Longitudes

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

Third episode of 'Incidents (of Travel)' – Dispatch by Yu JI and Xiao Kaiyu reporting from Suzhou, China

 Tue, Sep 6 2016

As part of Kadist Online Projects, Kadist and Latitudes partnered in a new 'distributed' phase of 'Incidents (of Travel)'. The new phase is developed as an online periodical that publishes regular contributions from curators and artists working around the world. 

Originally conceived by Latitudes as day-long artist-led tours around Mexico City (2012, with dispatches presented as part of an exhibition at Casa del Lago) – followed by Hong Kong (2013, online dispatches via twitter, Instagram, and Soundcloud) and San Francisco (2015, online dispatches via daily Instagram posts) – 'Incidents (of Travel)' explores the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter and an extended conversation between curator/s and artist/s. Online storytelling presents and documents curatorial fieldwork and an offline day conceived by an artist for a curator.


 The third 'Incidents (of Travel)' episode comes from Suzhou, China, where the artist and curator Yu Ji met poet Xiao Kaiyu. Their offline day took place in April 2016, when they embarked on a hike on Dong Shan (East Mountain), 130 km west of Shanghai, on a peninsula stretching into Tai Hu lake near the city of Suzhou.


Each of the 12 photographs in the sequence is augmented by one or more extra assets: a brief commentary, a caption or a soundscape, and is accessed by clicking the words which overlay the images.

The series inaugurated with an itinerary from curator Yesomi Umolu and artist Harold Mendez from Chicago – their tour was photographed by Nabiha Khan. The second dispatch came from Jinja in Uganda, where curator Moses Serubiri invited photographer Mohsen Taha to explore Jinja's Indian architectural legacy and Idi Amin's notorious expulsion of Uganda's Asian minority in 1972.

Forthcoming contributions: Marianna Hovhannisyan (Yerevan), Simon Soon (Kuala Lumpur / Sydney) and Natalia Zuluaga (Pereira / Miami), all fellows who participated in the seminar ‘The Place From Where We Look’ at Kadist Paris in June 2015. 


RELATED CONTENT:
 2016, field trip, fieldwork, Incidents of Travel, Kadist Art Foundation, offline, online, out of the studio, report
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In conversation with Lucas Ihlein for Artlink Magazine

 Mon, Sep 5 2016
The September issue of Artlink Magazine – a quarterly themed magazine covering contemporary art and ideas from Australia and the Asia-Pacific – includes a conversation we recently made with artist Lucas Ihlein. Ihlein's projects explore subjects as diverse as agriculture, gardening and social ecology, everyday life, avant-garde cinema history, fan culture, urban planning, communication and social relations.

The interview, titled "1:1 scale art and the Yeomans Project in North Queensland", is preceded with an intro contextualising our conversation and how we met:

Lucas Ihlein and Ian Milliss, "The Yeomans Project", field trip. Farmer Peter Clinch demonstrates the keyline irrigation channels at The Oaks Organics, Camden, NSW, 2014. Photo by Caren Florance.

We first met Lucas Ihlein in May 2014 at the recommendation of artist Nicholas Mangan. We had been invited to Melbourne to participate in Gertrude Contemporary’s Visiting Curator Program in partnership with Monash University of Art Design & Architecture, and had taken a few days out to visit the Biennale of Sydney and meet some Sydney-based artists. Nicholas was already familiar with our curatorial interests, stemming from ecology and site-specific practices; indeed, we’ve recently made an extended interview with him for the catalogue of his exhibition "Limits to Growth", so his matchmaking with Lucas was prescient. We talked for hours and have been corresponding ever since, with a view to collaborating further.

We were struck by the breadth and enthusiasm of Lucas’s practice and his voracious approach to the process of learning from the point of view of a novice. Where other people might pain over the policing of the roles of artist, curator or researcher, Lucas happily didn’t spend much time worrying about it. Accordingly, although it was the engagement with social and environmental ecology that initially piqued our interest, we soon realised that his was a collaborative practice that has embraced, for example, the re-enactment of “expanded cinema” works from the 1960s and 1970s (in the form of Teaching and Learning Cinema, run with Louise Curham) as well as a “blogging as art”, an approach that really chimed with our project for The Last Newspaper for which we had edited a weekly newspaper within an exhibition.

Indeed, a key impulse of our approach to the projects we have undertaken as Latitudes around art and ecology, in the broadest sense, has been to resist the narrow restraints of normative environmental-concern ecology, in part following Felix Guattari’s essay "The Three Ecologies" (2000), to encompass social and political relations, human subjectivity as well as historical research. In other words, thinking about a practice that does not necessarily give primacy to exhibition‑making as well as considering what an ecological art project might mean in terms of process and site, and thinking through what acting ecologically might entail in relation to acting curatorially, acting editorially, or acting historically, and so on.

