LONGITUDES

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

Cover Story—June 2019: ‘Thinking like a drainage basin: Lara Almarcegui’s ‘Concrete’

Latitudes' homepage www.lttds.org

The May 2019 Monthly Cover Story ‘Thinking like a drainage basin: Lara Almarcegui’s ‘Concrete’’ is now up on Latitudes' homepage: www.lttds.org

Lara Almarcegui’s current exhibition at the CAIRN art centre in Digne-les-Bains, southern France, focuses on the nearby Bléone river, its geology, and its exploitation. Latitudes has written an essay entitled ‘Thinking like a drainage basin’ for the accompanying catalogue. Lara’s project Béton (Concrete) has two parts. The first, seen here, involves the floor of the art centre being covered with crushed cement, gravel and sand. This raw material is the remains of several concrete structures — weirs — that were placed in the river in a failed attempt to stabilise a riverbed that had been extensively dug out over the preceding decades to produce gravel for the construction industry. The watercourse and its ecology is now being restored, and the weirs were recently removed.”

—> Continue reading
—> After May it will be archived here.


Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial activities.


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Cover Story – May 2019: ‘Buenos Aires in Parallel’

Latitudes' homepage www.lttds.org

The May 2019 Monthly Cover Story ‘Buenos Aires in Parallel’ is now up on Latitudes' homepage: www.lttds.org

“Latitudes recently participated in the Parallel Rooms talks programme of Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires. Developed in collaboration with the arteBA Fundación, and taking place during the arteBA art fair itself, these events transpired in four temporary domes that popped-up on the central showground of La Rural, a venue more used to hosting prize-winning cattle than forty-two curators, artists, and collectors.


—> Continue reading
—> After May it will be archived here.


Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial activities.


RELATED CONTENT:

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Report: Buenos Aires during Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires, Semana del Arte and arteBA fair


Invited by Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires to participate in their Parallel Talks programme during ArteBA, Latitudes spent a week in Buenos Aires (9–15 April) visiting a range of studio spaces, non-profit initiatives, commercial galleries, residency programmes, collectors, artists, and the arteBA art fair itself. 

(Above) Mariana Tellería ("Dios es inmigrante", 2019) and Carlos Huffmann (below) "Hito de frontera", 2019).

Tuesday 9 April 2019: We arrived in the evening in time to join the opening of the Buenos Aires Art Week (Semana del Arte) at Plaza Seeber. On the square, several sculptures were commissioned for the occasion, including works by Mariana Tellería (representing Argentina in the 2019 Venice Biennale), as well as works by Margarita Paksa, Marie Orensanz, Luna Paiva and Carlos Huffmann (photographed below).


Façade of MALBA — Museo Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires.

Wednesday 10 April: Morning visit to MALBA — Museo Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, who just announced the appointment of Gabriela Rangel as its new director. MALBA we saw "Inner world Modern Argentine Photography 1927-1962" with really compelling photographic work by Horacio Coppola, among others, as well as the survey "Latin American Art 1900–1970from the MALBA collection.


 (Above) Pistal Central de La Rural.

In the afternoon we went to the Pista Central of La Rural to attend the opening of ArteBA. Later in the week, twelve concurrent talks — the Parallel Talks programme organised by Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires — would take place inside transparent geodesic domes installed on this arena.

"Cultivar el suelo es servir a la patria" (Cultivate the soil is to serve the homeland).

 Inside the art fair ArteBA.


‘Lleno de sonrisas serias’, a 1963 work by conceptual artist and fashion designer Dalila Puzzovio (work above, the artist is photographed below on the left) was presented at Rolf Art gallery. Her discarded cast piece was included in the 1964 exhibition ‘New Art of Argentina’, organized by the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Instituto Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires (installation view in the background where her piece was presented on the floor). As Walker curator Siri Engberg wrote, the show ‘brought to Minneapolis Argentine artistic trends in geometric, abstract, and collage painting, constructivism, and other developments’. Rolf Art also presented works by José Alejandro Restrepo ‘Parquedades’ (1987) and María José Arjona's performance ‘Línea de Vida’.


