Spain

Afterimages or what to look at when you’re tired of seeing

Following the invitation of Sant Marc, I have selected three artists who question the current status of images in the context of a region that confronts its contradictory identity.

If, as Sherrie Levine once stated, “the world is filled to suffocating” with images, it is a daunting task for an artist to add anything to the intense flow of visual stimuli to which we are exposed every day. On the one hand, it seems that the only possible solution is to re-use existing images and divert their meaning; on the other, the overabundance of photographic images and the way in which photography has become a commonplace method for expressing oneself visually or even keeping notes, lead to re-think what photography is about. Every image, in a sense, becomes an afterimage, as it incorporates reminiscences of other images, in different contexts and meanings.

On the sunny, touristic island of Mallorca it is quite common to experience an afterimage as a result from exposing our eyes to the sunlight. The island itself is paradoxically connected to ghost images of paradisiac retreats and limitless enjoyment, while it struggles to find an image of its own identity. The art scene is also trying to define itself in the context of an island that is connected (both willing and unwillingly) to the world: there is an uncommon merging between the local and international, the alternative and mainstream in art galleries, museums and cultural spaces. Local artists have found over the last decade a large number of spaces and initiatives to show their work in Mallorca, yet with few chances of exhibiting abroad. Some have been “blinded by the light” of their local experience, others are moving towards an international context.

Participating in the local art scene but also connected to a wider, global network, the selected artists question the current status of images from different perspectives. The afterimages in their work refer to a closer examination of our visual culture and invite us to look rather than just see.

Arantxa Boyero

Arantxa Boyero (Mallorca, 1982) works with photography as a means of exploring her own self and the way in which women are portrayed in the media. Her photographs and videos seem casual, or whimsical even, but respond to a deliberate construction of the image. Intimacy is a key aspect of her work, in which she usually presents herself or her friends in snapshots of their private lives. Playfully switching between reality and fiction, she frames the image in unusual ways and has her models perform slightly or overtly strange actions. In this manner, Boyero creates constant contradictions in her images, which may seem trivial but contain a carefully staged narrative.

www.arantxaboyero.net

Arantxa Boyero, África/ Mi Museo de Antropología, 2012. Photograph, 70 x 100 cm.

Arantxa Boyero, África/ Mi Museo de Antropología, 2012. Photograph, 70 x 100 cm.

Arantxa Boyero, Mi Museo Cerralbo, 2012. Photograph, 33 x 50 cm.

 Arantxa Boyero, Mi Museo Cerralbo, 2012. Photograph, 33 x 50 cm.

Arantxa Boyero, Wildflowers, 2010. Photograph, 80 x 60 cm.

Arantxa Boyero, Lola te quiero, 2008-09. Photograph, 33 x 30 cm.

Arantxa Boyero, Lola te quiero, 2008-09. Photograph, 33 x 30 cm.

Javier Siquier

Javier Siquier (Mallorca, 1983) examines the invasion of images and messages in the urban landscape by using photography and graphic design. His transdisciplinary approach allows him to move beyond frames and feel at home both in the white cube of the gallery as in the public space. He subverts the codes of each context by assigning new functions to different elements: casual scratches on the walls are documented as part of an artistic intervention, graffiti paintings are re-framed or intervened, large signs are inserted into the gallery and thus become part of the exhibition. There is more to his work than urban art: he creates new spaces for our gaze and explores the city as an image.

www.javiersiquier.com

Javier Siquier, 1 m2. 2009. Removal of 1 sq.mt. of graffiti. Photograph and several objects.

Javier Siquier, 1 m2. 2009. Removal of 1 sq.mt. of graffiti. Photograph and several objects.

Javier Siquier, Espejo pintado con reservas. 2012. Painted mirror and urban intervention.

Javier Siquier,  Espejo pintado con reservas. 2012. Painted mirror and urban intervention.

Javier Siquier, Roces. 2012. Photographs.

Marcos Vidal 

(Vitoria-Gasteiz, 1967) re-composes the invasive media sphere into a series of collages that disrupt the original message and reveal an underlying truth. His work is consciously eclectic, irreverent and satirical, a clear reflection of the distorted form in which society represents itself in the media. Pop culture is one of his main inspirations, yet not simply to insert it into the context of “high art”, but rather to make clear that our culture is shaped by its images. Confronted with the saturation of visual stimuli in our daily lives, Vidal has chosen to decompose the messages into discrete pieces (literally) and create new compositions that the eye cannot ignore.

marcosvidal.tumblr.com

Marcos Vidal, Silla Doble, 2010. Wood and mirrow.