Looking back on our projects in collaboration with the Royal Society of Arts “Arts & Ecology” programme—a public commission for London with artist Tue Greenfort (2005–8), our publication "Land Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook" (Royal Society of Arts/Arts Council England, 2006), and the symposium of “Art, Ecology and the Politics of Change”, 8th Sharjah Biennial (2007)—as well as the exhibition "Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities", Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2008), they now seem to belong to a very specific time when green issues gained wider traction. One might crudely say this began with the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change in 2006 and effectively ended, or was overshadowed, by the 2008 financial crisis and its grim legacies.

We begin this interview at a moment when we’re revisiting some of the concerns left in the wake of such projects from the near past while preparing a group exhibition for CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux in 2017 around the carbon cycle and narratives of raw materials. At the time of writing Lucas has just returned from Guangzhou, where he has been exploring the geographical and social dimensions of sea level rise in the Pearl River Delta.

Continue reading... 

Lucas Ihlein is an Australia Council for the Arts Fellow in Emerging and Experimental Arts. He is currently showing alongside Trevor Yeung (Hong Kong) in Sea Pearl White Cloud 海珠白雲 at 4a Centre for Contemporary Asian Art until 24 September 2016. Ihlein’s collaborative project Sugar vs the Reef will culminate in an exhibition at Artspace Mackay, Queensland, in mid-2018. 


 RELATED CONTENT:
 2016, Australia, carbon cycle, Ecology, interview, latitudes, Lucas Ihlein, magazine
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September Cover Story: "El misterio de Caviria" by Antoni Hervàs

 Thu, Sep 1 2016
www.lttds.org

You can now read our September 2016 Monthly Cover Story "El misterio de Caviria" on www.lttds.org (after September 2016 it will be archived here), a preview of his forthcoming solo exhibition "El misterio de Caviria" at La Capella, part of the BCNProducció'16 production grants. Hervàs' project is one of the three exhibitions Latitudes mentors this year.

(...) "Antoni Hervàs draws back the curtains on his exhibition El Misterio de Caviria at the Sala Gran of La Capella, Barcelona, on 15 September. As part the tutorial team of BCNProducció'16 alongside David Armengol and Mireia Sallarès, Latitudes has been working with Toni since February on the development of what can only be described as an epic production. Continue reading...

Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage to highlight past, present or forthcoming projects, research, exhibitions or field trips related to our activities. 


Related content:
  • Archive of Cover Stories
  • Last chance to read the August 2016 Monthly Cover Story "Fermínlandia" 31 August 2016
  • Cover Story, July 2016: Through the grapevine – Rasmus Nilausen’s Soups & Symptoms 3 July 2016
  • Last days! Cover Story and exhibition of José Antonio Hernández-Díez: techno-pop, death and resurrection (20 June 2016)
  • Cover Story, May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (10 May 2016)
  • Cover Story, March 2016: José Antonio Hernández-Díez: The sacred heart of the matter (3 March 2016) 
  • Cover Story, February 2016: Sarah Ortmeyer, Towering allusions (9 Febrero 2016)
 2016, Antoni Hervàs, Barcelona, BCN Producció, cover story, La Capella, making of, mentoring, preview, report, tutoría
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Last chance to read the August 2016 Monthly Cover Story "Fermínlandia"

 Wed, Aug 31 2016
www.lttds.org

Last chance to read the August 2016 Monthly Cover Story "Fermínlandia" on www.lttds.org (after August 2016 it will be archived here)

"Five years ago, in August 2011, Fermín Jiménez Landa initiated the surrender, conquest and defence of a small nameless island using the power of music. With the help of local fishermen he had taken a portable generator, two tripod-mounted loudspeakers, and an mp3 player out into the Aegean Sea and planted the equipment on this uninhabited Greek island. Its new national anthem played again and again until the batteries ran out. You can just make out the two loudspeakers sitting atop the grassy rock in this photograph by Fermín." Continue reading...

Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage to highlight past, present or forthcoming projects, research, exhibitions or field trips related to our activities. 


Related content:
  • Archive of Cover Stories.
  • Cover Story, July 2016: Through the grapevine – Rasmus Nilausen’s Soups & Symptoms 3 July 2016
  • Last days! Cover Story and exhibition of José Antonio Hernández-Díez: techno-pop, death and resurrection (20 June 2016)
  • Cover Story, May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (10 May 2016)
  • Cover Story, March 2016: José Antonio Hernández-Díez: The sacred heart of the matter (3 March 2016) 
  • Cover Story, February 2016: Sarah Ortmeyer, Towering allusions (9 Febrero 2016)
 2011, 2016, Amikejo, cover story, Fermin Jiménez Landa and Lee Welch, field trip, looking back, making of, MUSAC, report
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Latitudes' "out of office" 2015–2016 season

 Mon, Aug 1 2016
"CLOSED. We open when we arrive, close when we leave, and if you come and we're not here, we just didn't coincide."

The end of the season is approaching and high summer is looming. Following Latitudes tradition we mark the summer break not by presenting a memo of activities per se, but with an "out of office" post (see the 2008-9, 2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15 versions) with a series of 'behind the scenes' photos revisiting moments from the year gone by. So here are some glimpses of the past season, starting September 2015 to July 2016. See you in September!