 (Above and four images below) Nicolás Robbio at Museo Sívori

In the evening we had welcome drinks at the Museo Sívori, which hosted the fantastic solo show "3 de espaldas" by Nicolás Robbio, curated by Sebastián Vidal Mackinson.



Thursday 11 April 2019: Morning visit to several studios in the Once neighbourhood, including that of Eduardo Basualdo (above and two images below).

Later visited a group exhibition at galería Revolver which included "Aspiradora" (2017) by Alberto Borea.

Vicente Grondona's work also at Revolver.

cheLA studio spaces in parque Patricio neighbourhood.

In the afternoon we divided into smaller groups. We went to cheLA, a large 1930s industrial building in Parque Patricios hosting a programme of international residencies directed by Pablo Caligaris. In its 5,000m, cheLA hosts a range of organisations ("Constellations") including Móvil, a non-profit directed since 2014 by Alejandra Aguado and Solana Molina Viamonte, occupying the sala Tatraba.

Entrance to Móvil in cheLA

(Above and below) Exhibition "Sí, no y otras opciones" by Tucumán-born artist Mariana Ferreira at Móvil.


Evening opening at Centro Cultural Kirschner (CCK) (pictured above) hosted a large survey by 47 Argentinian artists titled "La marca original: arte argentino" presented over their vast exhibition spaces on the second and fourth floors. The building was a former post office and reminded us of Madrid's CentroCentro which has undergone a similar readaptation of its use, both struggling to adapt their spaces to the presentation of contemporary art.

 House-gallery of Maria Casado.

Friday, April 12, 2019: Morning visit to El Tigre, north of Buenos Aires, visiting the home-and-gallery of Maria Casado and the residency programme Proyecto URRA.

(Left to right) Stuart Fallon (Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburg), Marie Christine Schuh (Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires), Latitudes, Richard Parry (Glasgow International), gallerist Maria Casado and Sandino Scheidegger (Random Institute).


Onwards to the nearby Proyecto URRA artists residencies, also in El Tigre. Introductions by the resident artists Antonio Castillo Coo, Claire de Santa Coloma, Enrique Radigales, Lucas Despósito and Marisol San Jorge, and URRA director Melina Berkenwald.

Photo: Stuart Fallon.

 (Above and below) Installation by Madrid-based artist Enrique Radigales.

Enrique discusses his piece with visitors and other residents. Photo: Stuart Fallon.

Afternoon at the Parque de la Memoria—a fourteen-acre remembrance park situated in front of the Río de la Plata, commemorating the victims of state-sponsored terrorism from the 1976–83 military regime. Here we met Florencia Battiti (Curator at Parque de la Memoria) who explained the mission, programme and public commissions. 





Saturday 13 April 2019: On Saturday morning we joined the arteBA tour to a few galleries in La Boca neighbourhood: Fundación El Mirador (showing Alfredo Prior), Quadro Galería (showing Karin Idelson) and (photographed) Galería Barro exhibiting Marcelo PomboFundación PROA presented contemporary Argentinian design, and we had ‘choripán’ lunch at the nearby Fundación PROA 21.


Back at the fair, transparent geodesic domes had been set up by Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires at the Pista central in La Rural. Each space hosted the three consecutive conversations, starting 5:30. Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna's individual conversations ran consecutively (at 6:30 and 7:30) each for an hour. 

As narrated by co-guest Sandino Scheidegger of the Random Institute, other talks included topics such as ‘An Exhibition By Any Other Name’, ‘How Can Art Institutions Foster Experimentation?’ or ‘Curating in Context: How to Be Site-Specific’ (programme pdf here).