Marcos Vidal, Brie-Collage, 2012. Series of 100 collage compositions, 23 x 21 cm. Each.

Marcos Vidal, Brie-Collage, 2012. Series of 100 collage compositions, 23 x 21 cm. Each.

Marcos Vidal, Polifem Chairs, 2011. Digital print and found objects.

Marcos Vidal, Minimalismo para la eternidad, 2012. 50 collage pieces.

Sant Marc

Sant Marc was founded by Marcos Vidal in Sineu November 1999 as a space for ideas and research in the field of art. The experience of participating in many international meetings and exhibitions inspired Vidal to promote translocal connections between local and foreing artists in workshops, residencies, conferences and group exhibitions. Since 2002, Sant Marc has organized exhibitions in Mallorca and collaborated with the Pilar i Joan Miró Foundation and the Incart festival, as well as the Artists Association of the Balearic Islands. Sant Marc is now increasingly participating in international initiatives, such as the Water Tower Fest (Sofia, Bulgaria), Supermarket Art Fair (Stockholm, Sweden) and Artists’ Initiatives Meetings (a network group from across Europe). In April 2013, it organized the Mallorca Translocal Meeting, which took place at the Pilar i Joan Miró Foundation and in Can Gelabert (Mallorca), with the participation of artists from The Netherlands, UK, Armenia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Spain. Sant Marc is linked to the following organizations: Hilvaria Studio Tilburg (NL), Moorland Productions Leeds-London (UK), IME ngo – Water Tower Art Fest (BG), Acoss residency program (AM), Supermarket Art Fair (SE), Microwesten Berlin (DE), MUU gallery (FI), iRoom space Barcelona (ES), Inquietart Incart festival (ES), VB magazine (ES).

www.santmarc.tumblr.com

Pau Waelder

For the Alternative Art Guide, Sant Marc has invited Pau Waelder as guest curator. PhD Candidate and Lecturer at the Open University of Catalonia (Barcelona), he is an independent art critic, curator and researcher whose work focuses on contemporary and new media art.

www.pauwaelder.com

30 June 2017 / by / in
They’ve left us alone

It is not down on any map; true places never are, said Herman Melville. We have been systematically erased from all maps; geographical, political or cultural maps have ignored our people, throwing it to the sea. We are a holiday destination, but a crude one. Nobody finds here what one has come searching for. We are, in many aspects, a flat jungle. The same jungle in which Johan Van der Keuken renders the region bathed by the Wadden Sea. Sometimes land, sometimes sea, filled with profound socioeconomic changes that drag us downhill. We are not a retirement paradise. Cold winters and years during which rain does not give a truce for three hundred days. Art has depicted this situation throughout history and today artists are doomed to exile. It is still an impossible task to show one’s work 500km from the geographical, political and cultural center of a country. 

The current economic crisis does not seem to have impaired us anymore than we have ever been.  Our home has always been far from our homeland: Buenos Aires, Caracas, São Paulo, New York, Melbourne, Frankfurt, Geneva, London or Paris.

Damián Ucieda, Misha Bies Golas and Manuel Eirís have as a common link their interest in real life, the environment in which they work and an outcome which reaches three contrasting formal limits. Even though not one of them remembers the other two, their work arises from a similar idea: the three of them find their location, materials and even their work, already completed, in their urban environment.

 

Manuel Eirís

Manuel Eirís works with a series of conditions that oblige him to constantly redo and rewrite his work. Paintings that speak of an experience linked to his life and which find no place for shame. Everything responds to a process with its ups and downs, with trials and errors that result in a meta-painting exercise, in which besides the ending, the important thing is the way and the trail generated.  Permanently facing uncertainty, finishing a project becomes a dilemma for Eirís, which drives him to doubt as a working method. The way Eirís deals with representation alludes directly to metonymy as analyzed by Lacan. One thing is named through another, which becomes its container or is a part of it, or is connected to it. Through sum or deduction Manuel Eirís plays at building individual or collective memory. He seeks to recover a story in which possibly something unremarkable has happened. His intention is to extract a piece of the life that has been developing in certain places, making plastic samples which allow him to decompose the chronicle that has shaped the passage of time.

www.manueleiris.com

 

Manuel Eirís, 11'42" patinando, 2012, vinyl record, installation, variable dimensions.