In order to be conducive to freedom of interaction, the ‘Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group’ meetings have been held under the Chatham House Rule: This allows participants to express personal views, to listen, reflect and gather insights with a clear distinction from the position of their employers and/or the policies of any associated organization. Participation is expected, but there will be no resolutions issued, no votes are undertaken, and no policy statements proposed. Only this photo was taken.

Latitudes 2015–16 season started with a residency at Kadist, San Francisco (26 August–9 September) during which time we had the opportunity to develop several projects. Three artist-led tours with SF-based artists Amy Balkin, Rick & Megan Prelinger and Will Brown were part of our ongoing series 'Incidents of Travel' (see 2012 in Mexico City, 2013 in Hong Kong and most recent 2016 online incarnation). We took over Kadist social media with an Instagram residency and contributed to the online programme 'One Sentence Exhibition'.

Furthermore, on August 29, we convened the second ‘Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group’ at Kadist, a "by-invitation meeting bringing together individuals and expertise from the Bay Area with an active interest in institutional prototyping and emergent usership" initially presented in May 2015 for theInternational Curatorial Retreat in Bari, Italy.

The workshop is "a forum for informal dialogue about megatrends and the future of contemporary art institutions. In the San Francisco iteration, an emphasis was put on cross-pollination between design thinking and curatorial thinking. Participants also discussed, among other things, the notion of the post-disciplinary, and the question of appropriate speeds, scale or periodicities of institutions."

  Photo: Arash Fayez.

September 8: Our last activity in the Bay Area was a session with first-year participants of the MA Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts (CCA). We briefly introduced our curatorial practice and invited the new students to imagine the governance and daily operations of a range of institutions – a remote residency facility, a commissioning institution, and an annual festival.
(Above and below) BAF technical team and artist Daniel Steegmann Mangrané installing the sound piece “Surucuá, Teque-teque, Arara” (2012) at the Umbracle (shade house), Parc de la Ciutadella. One of the "Composiciones" commissions for the Barcelona Gallery Weekend.
September 25: Max Andrews of Latitudes participates in the symposium "The Shock of Victory" held at CCA Glasgow. Meanwhile, installation is well underway for the first Barcelona Gallery Weekend, for which Latitudes devised a special programme of five artists' commissions.
 (Above and below) David Bestué browsing and choosing ceramic pieces and molds in the attic at the Cosme Toda factory, for his "Composiciones" installation.

(Above and below) Jordi Mitjà discussing his work with the team at the Museu Geològic del Seminari during the installation of his "Composiciones" piece.
Rasmus Nilausen lights up Pere Llobera's drawing in dust, part of their joint "Composiciones" adventure.

(Above) Second seminar at the Biblioteca del Campo Freudiano de Barcelona, project by Dora García for "Composiciones".

  (Above) Display of the books selected by Dora García from the holdings of the Biblioteca del Campo Freudiano de Barcelona.

'Composiciones' received some great write-ups – including a long text on Frederic Montornés popular blog and by Jörg Heiser in frieze magazine. We also gathered hundreds of tweets, Instagram shots and press material on this Storify.  

 Board announcing the seminar and public talk.

Closed-door seminar at Tabakalera. Photo: Consonni. 

Public presentation of Latitudes' projects at Tabakalera. Photo: Consonni.

 November 2015: Latitudes travelled to Donostia's recently opened Tabakalera. We were invited by LaPublika's programme, created by Consonni, to lead a two-day seminar and public lecture around artists working in the public sphere.
Moments before starting the ESP people assembly at Birmingham's Eastside Projects.

On November 15 Latitudes convened the third iteration of the 'Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group', this time in Birmingham's Eastside Projects. This "forum for informal dialogue about megatrends and the future of contemporary art institutions" collectively imagined a ‘What if?’ – a post-apocalyptic scenario in which the entire art ecology of Birmingham had to be regrown from the ground up, an exercise that would help define and identify which are the most urgent organisations, facilities, and tools.

International Summit Synapse 1 at New Rex of the National Theatre of Greece. 'Session II: Rethinking Institutions': (from left to right) Leo Panitch, Maria Hlavajova, Adam Szymczyk, Amalia Zepou (moderator), Hilary Wainwright, Emily Pethick, Latitudes (Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa Luna) © Eva Galatsanou. 

  Second-day assembly at the Bargeion Hotel. 

Shortly after, on 18–19 November Latitudes participated in the OMONOIA summit which began the Athens Biennale 2015–2017. For a short report see the Cover Story of December 2015 and this blog entry.

December 2015: Mariana joined Hangar's renewed Board of Trustees as its Secretary, a responsibility she will fulfill for the next three years.

 December 4: Participation in the BAR module: Curating the space / Space for curating open public conversation with Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Carles Guerra, Michy Marxuach and BAR module participants. 
(Above and below) Courtesy: BAR Project.  Photos: Eva Carasol. 

January 2016: After an intense jury process in January, we began the year-long mentoring process of three exhibition projects out of the nine selected projects as part of the 2016 season's BCN Producció 2016.