On the subject of the 3-year relationship between arteBA and Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires, Kerry Doran wrote his impressions in Artforum diary







Sunday 14 April 2019: A very welcome free day Sunday. We visited MUNTREF—Centro de Arte Contemporéneo's recently opened Premio Braque 2019 exhibition featuring works by fifteen Argentinian artists: Alfredo Dufour, Belén Romero Gunset, Celina Eceiza, Erica Bohm, Gustavo Nieto, Julián Sorter, Malena Pizani, Mariana Ferrari, Mónica Heller, Nacha Canvas, Nicolás Mastracchio, Juan Sorrentino, Mariana López, Dani Zelko and Cecilia Szalkowicz, awarded this year Premio Braque with her piece ‘Cosmos’. The award consists of a six-month residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. 

 (Above and below) ‘Cena recalentada’ by Celina Eceiza.

 (Above, left) Belén Romero Gunset ‘Pensar sola es criminal’ and (right) Erica Bohm ‘El cristal perfecto’. 
(Above) Julián Sorter ‘Doble de cuerpo’.
View of the show with works by Alfredo Dufour ‘Cest la vie I’, Malena Pizani ‘Cinco monos’ and Nicolás Mastracchio ‘Inducción VI’. 
(Above, foreground) works by Nacha Canvas ‘Símil’ and (background) Mariana Ferrari ‘Vivir aquí’.

Entrance to Carla Zaccagnini's "Mañana iba a ser ayer" curated by Lucrecia Palacios y Agustín Pérez Rubio also on view at MUNTREF—Centro de Arte Contemporéneo.




A classic fugazzeta at El Cuartito was followed by 1h walk to the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bellas Artes in San Telmo, with a short diversion to El Ateneo bookstore (below).




At the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires: "Una Historia de la imaginación en la Argentina", subtitled "Visiones de la Pampa, el litoral y el altiplano desde el siglo XIX a la actualidad", one of the most interesting shows in town. We wished we had seen it earlier as a means of introduction to the historical and artistic context. It included 250 works from different geographical points of the country, selected around their representation of nature, the feminine body and violence. It was curated by Javier Villa, Chief Curator at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires.



(Above) Works by Calixto Mamani and exhibition views below.



Installation "Mi Silencio miseria" (2015-19) by Carlos Herrera.


Also at MAMBA, we caught the last day of Mercedes Azpilicueta's solo show ‘Cuerpos pájaros’, and more specifically, her performance "Oh Eduarda!".





(Above) Azpilicueta performing during her "Oh Eduarda!", a script realised in collaboration with Agustina Muñoz, who performs alongside the artist. 


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Essay: ‘Thinking like a drainage basin’ in the catalogue of the exhibition ‘Lara Almarcegui. Béton’


(Above and below) Installation views of the exhibition ‘Béton’ by Lara Almarcegui at the CAIRN centre d'art, Digne-les-Bains, 2019. All photos: François-Xavier Emery.

Lara Almarcegui's exhibition ‘Béton’ opened on April 5 at CAIRN Centre d'art, in Digne-les-Bains, France, and will be on view until June 30th, 2019.

Latitudes has collaborated in the bilingual catalogue ‘Lara Almarcegui. Béton’ (French/English) recently published by Silvana Editoriale on the occasion the exhibition, with the new essay ‘Thinking like a drainage basin’. The publication includes an introduction by Giulia Pagnetti (curator of the exhibition and director of CAIRN Centre d'art), a second essay titled ‘Lara Almarcegui's building sites’ by Natacha Pugnet, and a conversation between the artist and Winfried Dallmann (Associate Professor, Department of Geosciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø) titled ‘Earth Calculation’.



As Latitudes' writes in the essay (...) ‘As part of her most recent project for CAIRN Centre d’art, Almarcegui has produced ‘Roches et Materiaux du Bassin de la Bléone’ (2019), an inventory of the different types of geological matter comprising the entire drainage basin of the Bléone river from its source near Prads-Haute-Bléone to its confluence with the Durance at Chateau-Arnaux, a terrain of some 906 km2.

