09 Feb 2021
↑ Robert Mitchell, “Plans, and Views in Perspective, with Descriptions of Buildings Erected in England and Scotland; and ... an Essay to Elucidate the Grecian, Roman and Gothic Architecture. (Plans, Descriptions Et Vues En Perspective, Etc.)”, 1801, London. Held at the British Library.
PRESS RELEASE
Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA)
Plaça dels Àngels 1
08001 Barcelona
www.macba.cat
“Panorama 21: Notes For An Eye Fire”
22 October 2021–27 February 2022Opening: 21 October 2021
“
Panorama 21: Notes For An Eye Fire” is a project that aims to reaffirm the commitment of the
Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) to the vitality of local production, by supporting site-specific creation and reconsidering what it can offer – and how it can be best used – through a new generation of artists and audiences. Conceived as a long-term commitment by the museum to support local practices, this is an initiative that aspires to make an enduring contribution to the resilience of Barcelona’s cultural ecosystem.
“
Panorama 21: Notes For An Eye Fire”, which takes its title from the third book of poems by
Gabriel Ventura (“Apunts per a un incendi dels ulls”, Documents Documenta, 2020), will be co-curated by
Hiuwai Chu (Curator, MACBA) together with
Latitudes, the curatorial duo formed in 2005 by
Max Andrews and
Mariana Cánepa Luna. This type of collaborative work aims to widen institutional practices and bring independent perspectives, through a scheme that it is hoped will be maintained in the future.
Occupying the entire second floor of
MACBA’s Meier Building, it will consist of a group exhibition featuring a number of newly realised projects alongside recently produced works. Moreover,
Hiuwai Chu and
Latitudes conceive this inaugural edition as a curatorial, editorial and communication channel where in-venue displays encompass a wider spectrum of online programming, publishing, streaming and engagement with
MACBA’s users beyond the Museum walls.
Borrowing from the practices of an increasingly socially engaged generation of artists, “
Panorama 21: Notes For An Eye Fire” is not guided by a top-down thematic focus. Instead, it is growing in a cumulative and responsive way from a ground-up perspective on Barcelona, the region and its imaginary. It aspires to amplify the voices of artists and cultural producers that are working in unprecedentedly challenging times.
The
project will draw from the panoramic notion of a wide view seen from a fixed point, as well as the innovation that was the origin of the word itself – a neologism coined by the Irish artist Robert Barker from the Greek
pan (all), and
horama (view) to describe his paintings of Edinburgh, Scotland, at the end of the eighteenth century. Long before the invention of cinema and the proliferation of screens that now characterise contemporary life for many of us, panoramas offered one of the most surprising and popular visual spectacles.
A panorama was an immersive combination of painting, theatre and architecture. A vast 360° depiction of a city, landscape or battle scene that was presented in a purpose-built circular building. Viewers entered through a tunnel and emerged onto a platform at the centre of the structure and into a startling wrap-around experience. Panoramas could offer a vicarious form of travel. The first such presentation opened to the public in London in 1791, yet the invention really took off in Europe during the following two decades when international travel was severely restricted due to the Napoleonic Wars. Barcelona’s 1888 Universal Exposition presented no less than three panoramas in the city, representing views of the fabled peaks of Montserrat, the Siege of Plevna and the Battle of Waterloo.
Resonating with the trans-disciplinarity of these display devices, and their desire to inform and captivate, “
Panorama 21: Notes For An Eye Fire” nevertheless turns the page on their seamless vista of past conflicts and decisive victories, to imagine instead a structure for supporting a fertile and diverse landscape of many complex artistic positions of the present.
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→ RELATED CONTENT:
2021, 2022, Barcelona, exposición, Hiuwai Chu, latitudes, Latitudes-curated, MACBA, Panorama 21
10 Dec 2019Production of '6 Hours of Tide Object with Correction of Perspective' (2009) by Jan Dibbets. Photo: Paloma Polo / SKOR.
The 8-minute film ‘6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective’ by Dutch artists Jan Dibbets is currently exhibited as part of "Fingers Crossed" (pdf, Spanish), a group exhibition opening December 14, 2019, curated by Blanca de la Torre and Sue Spaid, at ADN Platform in Sant Cugat (Barcelona), on view until April 4, 2020. The film was produced in 2009 for ‘Portscapes’, the year-long programme producing ten new commissions in and around the Port of Rotterdam, The Netherlands, curated by Latitudes.
Gerry Schum's 1969 'Land Art' series of films screened on German public TV.
Jan Dibbets’ (1941) film was ‘Portscapes’ inaugural project and was filmed on February 8, 2009. Originally filmed 40 years earlier, in February 1969, in black and white and in 16 mm, it was titled ‘12 Hours Tide Object...’. The film was originally presented in 1969 as part of Gerry Schum's seminal 'Land Art' series of artists' films screened that same year on German public TV (this programme was included in Latitudes-curated touring film programme ‘A Stake in the Mud, A Hole in the Reel. Land Art’s Expanded Field 1968–2008’ which began at the Museo Tamayo in April 2008.)
The film presents the drawing of an isosceles trapezoid in the sand using a bulldozer – the shape consequently appears as a rectangle in the resultant film due to the angle of perspective. The new 2009 realisation was filmed 40 years later to the month on the beach of the Maasvlakte, an area that was soon after forever transformed with the construction of Maasvlakte 2 – a land reclamation project, realised between 2008 and 2013, that extended Europe's largest seaport and industrial area by 2,000 hectares. The resulting 8 minute-long film was 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).
Dibbets’ film presented as part of Latitudes’ participation in the festival NO SOUL FOR SALE – A Festival of Independents, New York, 24–28 June 2009. Photo: Latitudes.
‘6 Hours Tide Object with Correction of Perspective’ was produced in collaboration with SKOR | Foundation Art and Public Space (1999–2012), an organisation which initiated, curated and developed art projects in relation to the public domain that no longer exists, realising over a thousand projects in public space in the Netherlands for over a decade. Portscapes was curated by Latitudes, culminating in a display of the projects at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam in 2010.
→ RELATED CONTENT: - Portscapes commissions
- Portscapes exhibition at the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen
- Making of '6 Hours of Tide Object with Correction of Perspective' (2009) by Jan Dibbets – part 1 here.
- Making of '6 Hours of Tide Object with Correction of Perspective' (2009) by Jan Dibbets – part 2 here.
2009, 2019, 2020, ADN Platform, film, Jan Dibbets, Land Art, latitudes, No Soul for Sale, Port of Rotterdam Authority, Portscapes, SKOR