The first project Latitudes mentored was by Pau Magrané/PLOM who turned the Espai Cub, a 3x3x3 metre white cube, into "a sound stage/instrument, an echo chamber hosting different screenings and objects to be played by PLOM at the opening". The two other projects Latitudes is mentoring are by Antoni Hervàs (September 15) and a group exhibition "La dissidència nostàlgica" by curator Joana Hurtado Matheu (December 1). 

From January onwards: Preparations for the five projects produced in the context of the second edition of the Barcelona Gallery Weekend. Studio visits, site visits, project proposals, budget and production planning, taking measurements...

May 2016: Regina Giménez and Rafel G. Bianchi taking measures of Can Trinxet's walls, a former 19th Century textile factory in L'Hospitalet de Llobregat. 
March 2016: visiting Robert Llimós's studio in Sant Pere neighbourhood.

 Lola Lasurt doing some tests positioning her paintings at the Biblioteca Pública Arús.

February 2016: Trip to Arles to attend the 'How Institutions Think' symposium at the LUMA Foundation, this time not participating but listening and reporting. Read Max Andrews' report on the frieze blog.


Besides the reportage from the Arles conference, Max also published other reviews in Frieze magazine as one of its team of contributing editors: Xavier Ribas at ProjecteSD (Barcelona); Joachim Koester at BlueProject Foundation (Barcelona); Alexandre Estrela at the Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid) and Critic's Guide: Barcelona highlighting some of the interesting shows in the city on frieze website. He has also contributed the text "Soups & Symptoms" for a forthcoming publication of Barcelona-based Danish painter Rasmus Nilausen. 


View of Francesc Ruiz, “Correos,” garcía galería, Madrid, 2016. Courtesy of garcía galería, Madrid. Photo: Roberto Ruiz.

On February 25, Mariana Cánepa Luna's review of Francesc Ruiz's exhibition at garcía | galería, Madrid, was published online on art-agenda: "Ruiz’s second solo show at Madrid’s garcía galería delves into the visual communication of one of Spain’s most iconic institutions, the Sociedad Estatal Correos y Telégrafos—the national postal service, commonly known as Correos—whose graphic identity was created in 1977 by Spanish designer and artist José María Cruz Novillo (b. 1936)." continue reading...


Mariana also contributed to the publication "Great Expectations: Prospects for the Future of Curatorial Education" edited by Leigh Markopoulos and published by the California College of the Arts and The Banff Centre – with some insightful questions by Banff Centre Walter Phillips Gallery curator Peta Rake.

Miquel from MACBA's AV team checking the connections behind the monitor that presented 'Houdini' (1991) – one of the most challenging works in the exhibition for the technical team as it meant dismantling a 40-year-old TV and submerging the front part into water.


March 2016: Installation begins! After over a year and a half of preparation, the exhibition "I Will Fear No Evil" opened at Convent dels Àngels del MACBA on March 17, 2016. Two busy weeks of installation in the Convent dels Àngels space preceded the opening. Many press tours, exhibition reviews, photo and video recordings, guided visits, film screenings, and music events followed – they're all archived here!

 Alex from MACBA's restoration department scraping the old silicone off the acrylic box containing "San Guinefort" (1991).
Tria33, a programme broadcast at Canal 33, came to film during the installation.
 Lightbox of "El Resplandor de la Santa Conjunción aleja a los demonios" in progress, a piece from 1991, exhibited for the first time in the Sala RG in Caracas, and also reconstructed for the present exhibition. 
TTI installation team placing twelve pork rind skateboards on the metal structure. "La Hermandad" (1994) was commissioned for the 1994 exhibition "Cocido y Crudo" at the Museo Reina Sofía, Madrid, and it's now part of the "la Caixa" Collection.  

 Vinyls go up – design by Mucho. More on the exhibition graphic design. 
March 17, 11:30am: Presentation to the press. Left to right: Ferran Barenblit (MACBA director), exhibition curators Mariana Cánepa Luna and Max Andrews of Latitudes, and artist José Antonio Hernández-Díez. Photo: MACBA twitter.

Visitors in front of "Sagrado Corazón Activo", a work from 1991 reconstructed for this exhibition. Photo: Miquel Coll/MACBA.
Visitors next to "Houdini", a work from 1989 reconstructed for this exhibition. Photo: Miquel Coll/MACBA.

 General view of the exhibition. Photo: Roberto Ruiz/MACBA.

April: We love snail mail and handwritten notes! We received a note from Rick & Megan Prelinger alongside a copy of their Yearbook 2015. We relished spending time at the Prelinger Library in San Francisco last August as part of our 'Incidents of Travel' series! (Our extended heartfelt thanks to the Kadist team for hosting us!).

Card and Yearbook 2015 by the Prelinger Library.
 
April 20: Wrapped-up a five-part interview with Melbourne-based artist Nicholas Mangan to be published in the catalogue of his forthcoming solo exhibition ‘Limits to Growth’, co-produced by Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Melbourne (opening July 20) and Institute of Modern Art (IMA), Brisbane (where it will be on view from October 29). The exhibition will travel to KW in Berlin in Summer 2017.