In discussing how storytelling might integrate with environmental science, anthropologist Julie Cruikshank poses the rhetorical question, “are glaciers ‘good to think with’?”[1] She suggests that glaciers and glacial stories be allowed to disrupt and exceed conceptual fields and dominant frameworks of knowledge. Ecologist Aldo Leopold coined the term “to think like a mountain” in his 1949 book ‘A Sand County Almanac’, proposing that history could be narrated, or indeed art could be made, from the point of view of non-human actors. Are drainage basins good to think with? What might it entail to think like the rocks and topological forms that funnel water into a river in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence département in southeastern France?’



‘Lara Almarcegui. Béton’
April 2019, 48 pages, 24 x 17 cm
Texts by Natacha Pugnet, Latitudes and an interview between the artist and Winfried Dallmann. 
French/English 
Published by Silvana Editoriale
March 2019
Edited by CAIRN centre d'art
ISBN 9788836640904
Purchase here for 10 Euros.

RELATED CONTENT:
  • Writing archive on Latitudes' website;
  • Review – ‘Domènec. Y la tierra será el paraíso', adn galería, Barcelona, frieze.com, 13 March 2019
  • Opinion – ‘Frank Zappa’s Genre-Defying ‘Civilization Phaze III’’, frieze, January-February 2019, Issue 200, and frieze.com, 14 January 2019
  • Review – ‘Te toca a tí’ [It's your turn], Espai d'art contemporani de Castelló, art-agenda, 7 January 2019
  • art-agenda review of Frieze week 2018 15 October 2018
  • Catalogue essay – ‘The Kørner Problem’, in the monograph ‘John Kørner', ed. by Maria Nipper. Published by Roulette Russe, 2017. 19 February 2018
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Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna in Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires' Parallel Rooms programme on 13 April 2019


Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires in collaboration with arteBA Fundación will host a Talks Programme between April 12–14, 2019. Forty-two speakers from across the cultural sphere will discuss salient topics with the Buenos Aires audience. 

Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes will each participate in Parallel Rooms, an Art Basel programme format that began in 2017 allowing attendees to choose from and roam among multiple conversations happening simultaneously. Check the full events programme here (in Spanish).


Parallel Rooms takes place at arteBA, Pista Central de la Rural, Palermo, and are free and open to the public.


Parallel Rooms | Session 2 | Room 3
"First Things First: Making Exhibitions for a General Audience"

Saturday 13 April 2019
6:30
7:30pm

In this conversation, curators Max Andrews and Lara Marmor will discuss the challenges around what has become their primary job: curating and positioning an exhibition for a non-expert audience. Together they discuss: Are there curatorial strategies for speaking to a larger public? What can we do to encourage novices to visit an exhibition and help them enjoy it?

This session is free and open to the public and will be held in Spanish.


Parallel Rooms | Session 3 | Room 2
"Beyond the Museum: New Institutional Frames for Art"
Saturday 13 April 2019
7:30—8:30pm


Art is no longer confined to just museums; we can enjoy exhibitions in abandoned buildings, parks, and other unconventional spaces. But the contexts for art are also changing in another sense, as new curatorial narratives shift traditional definitions of art and allow artists to engage in refreshing interactions with the culture at large. In this talk, curators Mariana Cánepa Luna and Solana Molina Viamonte discuss the transformation of traditional art spaces and the evolving relationship between the art lover and the curator.

This session is free and open to the public and will be held in Spanish.
+ info


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Cover Story – March-April 2019: Icelandic refraction


Latitudes' home page www.lttds.org

The March-April 2019 Monthly Cover Story “Icelandic refraction” is now up on Latitudes' homepage: www.lttds.org

“It has been speculated that Icelandic spar was at one time used for navigational purposes,” reflects curator Becky Forsythe. Her account of a short Reykjavík day spent with artist Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir is the latest episode of Incidents (of Travel), the series edited by Latitudes and produced by Kadist.”


—> Continue reading
—> After April it will be archived here.


Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial activities.