 

Manuel Eirís, Den Bosch, Thursday, 7 of October of 2009…,  2009, mixed technique, 20×29,7 cm.

 

Manuel Eirís, No title, 2013, brilliant golden spray paint, over dark oak tint, 60×50 cm.

 

Manuel Eirís, I cut the wood stripes, built the frame and…, 2010, Mixed media over linen, 140×95 cm.

 

 

Manuel Eirís, One day: I arrived at the workshop late… , 2013, two squares, 
one pink and one blue, oils and aerosol on canvas, 97×97 cm. | 99,4×137,4 cm.

 

 

Manuel Eirís, One day: I arrived at the workshop late… , 2013, two squares, 
one pink and one blue, oils and aerosol on canvas, 97×97 cm. | 99,4×137,4 cm.

 

Manuel Eirís, No title, 2012, two vinyl records, variable dimensions 

 

Damián Ucieda

Working in a style inherited from photographers such as Jeff Wall, Philip Lorca diCorcia, Andreas Gursky or Thomas Struth, Ucieda captures moments, perfectly preconceived moments in which nothing is left up to chance. Situations created with the firm conviction of showing probable moments, without a doubt, but that hide scenes in which the spectators interpretation plays an essential role. The formal ability of a photograph doesn’t explain anything. The events portrayed are mysterious in themselves or as John Berger sees it explicable depending on the knowledge the viewer has before seeing the photographs. If there is something Berger can be characterised for it’s his simple way of explaining in the same manner that Uciedas images reach the viewer. It’s not about generating moments that are characterised for their spectacularity if not to play recreating scenes that disconcert the viewer due to their familiarity but it’s this point of uncertainty that could break the balance at any moment.

www.damianucieda.com

 

Damián Ucieda, Stilll Life Nº IV, Car on Fire, 2010.

 

Damián Ucieda, Untitled #6, 2006

 

Damián Ucieda, Still Life Nº III, Net & Woods II, 2009.

 

Damián Ucieda, Untitled #13, 2006.

 

 

Damián Ucieda, Bridge I. Gundián, 2010.

 

 

Damián Ucieda, Bridge II. Gundián, 2010.

 

 

Damián Ucieda, Emma (Woods & Train Rails), 2009.

 

 

Damián Ucieda, View from a Window IV, 2009.

 

Misha Bies Golas

Misha Bies Golas' work starts from appropriation. His studio could be regarded as a warehouse where a huge amount of all kind of objects are accumulated and which share the possibility of finding a place in his work. The result is sometimes confusing, it's a question of reading between the lines, or noticing the hidden face of each of his pieces.

Also concerned about painting as a topic of research, his interest in monochrome leads him to rescue objects that play with that idea or even to generate pieces through works signed by others. Wandering while looking for nothing, is the best way to find something. When we go out into the street with an objective we rarely reach it. In this way Misha Bies Golas strolls while doing his daily tasks, far from art, and his work starts to appear slowly. His studio is a space for experimentation that defines the final shape.

www.mishaboesgolas.com

 

Misha Bies Golas, Untitled, 2012, wood and books, 10x20x25 cm.

 

Misha Bies Golas, Untitled, 2012, cardboard boxes, 40x70x20 cm.

 

Misha Bies Golas, Construcción con puro, 2010, colour photography, 50×50 cm., Ed. 3+1 P.A.

 

Misha Bies Golas, Díptico, 2012, cristal y protectores de embalaje, 8x28x50 cm.

 

Misha Bies Golas, Dos cocos, 2012, coconuts, variable dimensions.

 

Misha Bies Golas, Sin título (interior día), 2012, colour photography, 50×70 cm., Ed. 3+1 P.A.

 

Misha Bies Golas, Untitled, 2012, wooden pedestal and cigarette 120x35x35 cm.

 

Misha Bies Golas, Políptico de sabores, 2012, iron, metal and synthetic enamel, 100x50x55 cm.

 

 

Ángel Calvo Ulloa

Ángel Calvo Ulloa (Lalín – Pontevedra, 1984) lives and works in Santiago de Compostela.

Graduated in Art History from the University of Santiago de Compostela. Post-graduate in Contemporary Art: Creation and research at Faculty of Fine Arts from the University of Vigo.

As art critic is editor of Dardo Magazine, A*desk Critical Thinking and Dardonews.