 Installing Pau Magrané exhibition at the Cub space in La Capella. Photos: Pau Magrané.

April 27 (until June 12): Exhibition "Demo" of Pau Magrané/PLOM at Espai Cub, La Capella. This is the first of the three projects Latitudes is mentoring throughout 2016  as part of BCN Producció'16 production grant scheme. Video of the project here (Catalan with Spanish subtitles) or here (English).


April 25–May 7: Two-week residency at CAPC Bordeaux to research for a group exhibition that will take place in 2017. One strand of our investigations departs from the CAPC building itself, known as Entrepôt Lainé – a 19th Century warehouse for colonial commodities. We learned from the museum staff that coffee beans are occasionally found atop a pile of papers on an office desk or in the middle of the exhibition galleries. This became the focus of our May Cover Story (archived here).
First and last pages of the first online dispatch by Chicago-based curator Yesomi Umolu within the distributed phase of Incidents (of Travel). http://incidents.kadist.org/
 

May: Launch of the online project Incidents (of Travel), produced by Kadist Art Foundation. The web marks a new ‘distributed’ phase of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ as an online periodical. The ongoing series will be edited by Latitudes and produced by Kadist.

Originally conceived by Latitudes as day-long artist-led tours commissioned to artists in and around Mexico City (2012) – followed by Hong Kong (2013) and San Francisco (2015) – ‘Incidents’ expands on the format of the curator-meets-artist studio visit to explore the chartered itinerary as a format of an artistic encounter. The first dispatch came from Chicago and featured Yesomi Umolu (Exhibitions Curator at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago) and artist Harold Mendez, an offline day photographed by Nabiha Khan.

  
June: Launch of the second Incidents (of Travel) dispatch, an encounter between curator Serubiri Moses and photographer Mohsen Taha in Jinja, Uganda, narrated throughout 18 photos by Taha with an introduction, captions, sound and commentary.
 

And finally July. Some are off on holiday but many remain working full speed despite the less frantic inbox. Many surely agree that this is one of the weirdest months in the calendar, a bit like the pre-Christmas rush, but with a whole month of heated intensity. 

4–8 July: Second trip to Bordeaux, more archival appointments and more geology. Led by Bruno Cahuzac (Maître de Conférences, UFR Sciences de la Terre et de la Mer) from the Faculté des Sciences de Bordeaux, we visited the incredible carothèque-lithothèque at the Université de Bordeaux in Talence which houses over 30,000 core samples from the subsoil of the Aquitaine basin.

 
(Above) Gerard Ortín's exhibition "Vijfhoek" at Galería Estrany-de la Mota and (below) Gerard receiving the award.



July 9 and 20: As jurors of this year's award Art Nou/Primera Visió we visited the twenty participating commercial galleries, non-profits, private foundations and museums alongside BCNProducció'16 co-tutors Mireia Sallarès and David Armengol. We unanimously decided to award Gerard Ortín for his solo show at Galería Estrany-de la Mota. Ortín receives 2,000 Euros to produce a new publication. The ceremony took place on July 21 at La Capella. Last year winner Rasmus Nilausen produced the publication "Soups & Symptoms" which includes a text by Max Andrews of Latitudes.
Instagram post by Fireplace project.

July 11: Presentation of the publications of the projects by artists Ricardo Trigo and Pau Magrané resulting from the production grant BCN Producció'16.  

 February 2016 Cover Story was dedicated to Sarah Ortmeyer. 

Cover Stories on www.lttds.org: Over a year ago we began the monthly section "Cover Story" on our home page (archive of this section). October 2015 was dedicated to David Bestué's "Luces" installation commissioned for Composiciones, November 2015 marked the sixth anniversary of Globalising the Internationale, Christina Hemauer and Roman Keller’s project for Portscapes; December presented a shot taken during OMONOIA, the International Summit at the National Theatre of Greece’s New Rex which kicked off the Athens Biennale 2015–2017. 

January shifted to black-and-white with a Mediterranean shot from E.1027, the 1920s Côte d'Azur house designed by Eileen Gray and Jean Badovici near Monaco meticulously documented since 2008 by Danish artist Kasper Akhøj. February stayed in France, going up to the Tour Eiffel and looking back at a piece by Sarah Ortmeyer presented in a 2011 exhibition in Brussels. March showed a behind-the-scenes moment of the production of "Sagrado Corazón Activo" (1991) a work by José Antonio Hernández-Díez that was only ever exhibited once before, in 1991 in Caracas. The piece was reconstructed for the exhibition "I Will Fear No Evil" at MACBA presenting a selection of his early works. In April we announced the forthcoming launch of 'Incidents (of Travel)', a series of online curatorial dispatches produced by Kadist; and in May (back to France) we began our research at CAPC Bordeaux, where we'll be curating a group exhibition in June 2017. June took us back to Hernández-Díez's show which was coming to an end – some exhibition reviews here; and July took us back to the Latitudes-devised Composiciones commissions last October (the programme of artists’ interventions returns later this year).

June Cover Story – all cover stories archived here.

 Antoni Hervàs preparing his installation for BCN Producció'16.