RELATED CONTENT:

  • Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
  • Cover Story–February 2019: Schizophrenic Machine (1 February 2019)
  • Cover Story—January 2019: “Seesaw” (7 January 2019)
  • Cover Story—December 2018: "Treasures! exhibitionism! showmanship!" 1 December 2018
  • Cover Story—November 2018: "Joan Morey—postmortem judgement reenactment" 1 November 2018
  • Cover Story–October 2018: "I can’t take my eyes off you: Eulàlia Rovira and Adrian Schindler" 1 October 2018
  • Cover Story–September 2018: Harald Szeemann’s travel sculpture, 10 September 2018
  • Cover Story–August 2018: Askeaton Joyride, 2 August 2018
  • Cover Story–July 2018: No Burgers for Sale 2 July 2018
  • Save the date: 13 September, 6–9pm. Latitudes-curated exhibition ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, 21 June 2018
  • Cover Story—June 2018: Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group, 4 June 2018
  • Cover Story – May 2018: Shadowing Roman Ondák, 7 May 2018 
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Latitudes' redesigned portfolio – projects since 2005


After weeks and long hours facing the screen and mining hard disks, we've uploaded Latitudes' redesigned portfolio, at last! Go to download page and choose format:

For desktop/laptop/tablet view (83pp, 30.9 MB)
For mobile (164pp, 15.8 MB)
For print (164pp, 155.3 MB)


The pdf gathers a selection of projects produced since 2005 and includes a refreshed version of our biographies – which have also been updated on our website.

We have also included short individual biographies available for download as pdf – see below highlighted in yellow.

PDF designed and edited by Latitudes.

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Ninth episode of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ – Dispatch by Becky Forsythe and Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir from Reykjavík, Iceland

Episode #9 of ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ from Reyjkavík on http://incidents.kadist.org 
© All photographs by Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir, 2018.


In the ninth 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch, Canadian curator Becky Forsythe and Icelandic artist Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir navigate Reykjavík's surroundings considering Þorgerður's "current interest in Icelandic Spar (a form of transparent calcite), its double refraction and light-polarizing properties. In a race with daylight, they travel between sites, collecting moments and considering the ways in which geologic time surfaces in the context of human time."

Each of the 27 photographs is augmented by one or more extra assets – a brief commentary, a sound or a caption – accessed by clicking the words overlaying the images.

Selection of pages from the latest Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch from Reyjkavík. 


'Incidents (of Travel)' explores the chartered itinerary as a format of artistic encounter and an extended offline conversation between curator/s and artist/s. Online storytelling presents and documents curatorial fieldwork and a day conceived by an artist for a curator.

Conceived by Latitudes in 2012 as day-long artist-led tours around Mexico City (with five dispatches were presented as part of an exhibition on Latitudes' practice at Casa del Lago), 'Incidents of Travel' had sequels in 2013 in Hong Kong (online dispatches published via Twitter, Instagram, and Soundcloud) and San Francisco in 2015 (daily posts as part of Kadist's Instagram take over initiative #ArtistNotInTheStudioCuratorNotAtTheOffice).

In 2016 Kadist and Latitudes partnered in a new 'distributed' phase of 'Incidents (of Travel)' as part of Kadist Online Projects, publishing contributions from invited curators and artists working around the world.


Earlier conversations have taken place in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Hobart (Tasmania), Yerevan (Armenia), Terengganu (Malaysia), Lisbon (Portugal), Suzhou (China), Jinja (Uganda) and Chicago (US). 




The first dispatch launched in April 2016 with an itinerary by curator Yesomi Umolu and artist Harold Mendez from Chicago – a day 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.


The third episode took place while curator Yu Ji and poet Xiao Kaiyu hiked on Dong Shan (East Mountain), 130 km west of Shanghai, on a peninsula stretching into Tai Hu lake near the city of Suzhou, China.


The fourth dispatch came from Lisbon, where Galician curator Pedro de Llano visited key locations that marked the life and work of Luisa Cunha.


The fifth episode took place in April 2016, when curator Simon Soon and artist chi too visited the Malaysian North Eastern state of Terengganu, where chi spent some time in 2013, surrounded by "men and women who work(ed) multiple jobs as a fishermen, housebuilders, boat builders, farmers, coconut pickers, food producers, and everything else that matters." 


