly in a back issue of the ABC News, Askeaton’s local publication of record. The story reveals a dramatic narrative bringing to life a cryptic inscription found in the cloister that reads “Beneath lies the Pilgrim’s body, who died January 17, 1784”. The tale involves an Italian, a Spaniard, and a morbid blood-hunt that links Barcelona with Askeaton and is read aloud by artist Carl Doran. 


Matt Calderwood's boat ready to sail on the River Deel.

Making of Jonny Lyons’ "Joyride" on the River Deel.

"Welcome to the neighbourhood" Open day.



August 2018: Aaaand we’re out of office! Kinda.

Save the following dates:

13 September, 6–9pm: Opening of ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’ at Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna. 


14 September, 6pm: Performance “One motif says to the other: I can’t take my eyes off you” by Adrian Schindler and Eulàlia Rovira. Followed by the artist lecture: “A Blow by Blow Account of Stonecarving in Oxford” by Sean Lynch. Part of the exhibition ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’ at Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna.

19 September, 19h: Opening of ‘Joan Morey. COLLAPSE’, Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats.




RELATED CONTENT:

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The story behind José Antonio Hernández-Díez's 'San Guinefort' (1991)

 Pages with the story behind Plaça dels Àngels.

When giving a presentation or tour of an exhibition or project we have worked on, we are often asked how the project emerged – if there was a particular trigger or point of origin. In the case of José Antonio Hernández-Díez’s exhibition currently on view at MACBA (until June 26, 2016), our approach was a familiar one to us – we started by both delving in-depth in researching the artists previous works while at the same time looking into the history of the venue where the exhibition was going to take place.

We are very fond of a book that has been in our library for many years – 'Histories and legends of Barcelona' by Joan Amades (Edicions 62). This two-volume tome gathers some of the myths behind Barcelona place names and includes the tales behind both familiar and obscure buildings, streets and monuments in the city. The story that most captivated us concerned the chapel of the Convent dels Àngels, and it is recounted in the essay we wrote to accompany the exhibition (published as the Quaderns Portàtils #32 pdfs available in Spanish and English and epub in Spanish only). It goes as follows:

(...) "Outside the doorway of the deconsecrated sixteenth-century church that formed part of Barcelona’s Convent dels Àngels there once stood the stone figure of a dog, standing upright on its hind legs. Two separate legends account for its existence, as recorded by ethnologist and folklorist Joan Amades in the 1950s. A boorish man would routinely interrupt the services and torment the church congregation, it is said. He was punished by being turned into a dog. The other version states that the canine figure commemorates the thwarting of a robbery. The church once displayed an image of Saint Roch, the patron saint of dogs, accompanied by a hound. It is said that the prospective thieves were frightened away as the image miraculously began to bark. (The supernatural mythology of the chapel does not cease there – in 1627 an image of Christ began to sweat blood profusely.) 

Sculpture of a dog once stood in front of La Capella dels Àngels, the church of the Convent dels Àngels.
 
Parallel to this, we started looking at Hernández-Díezs earliest works and investigating his pieces in MACBAs collection. We found that the museum had his 1991 work San Guinefort on long-term loan in their collection, but it had never been exhibited. As narrated in our essay: 

(...) "that José Antonio Hernández-Díez (Caracas, Venezuela, 1964) had already been dealing with Catholic belief and superstition in his art – and moreover, specifically addressing canine veneration – is much more than an uncanny coincidence for his exhibition at MACBA’s Convent dels Àngels in 2016."  