We are now presently preparing for what will be a rather intense September: firstly, Antoni Hervàs's exhibition "El Misterio de Caviria" at Sala Gran of La Capella (third round of exhibitions of the grant scheme BCN Producció) opens on September 15. It will be shortly followed by the presentation of the five "Composiciones" commissions by Lúa Coderch, Regina Giménez, Lola Lasurt, Robert Llimós and Wilfredo Prieto for the second Barcelona Gallery Weekend, inaugurating on Thursday 29 September, and on view until Sunday 2 October. 
 
We have also been invited to contribute to Oslo Pilot, the two-year project investigating the role of art in the public realm led by Eva González-Sancho and Per Gunnar Eeg-Tverbakk. We will be writing on a selection of case studies based around their four areas of research – Reactivation, Periodicity, Public and Disappearance – which will be published in the magazine launched during a three-day symposium in mid-November 2016. 

RELATED CONTENT:
 2015, 2016, art-agenda, Barcelona, BCN Producció, CAPC Bordeaux, Composiciones, Frieze, Incidents of Travel, jury, MACBA, Mariana Cánepa Luna, Max Andrews, out of office
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Premi Art Nou 2016: Gerard Ortín – Acta del jurado

 Fri, Jul 22 2016

Durante el mes de julio la asociación de galerías Art Barcelona organiza la quinta edición de Art Nou "con la intención de activar la escena de arte emergente local con exposiciones, talleres, charlas, visitas a estudios en espacios de arte de toda la ciudad."

Más de 30 artistas optaron al Premio Art Nou/Primera Visió, que en su edición 2016 ha sido otorgado a Gerard Ortín por su exposición "Vijfhoek" en la galería Estrany-de la Mota. El premio está dotado con 2.000 euros que otorga La Capella para la realización de una publicación. Artistas como Marla Jacarilla, Adrián Melis, Luz Broto y Rasmus Nilausen, han sido los galardonados en las pasadas ediciones.

(Arriba) Mireia Sallarès leyendo el acta del jurado y (abajo) el artista Gerard Ortín recibiendo el premio y agradeciendo la obtención del Premi Art Nou/Primera Visió 2016. Fotos: Andrea Paesante. Cortesía: Art Barcelona. 

A continuación el acta (en catalán) que leyó Mireia Sallarès en representación del jurado formado por los tutores de BCN Producció'16 (David Armengol, Mireia Sallarès y Latitudes), al anunciar el premio en la fiesta que se organizó el 21 de julio:
 
"Bona tarda i gràcies per ser aquí, ha arribat el moment més esperat de la vetllada.

Primer de tot dir que els membres del jurat d’aquest premi que som en David Armengol, l’equip de Latitudes (Max Andrews i Mariana Cánepa Luna) i Mireia Sallarès, hem guiat les nostres deliberacions tenint ben present l’objectiu principal d’Art Nou: que és el de descobrir i difondre nous talents artístics per tal de donar un impuls a la creació emergent i a les noves generacions artístiques a la nostra ciutat.

En aquest sentit voldríem dir que la nostra decisió no ha sigut fàcil perquè hi han participat propostes de molt bon nivell; i en especial també degut a la disparitat dels projectes participants (es tracta d’espais de naturalesa molt diversa amb recursos molt diferents, d’exposicions individuals i col·lectives, amb o sense comissariat, on conviuen projectes de diferent tipus: des de galeries a espais independents fins a estructures institucionals). Dit això i tenint en compte que és un premi que es dóna a l’artista (i no tant a l’espai que l’exposa o a l’exposició de la que forma part en cas d’exposició col·lectiva), hem decidit atorgar el premi a Gerard Ortín per l’exposició "Vijfhoek" (Pentàgon) realitzada a la galeria Estrany-de la Mota.

Els motius han sigut la gran qualitat del projecte que considerem fruit d’una investigació seriosa i poètica; on creiem que l’artista ha fet una molt bona traducció al format expositiu d’una experiència que de fet té caràcter performàtic. Es tracta d’una acció que va tenir lloc a Àmsterdam i que comptava amb la participació del públic en una passejada en grup en un indret molt especial. L‘artista s’hi refereix com a ‘walk performances’ que propicien una experiència introspectiva individual a través d’un ritual col·lectiu i que són una forma genuïna d’explorar el paisatge. Ens sembla una obra excel·lent i mostra d’una bona evolució de la seva jove trajectòria, essent aquesta la primera exposició individual de l’artista. Estem convençuts, a més a més, que en Gerard farà també molt bon treball en l’exercici de traduir en forma de publicació la seva obra —gràcies a l’ajut que en específic atorga aquest premi. Així que, Felicitats Gerard, seguirem els teus nous projectes amb interès!