As curator has developed the public interventions project Un disparo de advertencia (Lalín-Pontevedra) in 2011, the solo exhibition Natureza! Estás soa? with the artist Álvaro Negro in PALEXCO (A Coruña) in 2011, the group exhibition Welcme to my loft in the CTB (Ferrol) in 2012, Wily Forza Ingobernable at FAC (Santiago de Compostela) in 2013, Agora!, artistic interventions project at winery Martín Códax factory in Cambados (Pontevedra) in 2013 and Sssh! Del sielncio un lenguaje at Nuble gallery (Santander) at the end of 2013.

He has conducted during 2011 and 2012 the project Espazo Sirvent (Vigo) and now works in his next project, Diálogos Improbables, that will run between 2012 and 2013 and is co-curator of the project Afluentes that analyse figurative painting in Galicia since 1968. Is member of the curators group OsTres with whom organizes some exhibitions during 2013 at Miramemira space in Santiago de Compostela (Damian Ucieda, Ian Waelder and Pedro Magalhães).

He has worked as project coordinator at Look Up! Natural Porto Art Show in the city of Porto in 2010 and now works in different projects for Granell Foundation (Santiago de Compostela), Salon Project (Madrid) and Louis21 gallery (Madrid).

 

30 June 2017 / by / in
Art in a post-apocalyptic era

In a cafe in Madrid, Enrique Radigales, Monoperro and Daniel Silvo met to talk about the production of art in a post-apocalyptic scenario. Everyone brought an object related to this idea, in order to follow a methodology for the discussion.

 

Object selected by Monoperro

 

Object selected by Enrique Radigales

 

          

Object selected by Daniel Silvo

 

Monoperro (MP) – Some years ago I was part of a fake band called The Science of pop, and the premise was that, after a nuclear hecatomb, a group of scientists carried out a research on pop music, from the traces and comments that had survived. Music no longer existed, only texts and references difficult to interpret, would rebuild music. We would do a concert all dressed up as scientists, and we would explain: "Now we will play a music called Bach", because we concluded that there was a type of music called Bach as we had discovered many references to that name, so we assumed that it was a category; and another category was “herbalist”, and we gave an explanation and context to each category. I think the scientists who study prehistory do something very similar.

Enrique Radigales (ER): The elongated skulls from Peru apparently belonged to a missing link (in the human race).

MP – There is a theory that the missing link belongs to an alien race, who inserted their DNA into hominids to create man.

 

Monoperro, El décimo tramo

 

ER – I read that a new DNA has been discovered…

MP – The discoverer of human DNA says it could not have appeared naturally , but it must have come from a civilization beyond Earth .

ER – NASA says that in forty years time an alien civilization will be discovered . It's a statement, they’re fully convinced .

MP – As a probablity calculation, right?

ER – That´s right

Daniel Silvo (DS) – So , what´s the story of this piece then?

ER – This tile comes from a place I call the Antitaller, in Pericastó , two acres of upland terrain . There, there was a tools shed, where the farmers slept when they went to work. It is a tile from there. I liked the idea of the measure. As old and primitive as a tile , which has inscribed on it an unreal measure, unmeasurable somehow, such as pixels. For a possible dystopian future where we can preserve digital culture we ought to contrast it with a traditional metric system , centimeters . It is like the Rosetta Project, which is related to the theory of digital dark age , which means the loss of digital data transfer problem and data storage systems that become obsolete as floppy disks, hard disks, etc. Then the rosetta project has to do with the Rosetta stone, which consisted in engraving with laser a very small size text translated to two hundred different languages. To read the text you just need a magnifying glass, not a software nor hardware. And this was as a way to consider the digital world translated or transferred to a completely material and analogue world. The tile is boiled clay, a very old technology.

 

Enrique Radigales, Zombi.tif

 

DS – It is laser against clay, two opposite technological ends. In fact, within this idea of ​​preserving the digital  I raised in the exhibition House, Bunker, the conecpt of Ruin, a hypothesis about the conservation of digital and technological works from its copy into analogue media. Did I tell you about the snake skin?

ER – and MP. NO

DS – It turns out that last summer I had to kill a snake.

ER – Why did you kill the snake?

DS – Some older men had a corn field, and there we found a snake. They insisted that I had to kill her, because it was dangerous at the time of making the collection, and should not be reproduced or grow.

ER – Why did you have to kill it?

DS – Because they were old and could not do it. I was told to  do it  because I'm young.