The legend behind Saint Guinefort is one of the more obscure intersections of Catholic history and folk tradition:

(...) "Writing around 1260, the Inquisitor and Dominican friar Étienne de Bourbon related his investigation into the veneration of Saint Guinefort in the Dombes region of France. He discovered that this supposed Saint was, in fact, a dog. The account he disclosed was that a knight and his wife had one day left their greyhound Guinefort to guard their baby. When they returned to the castle they found the cradle empty and Guinefort covered in blood. Assuming it had murdered the baby, the knight hastily killed the dog, only later realising his error. Guinefort had in fact fought off a snake in order to save the child, who was found unharmed. Guinefort was buried unceremoniously in the forest outside the castle walls. Hearing of the martyred dog, local people began to believe in its power to protect children and began to bring their sick infants to the grave. Étienne de Bourbon was horrified to discover the strength of the superstition that had taken root. Children were being left overnight by Guinefort’s grave in the belief that he would rid them of spirits, and several babies had died as a consequence. Defending the orthodoxy of the church, the friar had the heretical remains of the greyhound dug up and destroyed, razed the forest and outlawed the canine cult, yet there is evidence of its persistence into the nineteenth century. The episode is worth recounting in detail, as previous accounts of it in relation to Hernández-Díez’s work have been misleading."


Coinciding with our research period, in August 2014 we happened to be travelling near Lyon, France, and took the opportunity to visit to the Bois de Saint Guinefort in the Dombes region, where the story of Saint Guinefort emerged (and where the dog-saint may still be venerated every 22nd August, despite the regional tourism office assuring us the festival day was no longer celebrated). 

Somewhere on the road between Villars-les-Dombes and Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne one can, with the help of a tagged flickr photo and GPS, find a sign, as seen below, which briefly narrates these peculiar events from the 13th Century



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Cover Story, March 2016: José Antonio Hernández-Díez: The sacred heart of the matter

March 2016 cover story. This and previous stories are archived here.

The March 2016 cover story marks the twelve of the series. This section published monthly on our home page, focuses on an artwork or moment related to our past, current or future practice – "close ups" of what we do, see and are thinking about. (When the next Cover Story is published, the March one will be archived here.)

'José Antonio Hernández-Díez. I will fear no evil' opens at MACBA’s Convent dels Àngels on 18 March 2016 (and runs until 26 June). Guest curated by Latitudes, the exhibition focuses on the Barcelona-based Venezuelan artist’s first experimental works from the late 1980s and early 1990s. 

The presence of ghosts and bodily organs in this phase of José Antonio’s out-of-joint art – videographic spectres, disembodied voices, preserved creatures, hearts and skin – is only enhanced by the somewhat necromantic aspect of the fact that several of his works are being reconstructed. Dealing with the symbology and spiritual practices of Catholicism, 'Sagrado Corazón Activo' (Active Sacred Heart, 1991) is one of the pieces which will be brought back to life. In a workshop in Barcelona’s Gràcia, sculptor Fernando Romeo is making its heart. Continue reading...


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Latitudes' "out of office" 2014–2015 season

It's that end-of-the-season time of the year again. It has become a tradition for Latitudes (see the 2008-9, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012–13, 2013–14 posts) to mark the summer break, not by presenting a written memo of activities or a financial statement, but with a 'behind the scenes' post filled with photos revisiting moments from the year gone by. So here are some glimpses from September 2014 to August 2015.

Slowing down is rather relative this Summer, as at the end of July we embarked on a two-week trip to The Banff Centre in Canada to be Guest Faculty of one of its thematic residencies, 'Blueprint for Happiness' led by British artists Heather & Ivan Morison. At the end of August, we will be in residency at Kadist Art Foundation in San Francisco for another two weeks. 

Milestones during the first part of 2015 were two-fold: after months of technical tweaking and editorial wrangling, we launched our newly designed website in February and secondly, this Spring Latitudes celebrated its 10th anniversary.

Have a great holiday, más en septiembre! 

7 October 2014: Latitudes hosted the second year students of the MA Curating Contemporary Art at the Royal College of Art, London, and took the opportunity of presenting and reflecting on our collaborations with three Catalan artists – Martí Anson, Ignasi Aballí and Francesc Ruiz

 Francesc Ruiz presenting his work to the RCA students.

Trip reporting: We reported from the field including at Madrid's Apertura in September, London's Frieze week in October, David Jablonowski's "Hype Cycle" at Fons Welters during Amsterdam's Art Weekend in November, and from Bordeaux in January, to Bari in May.