I abans d’acabar, volem també fer dues mencions especials. Primer a l’exposició “Curvar a Miguel es arruinar las baldosas” de Jorge Satorre presentada a la Fundació BlueProject. Jorge és un artista d’origen mexicà molt vinculat a Barcelona que participa amb un projecte excel·lent que té el parc de Collserola com a centre i que ha sigut fruit d’una residencia a la ciutat i ha comptat també amb l’ajut d’espais imprescindibles del nostre context com són Hangar o la nau Estruch de Sabadell. I també, a l’exposició “Els músculs de Zaratrustra” una col·laboració de Marcel Rubio i Victor Balcells que ens ha sorprès molt positivament per la seva força narrativa i per la bona simbiosis de la col·laboració entre un artista visual i un escriptor. I perquè és també una mostra molt maca del bon impuls d’una de les iniciatives independents d’aquesta ciutat com és Passatge Studio al barri del Poblenou on l’artista Bernat Daviu cedeix temporalment el seu estudi com a espai expositiu.

Felicitats doncs al guanyador i gràcies a tots els participants. Confiem que la propera convocatòria anirà perfilant les seves bases; i en aquest sentit farem arribar els nostres suggeriments als organitzadors per tal de que els creadors i creadores sentin aquest premi com un veritable impuls al seu treball. Aquest treball que tan necessita la nostra ciutat." 

– Barcelona, 21 de juliol 2016.

 2016, Award, Barcelona, Gerard Ortin, jury
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Second research trip to Bordeaux in preparation for an exhibition at CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux

 Tue, Jul 12 2016
We just returned from a week in Bordeaux, where we continued with meetings and archival research in preparation for the forthcoming Latitudes-curated group show at CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux – opening at the end of June 2017 coinciding with the 7th edition of the Agora Biennial of Architecture, Planning and Design centred on landscape. 

The exhibition will present existing artworks (including several from CAPC’s collection) alongside commissioned pieces, as well as documents and objects from Bordeaux’s municipal archives, seeking to problematise the time-span of museums and consider their collections as tangible material history.


Upon arrival, led by Bruno Cahuzac (Maître de conférence), we visited the incredible carothèque-lithothèque at the Université de Bordeaux in Talence which houses over 30,000 core samples from the subsoil of the Aquitaine basin. 
 


We also went back to the Archives Bordeaux Métropole to continue looking for documents related to the trade with the former French colonies of the Antilles (known as "sugar islands"). We also visited the Archives Départamentales / Gironde where we found further evidence of CAPC musée's past as the former warehouse for colonial commodities known as Entrépot Lainé. 

Delving deeper into colonial landscapes and commodities exchange we were glad to revisit the permanent presentation of the Marcel Chatillon Collection at the Musée d'Aquitaine, which includes an incredible selection of over 600 documents and iconographic representations of slave working conditions, as well as portraits, flora and landscapes from the 17th to the 20th Century. 

Some of the Bordeaux's frantic maritime trade is visible in Pierre Lacour's majestic "Vue d'une partie du port et des quais de Bordeaux dits des Chartrons et de Bacalan" (1804–1806) one of the most iconic pieces in the Musée des Beaux-Arts (below). 


Pierre Lacour, "Vue d'une partie du port et des quais de Bordeaux dits des Chartrons et de Bacalan" (1804–1806), Musée des Beaux-Arts.

On the left one can identify the two iconic conical towers of Hôtel Fenwick, built between 1796-99 by Jean-Baptiste Dufart, and the location of the first Embassy of the United States. Out of the picture, also on the left, a few years later in 1822, architect and engineer Claude Deschamps would build the Entrêpot Lainé, headquarters of the CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux since 1974.

Photo of the Entrêpot Lainé published in the book "Bordeaux: Il y a 100 ans en cartes postales anciennes" by Fabienne Texier and Jean-Claude Bertreau.   


Related content:
  • Cover Story, May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (10 May 2016).
 2016, 2017, 4543 billion, CAPC Bordeaux, deep time, making of, material history, raw materials, research
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Cover Story: July 2016 – Through the grapevine – Rasmus Nilausen’s Soups & Symptoms

 Sun, Jul 3 2016
www.lttds.org

New Monthly Cover Story "Through the grapevine – Rasmus Nilausen’s Soups & Symptoms" is now on www.lttds.org (after July 2016 it will be archived here)

"Rasmus Nilausen’s ‘The Cluster III’ (2014) sits tight in a cupboard in what was once the house of a priest. This painting formed just one part of the exhibition that, together with Pere Llobera, Nilausen made for the Latitudes-devised Composiciones last October (the programme of artists’ interventions returns later this year). "Vera Icon" took over the rooms of the abandoned house in the gardens of La Central bookstore, itself a former city-centre church, and tweeting Mayoress Ada Colau was one of the many curious visitors over the weekend." 

—> Continue reading...

Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage to highlight past, present or forthcoming projects, research, exhibitions or field trips related to our activities. 
"Highly recommended the #BarcelonaGalleryWeekend @ArtBarcelona_AS". Twitter by Ada Colau, Barcelona Mayor during her visit to Rasmus Nilausen (photographed on the left and upper right corner) and Pere Llobera exhibition at the house of a former priest, La Central Bookstore. 

 Slideshow starts here.