 

Daniel Silvo, Jenny Holzer

 

ER – And how did you do it?

DS – With a long stick , hitting it in the head until it died. I took the skin thinking of doing something with it. And what I did was a reproduction of a Jenny Holzer , that part that says "Protect me from what I want" , whith LED lights that move across. In this case the scales are like the LED lights, and the text is painted on it. I have another piece that is three frames of a video of Francis Alÿs on salmon skin . In Colombia I bought a goatskin on which I painted a picture of a video by Julian Opie . The idea is that my copies are more durable than digital pieces . But are they made with very unstable elements like conté crayon , so in the end I'm saying is that everything is unstable , the information will be lost gradually. The Rosetta Stone was almost a miracle, in most cases  the information is lost over time.

MP – Normally things survive because someone does survive. There remains a belief that this object has a value, because in reality itself things lose value.

ER – In an life or death  situation things lose its value , of course , if you need to warm up , you burn racks and canvases. Because life comes first.

DS – Oh, like in the video? 

ER – Yes, as you told us about your video.

Monoperro. Sounds like the typical script of a Hollywood movie, a few who remain after a disaster in a museum. But then, in a Hollywood film they would eventually make the effort to maintain the culture.

 

Enrique Radigales, 12 metros de Landscape (eyebeam)

 

ER – Yes, as George Clooney , who has asked the British Museum to return all Greek pieces. But then, the guy is not British , if the parts had been in an American museum , I donT not know if he had dared to say anything. It's easy to tell others what to do.

MP / DS – lol, exactly.

ER – It is like the picture  some actors and filmmakers have taken in front of the Last Supper by Da Vinci, where take pictures is strictly forbidden . The last picture taken  was in the 90s or something.

DS – So they went on an excursion to Rome and took a photo, right?

ER – Who knows what they paid  for it.

DS – Anyway. I am sure people have done loads of photos, it is just  that  those photos did not transcended, but maybe this one was discovered because it was shared digitally, but I am sure it is not the first time.

 

Daniel Silvo, Francis Alÿs

 

ER – And what is this?

MP – We do not know what the object is.

ER – It looks like a cypress.

MP – We know what it is, but in a post-nuclear civilization disaster nobody will know what it is . For them this object emits a power, it is a mysterious object.

DS – So does this mean that after the nuclear hecatomb there will be no nature?

MP – So, they are not going to be able to compare, so retrieving this …

ER – so in your hypothesis there is no nature

MP – Exactly. They cannot compare it with nature, so looking that… They are underground, the issue is that they will receive all the emanation of nature through that object, but they do not understand why this thing is so powerful. It's very mysterious to them.

 

Monoperro, The Four Degrees

 

DS – They don’t know why it’s green, because there are maybe some underground lichen or plant, but they will not be green because there is no photosynthesis.

MP – To me the most interesting idea is this about returning to the origins. Prehistoric art arises because it’s a connection with another world, I mean, other spiritual world in which every being is immutable, unless one is born and dies, there is Unity, there is no division between beings… then I think art always tries to solve the mystery of the unknown. After the nuclear holocaust, losting all information regarding culture, this work is embodied into a myth about an utopian world to recover. But it is based on an object that is not the truth, because it is made on plastic .

DS – That is, for them, history is related to the metaphysical, isn’t it?, the past, the unfathomable… It cannot be recovered, it’s mysterious and deified.

MP – yes, but then I think if there is a nuclear holocaust and only a group of people survives, even losing the culture, I think in essence nothing will be lost. I believe, as the metaphysical theory says, that this lost world is unreal, an illusion, and the only real thing is the other world, the unique, the immutable. What I did the other day at La Fábrica is to explain that this world is an illusion, our creation, and the real world is another ones. I think I am me, and  you are you, and he's him, but actually in the other world there is a unity. It’s like if there is a sun in a world, and in a second world there are many buckets of water, and the sun is reflected on them. We can believe that there are many suns, but it’s not. If all is lost it does not really lose anything, culture and knowledge have the ability to convey that idea, but …

 

Enrique Radicales, Pixel rule

 

ER – So, there are duplicated worlds?

MP –  yes … There is a French scientist who speaks about the duplicated time. All elements in the universe is doubled. Even us.

ER – Then they do all the movements we do now?