Writing: This year Max Andrews has joined frieze as Contributing Editor – where he has been writing since 2004. His writing has been more frequent in recent months as frieze have published reviews on Maria Thereza Alves at CAAC in Sevilla, the group show "What cannot be used is forgotten" at CAPC Bordeaux, a profile of Nicholas Mangan and a review of the Spanish and Latin American Pavilions at the Venice Biennale. Mariana Cánepa Luna also published an interview with Mangan in Mousse Magazine last February.

New website: Our homemade website finally saw the light of day in February. As explained in this post, the website features new elements such as the 'Cover Story' (more on that in the next paragraph), sliding photo galleries, a tidied-up sidebar with a calendar of events, tags to filter projects by 'year' or 'exhibition', etc.

'Cover Story': More writing has emerged through the new monthly section "Cover Story" on our home page (check out the archive of this section):

March 2015: Focused on a single artwork: Wilfredo Prieto's ‘Grasa, jabón y plátano’ (2006); 

April 2015: Revisited a peculiar site: the Connaught Road West flyover, in Hong Kong;


April 2015 Cover Story.

May 2015: Honoured two artistazos: Lawrence Weiner and Sergi Aguilar and a whisky-enhanced chat on the Barcelona shore in October 2008; 


June 2015: Visited Ignasi Aballí at his Raval studio.

Summer 2015: Orbited around Australian artist Nicholas Mangan, an artist with whom Latitudes just did an in conversation in the context of his solo exhibition "Ancient Lights" at Chisenhale, London and whose work has been the focus in Max Andrews' Frieze text as well as in Mariana Cánepa Luna's interview in the February-March issue of Mousse Magazine


 Summer 2015 Cover Story (plus the archive here).

26 February, ARCOmadrid: On jury duty visiting the galleries participating in the #Opening section of the art fair, in order to select its best stand. The award was given to Barcelona-based gallery etHALL which presented works by Martin Vitaliti and Sergio Prego.

 

Spring, celebration time! Later in May we celebrated our 10th anniversary (well, officially it was in April!) launching a series of limited editions in the form of tote bags by four artists that have a special place in our hearts and with whom we have collaborated with in the past: Lawrence Weiner (New York, 1942), Haegue Yang (Seoul, 1971), Ignasi Aballí (Barcelona, 1958) and Mariana Castillo Deball (Mexico City, 1975). Below is a glimpse from the making of the tote bags at Print Workers Barcelona, and here's where you can place your order.

 Photolith design for the tote bag by Haegue Yang – realised in collaboration with OK-RM. 
 Silkscreen process of Lawrence Weiner's design. Photo: Print Workers.
 Silkscreening Ignasi Aballí's tote. Photo: Print Workers.
 Silkscreening Mariana Castillo Deball tote. Photo: Print Workers.
 Silkscreening the credit for each bag in the inside pocket. Photo: Print Workers.
Homemade photo studio documenting the totes. Results of the photo shoot here.

9–13 May 2015: After an intense week of Biennale overdose in Venice, we traveled to Bari to join Vessel and MADA's 2015 International Curatorial Retreat as two of its tutors. The week was far from being a retreat, it was more like an "intensive" – though it certainly was a "treat". Highly interesting debates and conversations on-and-off the scheduled activities of lectures and break-out sessions emerged in places such as a cave or in the nearby town Monopoli – no direct link to the property trading board game. Here a report from fellow tutor Dr. Alexandra Ross
  
 Visiting the market. Photo: Piero Percoco.
Market stall selling tomatoes of all kinds and origins.
 Chef Boris Portnoy doing some dinner prep at Doppelgaenger gallery/home.
 Due to a fire in Rome's airport, our flight was cancelled and we had to rearrange our travel, spending another day in Bari. We therefore visited (we were in fact their only visitors) the Palazzo dell'Acquedotto Pugliese di Bari, decorated by roman designer Duilio Cambellotti
A food detour to purchase delightful spicy rucola in the Mercato ex Manifattura Bari, in the Quartiere Libertà.