The sixth episode narrates a walking itinerary conducted by curator Marianna Hovhannisyan with Vardan Kilichyan, Gohar Hosyan, and Anaida Verdyan in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia, documenting the transformed, disappeared, or permanently-closed art institutions in the city centre.

Episode 7 from Hobart http://incidents.kadist.org/hobart

The seventh episode comes from Hobart, capital of Tasmania. It is narrated by curator Camila Marambio, following an itinerary devised by artist Lucy Bleach. They spent the day "encircling the outer limits of human understanding by visiting the histories, both past, and present, of attempts to reach beyond our sensory capacities through governance, technology, and reverie", and ended the day cooking at Lucy's home-sharing their mutual love for quinces.

Episode 8 from Buenos Aires http://incidents.kadist.org/buenosaires


In the eighth 'Incidents (of Travel)' dispatch Móvil co-founder and curator Alejandra Aguado followed the itinerary devised by the artist Diego Bianchi around Buenos Aires, Argentina. 

Their exploration took them from the self-regulated community Velatropa to the buzzing commercial area of Once, identifying human and non-human flows and interactions. This became an entry point for discussing Bianchi's interests in how, as consumers, we define a particular zeitgeist and appropriate trends that enable us to affirm our identities.


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Cover Story–February 2019: Schizophrenic Machine

Latitudes' home page www.lttds.org

The February 2019 Monthly Cover Story “Schizophrenic machine” is now up on Latitudes' homepage: www.lttds.org


Schizophrenic machine, the concluding performance of the Latitudes-curated Joan Morey project COLLAPSE, took place on the freezing evening of 10 January. One hundred and thirteen pre-vetted audience members, each complying with a rigid all-black dress code, were driven by coach to the previously undisclosed location: the former La Model prison in Barcelona’s Eixample neighbourhood. More strictures were barked by a balaclava-clad doorman upon arrival: silence! single file! No mobile phones, no bathrooms, no chance to leave. The reverberation of a door slamming. More than two hours in the darkness and cold.

—> Continue reading
—> After December it will be archived here.


Cover Stories' are published on a monthly basis on Latitudes' homepage featuring past, present or forthcoming projects, research, texts, artworks, exhibitions, films, objects or field trips related to our curatorial activities.


RELATED CONTENT:

  • Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
  • Photo documentation of COLLAPSE.
  • Cover Story—January 2019: “Seesaw” (7 January 2019)
  • Cover Story—December 2018: "Treasures! exhibitionism! showmanship!" 1 December 2018
  • Cover Story—November 2018: "Joan Morey—postmortem judgement reenactment" 1 November 2018
  • Cover Story–October 2018: "I can’t take my eyes off you: Eulàlia Rovira and Adrian Schindler" 1 October 2018
  • Cover Story–September 2018: Harald Szeemann’s travel sculpture, 10 September 2018
  • Cover Story–August 2018: Askeaton Joyride, 2 August 2018
  • Cover Story–July 2018: No Burgers for Sale 2 July 2018
  • Save the date: 13 September, 6–9pm. Latitudes-curated exhibition ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, 21 June 2018
  • Cover Story—June 2018: Near-Future Artworlds Curatorial Disruption Foresight Group, 4 June 2018
  • Cover Story – May 2018: Shadowing Roman Ondák, 7 May 2018
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‘COLLAPSE. Schizophrenic Machine’ site-specific performance by Joan Morey at the former prison La Model, Barcelona, 10 January 2019

‘Schizophrenic Machine’ site-specific performance by Joan Morey at the former Panopticon-inspired prison La Model, Barcelona, 10 January 2019. © All photographs by Noemí Jariod. Courtesy of the artist.


Schizophrenic Machine’ was the closure of the three-part project ‘COLLAPSE’ by Joan Morey. This new site-specific performance took place on January 10, 2019, in the former prison La Modelo, a location that was kept in secret up until the 113 guests were driven in coaches from either Centre d'art Contemporani - Fabra i Coats, or the Centre d'art Tecla Sala

The audience previously registered to attend the closed-door performance and agreed to comply with the strict dress code. The performance script integrated the 1904 chilling architecture of the prison through voice and technological devices such as drones, surveillance cameras, strobe lighting, and an architecture scanning laser. Each one activated and deactivated the building's memories making ‘Schizophrenic Machine’ be Morey's first performance with no human actors as protagonists. ‘Schizophrenic Machine’ continued Morey's long-standing exploration of power structures and control of the body.