MP not, because it is an immaterial double, a spiritual ones. But this man says that when we are born, until about 7 years, the process of entering in the culture is the process of separating yourself from your double. That is why children are very attached to their double. But that double is in a "place" where there is no time, time is everything. Children problematize cultural concepts, because they are constantly in the present. Anyway, what I want to say is that there is a physical demonstration that shows that this man is no other world , and that we are connected with it.

DS – and how is it possible, a place where there is no time?

MP – it’s not a place, it's like a no-time.

ER – I find it very interesting what you say about children: It’s hard to understand what the past and the future are for them, our present is conditioned by the future, and we build on the past our present. A child doesn’t have an idea about future because they live “here” and “now”. It takes time for them to understand those concepts.

MP – They understand it, but it's part of learning and culture.

 

Daniel Silvo, La Casa

 

ER – There is a book by Oliver Sacks called "I see a voice " which talks about the world of writing , sign language… He explains that it's more complicated to get on in the world for a deaf than for a blind , because a deaf doesn't understand time, past or future . He is isolated from birth , and this deficiency is not easily detected.
DS There aren't many ways to understand time if not through sound … But you can understand by touch , if you notice a breeze and then you feel it has stopped …

MP – Yes, but time is a very culturally abstraction, our civilization is one of the few that has built such a markedly linear time.  You know what happened with that story about the end of the Mayan world , that was because their time was circular.

ER – Yes, cosmic spring.

MP . Sure, but then physically , from what I've read, is much more suitable the idea of circular time and organic than linear time , in which it seems that seconds are running down, like disappearing .

ER – That is much more stressful! Much more stressful than to think that you're going back to the beginning.

MP – But because you are in an organic thing, a cycle. We are so involved in linear time that we find it hard to understand …

 

Monoperro, La serie coreana

 

ER – So Dani, this is fine for your scenario of a nuclear disaster, because we would always go back to the origin.

DS – Yes, in fact that is what I propose: it's all over after disaster, and the end is very similar to the origin of the history of art , some men leave a few traces in walls and that has to be interpreted.

ER – The point is that what remains in the history of art are big names. But then there are other names, which represent other layers of the known, with a lot of influence. For example, it is very likely that Biber clearly influenced other musicians who have been much better known than Biber. Yet he has remained hidden.

 

 

DS – I think the concept of avant-garde, which has always existed, has begun to be recognized in modernity, but before who was in the vanguard was considered as a madman.

MP – It also happens that we build upon a false idea of ​​creation. For instance, when they tell you about the history of music, and you know Mozart, and then if you listen to 10 totally unknown musicians from Mozart's time, you wouldn't be able to  distinguish between them . We think of individuality, but it was actually a group of artists working at the same time. Like Madonna , who will remain, but because Madonna manages to combine all the ideas and stereotypes of pop music, or Lady Gaga …

ER – Yes, Lady Gaga, for being so many times reproduced and copied.

MP – Yes, that affects a lot. Imagine two similar artists, if people copy and recreate mostly what one of them makes, that's the one that will live on.

DS – Yes, that's it, the most influential… the ones that leave a harder trace on his contemporaries are the most influential and therefore remaining more durably in history

MP – The ones that generate more dialogue.

DS – The best artist is the most copied. He generates more fascination, etc.

 

Daniel Silvo, Julian Opie

 

ER – And this object has a lot to do with this circular theory…

DS – That multiworld thing?

ER – Why did you bring it?

DS – Because I liked it , it seems very nice, it has many colors … And some colors are repeated … Look, here there's is a blue face … ah, all colors are repeated! I just realized !

MP -It's like the theory of the doubled world.

DS – It's true! Here there is a blue one and the other blue is on the opposite side! In the antipode!

MP – Reality is very multifaceted.

DS – Multifaceted and double, as you said. I brought it because it is more complex than the Rubik's Cube. I think the world has become more complex in such a way that I think this is a very interesting way of representing it. I believe, however, that the world after the apocalypse will be the opposite. I mind, simple and unique. It will be simplified in a radical way. The needs are going to lessen, they will be, again, the timeless main three needs. 

ER – The timeless main three? Which ones are those? let's see, let's see! haha

DS – Haha, well, the most basic and vital human needs, which are food, shelter and reproduction, right? these three vital needs will be, again, the only important. Right now we are surrounded by an amount of needs that are very difficult to handle and satisfy.

 

Enrique Radigales, El gran amarillo

 

ER – If you start again, you need a surplus to start creating culture, because the surplus gives you the time to recreate in some arts and crafts.