3–5 June 2015: Max Andrews participated in the annual 'Invest Conference 2015' organised by Stroom den Haag, in The Hague, consisting of "an incentive for the artistic development of recently graduated artists who have received the PRO Invest subsidy in the year before. A group of ten international curators is asked to visit these artists in their studios and meet with the art scene of The Hague." 

  Above (visiting Machteld Rullens) and following photographs by Myung Feyen. Courtesy Stroom den Haag.

7 July 2015: For our last public event of the year we joined Melbourne artist Nicholas Mangan for an in conversation in the context of his solo show 'Ancient Lights' that opened a few days earlier at Chisenhale Gallery in London. Mint and Lime Films video documented the talk – watch it from Chisenhale's website / Vimeo.

Vinyl listing the exhibition events.


 (Above) Photos by Manuela Barczewski.


27 July–7 August 2015: Guest Faculty of the Thematic Residency 'Blueprint for Happiness' at The Banff Centre, Canada. We joined the group in the middle two weeks of the six week programme led by British artists Heather and Ivan Morison

View of The Banff Centre from our bedroom in Lloyd Hall.
Banff TV announcing Latitudes' talk on 28 July, 4pm. 

 Blueprint for Happiness' participants.
 Views from Latitudes' studio in the Jeanne & Peter Lougheed Building.
 Studio visit with "Blueprint for Happiness" participant Vanessa Kwan.
 Studio visit with "Blueprint for Happiness" participant Robert Cram.
Inevitable photo of a deer walking around Banff.
Stunning evening sunset over the Bow River after a storm with a double rainbow.

While in Banff, Latitudes led three seminars bringing forward a series of case studies as well as focussing on a number of artists whose practice has dealt with public space in different geographical contexts. We also undertook studio visits with each of the 11 resident artists, and participated in a field trip to Calgary to visit the HQ of art construction company Heavy Industries and the Esker Foundation Contemporary Art Gallery


 (School) Field trip to Calgary to visit Heavy Industries fabricators and the Esker Foundation. 
 Even though the school bus seats were no longer in scale to our adult bodies, interesting chats happened over the 2 hours of each trajectory.

On Sunday 2 August, Latitudes hosted a closed-door evening film programme screening works by Spanish artist Emilio Moreno, Irish artist Sean Lynch and Australian artist Nicholas Mangan. The three films share a focus on public sculptures, monuments or buildings that have been displaced from their original context. 

 Flicking through some of the 4,000 artist books at Banff library.


Most of this past months' activity has been invested in preparing for 2015–16 projects: Firstly, 'Compositions' a series of five artistic interventions by six artists active in the Barcelona art scene: David Bestué (Barcelona, 1980. Lives in Barcelona); Dora García (Valladolid, 1965. Lives in Barcelona), Jordi Mitjà (Figueres, 1970. Lives between Lladó and Banyoles); Rasmus Nilausen (Copenhagen, 1980. Lives in Barcelona) & Pere Llobera (Barcelona, 1970. Lives in Barcelona) and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané (Barcelona, 1977. Lives in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), which will take place in the context of the first Barcelona Gallery Weekend (1–4 October 2015). 

Façade of Cosme Toda in L'Hospitalet municipality (Barcelona) part of a 1920s factory complex where David Bestué will present his intervention in the context of the first Barcelona Gallery Weekend, 1–4 October 2015.
Site visit to the Umbracle with Daniel Steegmann Mangrané.


Secondly, we've been working on the forthcoming solo exhibition of Venezuelan-born, Barcelona-based artist José Antonio Hernández-Díez which will be on view at La Capella MACBA from March 2016. Onwards!


Digging through documentation in MACBA library in preparation for José Antonio Hernández-Díez exhibition.