Schizophrenic Machine’ took the physical and discursive past of La Model as a scenario for performance where bodies were not acting and the protagonist was the architecture itself. The Panopticon-inspired prison was inaugurated on June 9, 1904, and was conceived as a model for the Spanish penitentiary system: an example of the reintegration of criminals into society through discipline, isolation and religious morality. La Model was one of the main sites of political repression and social control in the city. Followers of all political persuasion passed through its cells, aside from common criminals, yet during the long totalitarian dictatorship of General Franco (1939–1975), it was especially notorious as a site for the repression of political dissidents. La Model closed on June 8, 2017, 113 years after its inauguration


‘Schizophrenic Machine’ took over the unoccupied building and created a phantasmagoric presence that activated and deactivated its own memory. Conceived as an all-encompassing experience the event took on a singular awareness of the building and the site. The sequential dramatisation of its radial spaces articulated a dystopian representational device. A cast of technological interpreters —voices, sound, lights, cameras, drones and other devices— took the place of performing bodies. Moreover, the panopticon architecture itself seemed to address spectators through a female voice that spoke on the principles of control, power and the paradigm of a surveillance society. La Model became a schizophrenic machine, an imperious disciplinary mechanism for the 21st century. 

Produced by the Contemporary Art Center of Barcelona - Fabra i Coats as the third and final part of the ‘COLLAPSE’ project.





RELATED CONTENT:

  • Wakelet archive of social media content
  • Selección de reseñas, videos y entrevistas (31 Diciembre 2018)
  • Inscripción para asistir a la performance ‘Máquina esquizofrénica’ de Joan Morey (11 Diciembre 2018)
  • December 13, 2018, 7pm: Performance reenactment of "TOUR DE FORCE. El cos utòpic" (2017) by Joan Morey 10 December 2018
  • December 13, 2018, 7 pm: Performance reenactment of "TOUR DE FORCE. El cos utòpic" (2017) by Joan Morey (10 December 2018)
  • "Joan Morey presenta "Col·lapse. Cos social", programa Taquilla Inversa, L'Hdigital Mitjans de Comunicació de L'Hospitalet, 29 Novembre 2018
  • Pía Cordero, "COL·LAPSE, o l’avenir il·limitat de l’obscenitat", www.nuvol.com, 6 Desembre 2018
  • November 29, 2018, 5–8pm: Performance reenactment of "IL LINGUAGGIO DEL CORPO. Pròleg" (2015-16) by Joan Morey 26 November 2018
  • November 15, 2018, 7 pm: Performance reenactment of "BAREBACK. Fenomenología de la comunión" (2010) by Joan Morey 12 November 2018
  • October 25, 7pm: Performance reenactment of "GRITOS Y SUSURROS" (2009) by Joan Morey 22 October 2018
  • October 11, 2018, 7pm: Performance reenactment of ‘LLETANIA APÒRIMA’ [APORIC LITANY] (2009) by Joan Morey 8 October 2018
  • Performance programme in the context of Joan Morey's exhibition ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring Machine, Working Machine’ 24 September 2018
  • Maria Palau, "Contra l'abús de poder", El Punt Avui, p. 32, 23 Setembre 2018 (Catalan)
  • Full performance programme
  • NOTA DE PRENSA: ‘Joan Morey. COLAPSO’, diversos espacios, Barcelona, 20 septiembre 2018–13 enero 2019, 19 September 2018
  • Save the date: 19 September at 7pm, opening of the solo show by Joan Morey ‘COLLAPSE. Desiring machine, working machine’, Centre d'Art Contemporani Barcelona - Fabra i Coats, 3 September 2018
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