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"Barcelona / Such a beautiful horizon: Critical social infrastructure to promote art scene health resilience" sessions with BAR Tool 2018–19 participants

Poster produced for the 2015 seminar at the Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco. Photo: Latitudes.

Latitudes has been invited to lead three closed-door sessions with BAR Tool's 2018–19 participants Milagros Bedoya, Arash Fayez, Adëláide Feriot, Fran Glez, Céline Mathieu, Marina Salvo, Gabriella Torres-Ferrer. The sessions will take place on October 29, 2018; January 22 and March 5, 2019.

Titled "Barcelona / Such a beautiful horizon: Critical social infrastructure to promote art scene health resilience", the three-part seminar will draw on the qualitative analysis of the legacy of three meetings of the "Near Future Artworlds Curatorial Foresight Disruption Group" convened in 2015 (Vessel–MADA International Curatorial Retreat, Bari, Italy; Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, USA; Eastside Projects, Birmingham, UK). The invitation is to collectively instigate a collective systematic review of proposed decisive factors that underpin the psychological fitness and physical well-being of a city art scene, with Barcelona as a case study.

With a focus on developing taxonomies and diagnostics, as well as therapies and triage, this strand of BAR Tool will culminate in a series of institutional simulations and operations. Viva! Barcelona! Such a beautiful horizon!

BAR TOOL is a practice-based training program articulated around research, production and presentation processes. Conceived by BAR project in collaboration with Fundació Antoni Tàpies and Fabra i Coats – Art Factory, Barcelona.


RELATED CONTENT:

  • Cover Story—June 2018: Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group 4 June 2018
  • Sediments of the Geologic Time 4-week residency at the Banff Centre for Arts & Creativity 10 October 2017
  • Documentation of Latitudes' talks at the Athens Biennale summit and Tabakalera, Donostia-San Sebastián, November 2015 19 February 2016
  • 'Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group' seminar convenes in its third iteration in Birmingham's Eastside Projects, 15 November 2015 11 November 2015
  • Session with first-year participants of the MA Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts (CCA), San Francisco, 8 September 15 September 2015
  • Guest Faculty of the Thematic Residency 'Blueprint for Happiness' at The Banff Centre, Canada, 27 July–8 August 2015 16 July 2015 
  • Tutors of the 2015 International Curatorial Retreat, 9–13 May, Bari (Italy) 17 May 2015 
  • Lead Facilitators, Curating Lab 2014–Curatorial Intensive, National University of Singapore (11–14 June), symposium (14 June, 15–17h) and a field trip to Hong Kong (16–20 June) 30 May 2014
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Artist-run initiatives in Barcelona

Several admirable artist-run initiatives have recently made refreshing incursions into the Barcelona cultural landscape. Self-organisation and sustained micro-activity outside the major institutions have been uncommon in recent years. Yet as the city awaits the opening of the future 'Kunstverein' of Barcelona, the Canòdrom Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (the planned Spring 2011 opening now suffering delays and budget cuts), and with a continuing lack of flexible grants and affordable rents, innovative projects have sprung up through necessity. These have often been sporadic and ephemeral, such as the weekend group exhibition of about 30 artists 'Entes' at the flat of artist Luz Broto's last November (video here, photo documentation here) or 'Domestica 2' an open-submission group show organized by artists Antoni Hervàs, Ariadna Parreu and Consol Llupià, whose second edition took place in early July in a former bicycle repair shop. ('Entes' will take shape again as the summer show at gallery Àngels Barcelona (22 July–18 September 2010), an interesting transition.)


KKKB (Komando Kultura Kontemporanea Barcelona), a non-profit cultural association, opened at the end of May 2010 with '7 Songs. The raining machine of Raffaella Carrà's monkey does ventriloquism with my neighbour', a project curated by artist Daniel Jacoby. The street-level space in Joaquin Costa 9, near MACBA, resembles more a traditional gallery space, opens weekdays 18-21h and is currently accepting exhibition proposals.

The opening of 'Short Time', December 2009. Courtesy: Halfhouse Espacio

Halfhouse Espacio, which operates as an association in order to be able to apply for grants, is an exhibition space of about 10m2 in the private apartment of artists Alberto Peral and Sinéad Spelman. It opened on December 2009 with 'Short Time', a screening programme of 15 videos under 1 minute by artists David Bestué, Luis Bisbe, Jesús Palomino, Gabriel Pericàs, Jorge Satorre and Daniel Steegmann, amongst others, as well as a site-specific work by Renata Lucas.


Site-specific work 'camouflaged' in the house by Renata Lucas. Courtesy: Halfhouse Espacio

'5 Platonic Solids' followed in April 2010, with a 'chain invitation' by artists and curators that led to the presentation of works by Daniel Jacoby, Paloma Polo, Christian Friedrich, Johannes Wald and Florian Kohler and last June they presented 'Puede que nadie vuelva a tener el mismo conocimiento' a project by Maria Castelló Solbes and Regina de Miguel.


View of the exhibition '5 Platonic Solids'. Courtesy: Halfhouse Espacio


'Puede que nadie vuelva a tener el mismo conocimiento' by Maria Castelló Solbes & Regina de Miguel. Courtesy: Halfhouse Espacio

Halfhouse's programme not only includes exhibitions. In their manifesto, they announce the intention of offering 'discursive support, tortilla and wine' as well as opening up to other formats such as residencies (the first of which takes place this summer as a flat swap), performances and talks.

Their most recent show, 'Lo de siempre raras veces ocurre', opened on a very humid 16 July with a strong selection of works displayed in the 'exhibition' space, as well as in the private space of the flat, by 4 students from the Fine Arts Department at the Universitat de Barcelona: Serafín Álvarez, Mercedes Mangrané, Gerard Ortín, and Rafel Marcos Mota. The latter lay underneath a gold emergency blanket for the most part of the opening as a test of resistance to the event as well as the high temperature. Álvarez presented two works: '±2.5 g (I Believed I Could Fly)' consisting of two silver balloons tethered to 10g weights at a height of 160cm – susceptible to human and atmospheric changes; as well as the performative piece 'Sube a velocidad constante, fría y pequeña, aunque en el torrente sanguíneo te mate', for which he poured cava into an empty glass with a microphone amplifying the bubbles. Gerard Ortín's video 'El Truco' showed his cat snoozing in a garden. During the opening, the artist honked an old-fashioned horn coinciding with a moment when the animal was startled from its sleep as if claiming its attention in a delayed interaction between owner and pet. Mercedes Magrané's two short videos (one on a TV monitor, another projected) showed views of the apartment space, one is an objective view of the flat (a sort of promotional agency video of the property) and the other being a more intimate portrait of inhabited space (afternoon light, the artist touching a plant…).


Gerard Ortín, 'El Truco (el gag)', 2009, action & video 1'30. Courtesy: http://www.gerardortin.com

halfhouse
Pere IV 46, 1º 3ª
08005 Barcelona
[email protected]
http://www.halfhouse.org
Visits by appointment only


KKKB
Joaquin Costa 9
08001 Barcelona
Monday-Friday 18–21h
http://www.kkkb.es

Domèstica 1 (January 2009) and 2 (July 2010) http://convocatoriadomestica.blogspot.com
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