RELATED CONTENT:

Latitudes 'Out of office' 2013–14, 31 July 2014;
Latitudes' "out of office" photo album, 2012–2013 season, 31 July 2013;
Latitudes' "out of office" photo album 2011–2012, 31 July 2012;
Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2010–11 season, 1 August 2011;
Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2009–10 season, 30 July 2010;
Latitudes' "out of office" photo album 2008-9, 30 July 2009.


This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos:
Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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Latitudes 'out of office' photo album 2010–11 season

Following a tradition started in 2009 (see the 2010 post) we say goodbye to the 2010-11 season with an 'out of office' post with some unseen and 'behind the scenes' moments of the last 11 months. Happy holidays/felices vacaciones!

– Latitudes | www.lttds.org

 17 September 2010: Opening of 'Antes que todo' at the Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Móstoles (Madrid). Latitudes contributed artist entries to the exhibition catalogue (+ images)

20 September 2010: BCN-NYC. Ahead are 11 intense weeks of hard work as a partner organisation of 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition, for which Latitudes produced a weekly newspaper in a live situation from the New Museum galleries for 10 consecutive weeks. Weekly blogs and videos of each newspaper (now 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition catalogue): #1 The Last Post; #2 The Last Gazette; #3 The Last Register; #4 The Last Star-Ledger; #5 The Last Monitor; #6 The Last Observer; #7 The Last Evening Sun; #8 The Last Journal; #9 The Last Times; #10 The Last Express. (+ images)
 
25 September 2010: Studio visit with Ester Partegàs (+ images). Partegàs was the 'advertising department' in the 10 tabloid newspaper series edited by Latitudes for 'The Last Newspaper'.

early October: Final touches to 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition curated by Richard Flood and Benjamin Godsill. Show opened 6 October 2010. (+ installation images)

21 October 2010: Presentation of 'Vic Cambrils Barcelona...' project at the Midway Contemporary Art's library, Minneapolis. A selection of 50 self- and micro-published books and paper editions by Catalan artists, designers, curators... (+ images)
  22 October 2010: Yves Klein gala dinner at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

13 November 2010: final checks of issue #7 'The Last Evening Sun' with the brilliant TLN part-time staffers Janine Armin and Greg Barton. (+ images of the exhibition)

18 November 2010: 'The Last...' graphic designers Chad Kloepfer and Joel Stillman discussing with New Museum's Daniel Thiem and Latitudes' the final bits & pieces of 'The Last Newspaper' catalogue.

24 November 2010: Issue #8 'The Last Journal' delivered! Won-der-ful cover by Fernando Bryce.

late November 2010: Checking the headlines of 'The Last Times' (#9) featuring Peter Piller, Robert Gober, Andrea Bowers, Angel Nevarez & Valerie Tevere amongst others.
 Late November: The board is almost filled with the weekly mini-posters with 'The Last...' headlines. Underneath pictures of the team that made TLN possible.

10 December 2010: This is how 10 weeks of full-time work look like when you pile them up.
  10 December 2010: Packaging the 10 newspapers + cover/index with New Museum's Daniel Thiem and the ever helpful Irina Chernyakova.

early January 2011: Delivery of our copies of 'The Last Newspaper' to our home, what-a-moment! (+ images)

19 January 2011: Installing with Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller their solo show at the Aarhus Art Building, Centre for Contemporary Art, Århus, Denmark. (+ images)

Roman & Christina installing 'End of Life - Contribution to the inefficiency of poetry' (2010). They know what they are doing!
 21 January 2011: Leaving our cozy temporary homes before the opening of the exhibition.

26 January 2011: The crates are here! First installation of 'Amikejo: Pennacchio/Argentato' at the Laboratorio 987, MUSAC. (+ images)

Placing one of Pennacchio Argentato's slabs with the installation crew.

Amikejo wonderful helpers Pilar and Maria from the Escuela de Arte Superior de Conservación y Restauración de Bienes Culturales, León. Gracias for being there!