→ Related content:
  • Archive of Cover Stories.
  • Last days! Cover Story and exhibition of José Antonio Hernández-Díez: techno-pop, death and resurrection (20 June 2016)
  • Cover Story, May 2016: Material histories – spilling the beans at the CAPC musée d’art contemporain de Bordeaux (10 May 2016)
  • Cover Story, March 2016: José Antonio Hernández-Díez: The sacred heart of the matter (3 March 2016) 
  • Cover Story, February 2016: Sarah Ortmeyer, Towering allusions (9 Febrero 2016)
 2016, Barcelona Gallery Weekend, cover story, looking back, Max Andrews, Publication, Rasmus Nilausen, report, text
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Second 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch by Moses Serubiri and Mohsen Taha reporting from Jinja, Uganda

 Thu, Jun 30 2016

As part of Kadist Online Projects, Kadist and Latitudes are partnering in a new 'distributed' phase of 'Incidents (of Travel)' as an online periodical that is publishing regular contributions from curators and artists working around the world. 

Originally conceived by Latitudes as day-long artist-led tours around Mexico City (2012) – followed by Hong Kong (2013) and San Francisco (2015) – 'Incidents (of Travel)' explores the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter and an extended conversation between curator/s and artist/s. Online storytelling presents and documents curatorial fieldwork and an offline day conceived by an artist for a curator.



The second 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch comes from Jinja, Uganda, where writer, researcher and curator Moses Serubiri met photographer Mohsen Taha. On this occasion, Taha photographed the day together exploring Jinja's Indian architectural legacy and Idi Amin's notorious expulsion of Uganda's Asian minority in 1972. Taha's photographs show the architectural remnants of their presence, and Serubiri's commentary tells of the forces at work in Uganda during that period.

Each of the 18 photographs in the sequence is augmented by one or more extra assets: a brief commentary, a caption or a soundscape, and is accessed by clicking the words which overlay the images.


The series inaugurated with an itinerary from curator Yesomi Umolu and artist Harold Mendez from Chicago – their tour was photographed by Nabiha Khan. 

Forthcoming contributions by Marianna Hovhannisyan (Yerevan / Istanbul), Yu Ji (Shanghai), Simon Soon (Kuala Lumpur / Sydney) and Natalia Zuluaga (Pereira / Miami), all fellows who participated in the seminar ‘The Place From Where We Look’ at Kadist Paris in June 2015. 


RELATED CONTENT:
 2016, fieldwork, Incidents of Travel, Kadist Art Foundation, online, report
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Documentación de la exposición de Pau Magrané/PLOM en La Capella, BCN Producció 2016

 Tue, Jun 28 2016
Fotografías exposición: Pep Herrero i La Capella/BCN Producció'16.
 
Como parte del equipo tutorial de BCN Producció 2016 (junto al comisario David Armengol y la artista Mireia Sallarès) acompañamos a los artistas Pau Magrané/PLOM (Espai Cub, abril–junio) y Antoni Hervàs (Sala Gran, septiembre–noviembre), y la comisaria Joana Hurtado Matheu (Sala Gran, 2 marzo 2016–30 abril 2017) a lo largo de este año en la preparación y producción de sus respectivas exposiciones. La exposición "Demo" de Pau Magrané finalizó hace unos días en La Capella (c/ Hospital 56). 

"Demo" (27 abril–12 junio 2016) compartió programación con la exposición "Background Immunity" de Ricardo Trigo, tutorizada por Armengol. "Demo" fue un concierto audiovisual en el que la reapropiación de sonidos y la visión escultórica juegan un papel fundamental. El concierto definió el Espai Cub de 3x3m como escenario-instrumento sonoro, una caja de resonancia que acoge distintas proyecciones y objetos activados por PLOM (alter ego de Magrané) durante su inauguración, pero que se mantuvieron durante toda la exposición invitando al público a interactuar con ellos.



Fotografías publicación: Folch.

 Podéis adquirir la publicación "Demo" [ISBN 978-84-985087-8-9 en catalán, castellano e inglés, 5 Euros] publicada por el Ajuntament de Barcelona y The Flames con motivo de la exposición, en La Capella y online a través de la web de Folch studio, diseñadores de la publicación y de la imagen gráfica del ciclo.



Aquí podéis ver un vídeo de la exposición (5'26'', catalán con subtítulos en castellano. Here with English subtitles) realizado por Hugo Barbosa.  

El 11 de julio 2016 a las 19h, los artistas y tutores presentarán la publicaciones resultantes del proyecto en la librería Múltiplos (c/ Joaquim Costa 30), que incluyen una entrevista entre artista-tutor y fotodocumentación de sus exposiciones.
   
BCN producció es una convocatoria anual dirigida a la comunidad artística de Barcelona (y su área de influencia), para la producción y presentación de tres exposiciones individuales en la Sala Gran de La Capella, tres en el Espai Cub, un proyecto de comisariado y dos proyectos deslocalizados. Es una iniciativa del Institut de Cultura de Barcelona (ICUB) del Ajuntament de Barcelona.



CONTENIDO RELACIONADO:
 2016, Barcelona, BCN Producció, beca producción, La Capella, Pau Magrané, tutoría
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