Final touches... Filming a short interview with Pennacchio/Argentato at the Laboratorio 987, MUSAC. You can watch it here.
 21 February 2011: Delivery of Martí Anson's works in Meessen de Clercq, Brussels, for the exhibition 'Expositition International des Arts...' (+ images)

Unpacking Martí Anson's furniture, trying to make sense of their parts.

Unpacking bits and pieces of Sarah Ortmeyer's VITRINE MAURICE (2011).

Lunch break with Maria Loboda, Martí Anson and Max of Latitudes. Eating delicious baguettes from next door's deli.

Placing Maria Loboda's new pieces in the Wunderkammer.

Charlotte Moth's nine photographic prints before being installed.

23 February: Placing Martí Anson's furniture on the (finally dry) platform.

2 March 2011: Studio visit with Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum in Rotterdam deciding the display of their forthcoming exhibition at the Laboratorio 987, MUSAC. Above: home-made maquette of the Laboratorio. (+ images)

2 March 2011: Klaas van Gorkum grandfather's lathe in action in the artists' studio (+ info)
 2 March 2011: Trying out different displays and selecting the objects made by Klaas van Gorkum's grandfather for the exhibition, would they all fit in the platform?

3 March 2011: Laying out each page of the forthcoming publication 'Lara Almarcegui. Projects 1995-2010' in the artist studio in Rotterdam.

5 April 2011: Installation day 1 of Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum show at the Laboratorio 987.
Tricky part: placing the platform on the wooden legs manufactured by the artists using Jos van Gorkum's lathe.

Klaas discussing with über-fabulous 'Amikejo' coordinator Carlos Ordás, 'Amikejo' helpers Pilar and Maria and the technicians from Artefacto how to install the photographs on the wall.

8 April 2011: Press conference at the Laboratorio 987 (+ info)
 9–13 May 2011: Week-long seminar with A-Study participants discussing curatorial practices. Photo: Gerda Kochanska.
 20 May 2011: Studio visit with Lee Welch at Piet Zwart in Rotterdam, to discuss his ideas for the final Amikejo show (opening 24 September) at the Laboratorio 987 in collaboration with Fermín Jiménez Landa.

early June 2011: Navigating Venice by vaporetto... (photo tour Giardini, Arsenale and Eventi Collaterali)

early June: and navigating Venice by foot...
 
21 June 2011: Unwrapping Irene Kopelman's sculptures to be exhibited as part of Uqbar's exhibition, the third chapter of Amikejo at Laboratorio 987, MUSAC.

22 June 2011: Irene Kopelman and Mariana Castillo Deball unwrapping Mariana's sculptures.

23 June 2011: Installing Uqbar, stairs going up and down...

24 June 2011: Final piece to install. Mariana and Irene Kopelman giving 'left, right, up...' instructions to Artefacto crew member. (+ images)

25 June 2011: Uqbar presents their show to the press and museum staff.

29 June 2011: Third day of 'Campus'. Participants chat outside and look at the project vinyls placed on the façade. (+ images)

4–8 July 2011, week #1 with Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson. Mapping participants to ideas, mapping ideas to participants.

4–8 July 2011, week #1 with Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson. Ólafur and Antoine see the world in 3D.

11–15 July 2011, week #2 with Renata Lucas.

18–21 July 2011, week #3 with Peter Piller.

18–22 July 2011: Mariana invited by the Mondriaan visitors programme to tour Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht's galleries, museums, art centers and artist studios. Above poster campaign signed by 'Disgruntled Dutch Artists' posted in several institutions in relation to the HUGE change Dutch arts will suffer due to unprecedented cuts. (+ images)

25–29 July 2011, week #4 with Adrià Julià.

29 July 2011, 19.30h: Display of the projects and ideas-in-the-making developed during 'Campus'. After 5 weeks of group talks, video screenings, tutorials and production, a one-month exhibition opens at Espai Cultural Caja Madrid, the same space occupied by 'Campus' during the last five weeks.

All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted in the photo caption).
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