MP – However, it's odd how in prehistoric times, suddenly it seems neither logical nor necessary that somebody starts to make art. I think its meaning belongs precisely to the one is at that time recreating the world.
DS – I do believe that art is a necessity , not something that emerges with time surplus . Such is the precariousness of life in the prehistoric era , such its fragility that human beings need art and ritual to ally with nature, with animals, to survive. They are so overwhelmed by the world and its brutality, that they need magical assistance , because they can't do it on their own.

MP -That is the human circumstance, within such a hostile environment , the human feels unprotected , but what they did had was the magic connection, which provided them with a symbolic strength, which is the realization of protective energy . I think none of the theories I 've heard about the prehistoric organizations  convinces me completely, because we are not able to fully understand the context in which these people developed their culture.

ER – When we talked about free time and surplus, I think these men had more time than we have, more contact with the community, they could be express some fears in a more calmed way, and some people like the shamans could be the channelers of these ideas, they could paint them . But culture as we understand it is much more sophisticated, is farther from this hunting rituals we talk about.

MP – Recently we were in Korea with a scholarship , and we contacted an art collector through a friend of a friend of ours. He invited us to his house, and he showed us a huge collection. He is a textile manufacturer, and he has built a couple of buildings to put his collection in. I wondered why this man spent part of his fortune in a Basquiat painting ? I get the feeling that there is something more powerful in those objects that merely cultural or mere speculation . He is not buying just value, he showed us the collection in a very personal way, he had a connection to the power that is transmitted through art, he wasn't interested just in the object.

ER – About contemporary art there are multiple profiles, right? There are many collectors who are moved by impulses. When he starts to accumulate a number of works, the collector must seek physical spaces. That's why I think in a dystopian future there would be more private stores than museums.

 

Monoperro, La serie coreana 2

 

DS – Of course, that is already happening.

MP The idea of museum is very similar to the idea of an encyclopedia, but that has changed dramatically.

ER – That has changed, yes, now every museum box has its own readings and is aware of its own limitations and encourages them. That's what's interesting.

DS – It is also very nice, the idea of ​​the museum as a teaching tool, I think that missing that purpose would be a shame. In a future where only the private survives, the educational use of museum would end.

MP – I think reality is more complex, if people start to appreciate other things, art objects will lose value.

ER – But that idea of cultural value, I think that for the contemporary art collector is very different than for the eighteenth century aristocrat. This sought to put his own filter to the interpretation of history but not only through art, but through many other cultural and scientific products . Collecting was much broader. The exploration boom led to make a kind of collecting that summarized in a more accurate way what was the reality around them, involving one's own experimentation. The idea of ​​cultural collecting no longer exists, the contemporary art market is now very far from reality, it doesn't represent at all what is going on, it is not local, it doesn't represent what we are normally concerned about, and it's away from a shared taste.

MP – It turns out that in a museum, in Málaga, they found an ancient sculpture of a goddess, a pregnant woman, and the people from the village where they found it kept it at home.

 

http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/videos/espana-directo/espana-directo-piedra-fertilidad/648863/

 

ER They put it on top of the TV? hahaha

MP – Yes, and women went to visit is in the houses, because word got out that touching it was good for fertility, that it had power. And of course, now, also many people go to the museum to touch the sculpture.

ER – And how did they do? does a man with gloves hold the sculpture and people make a row to touch it?

The three of us laugh

ER – I think this story is wonderful. After so many years…

MP – Exactly, these figures were made with that idea.

ER – It is the world's oldest useful object, and it still works!

DS – Even if the information about the use of that piece may have been lost for a big period of time, when they find the piece again, its use is so contained in it that anyone can distinguish its utility , even a Martian would say, "if I touch this object can favor my fertility "

MP -But that use has been preserved because it appeared in a popular and everyday context, if they had take it directly to a museum, the custom of going to touch it would not have been generated.

ER – That object has been witness to the whole cultural development of civilization until today. It is still valid and active, it has been validated through oral transmission.

DS – It is so consistent that anyone who sees it can access to its meaning.

ER – I think our three objects lead us to this Venus.

 

30 June 2017 / by / in
Research, reaction and metaphor

We present three young artists from Girona with widely varying creative interests: social and political criticism, narrative, and conceptual, formal and metaphorical art. It is fascinating to see how these artists approach criticism and/or research as a way of working.

Bòlit, Centre d’Art Contemporani, Girona, has been running research, artistic production and exhibition programmes since 2008. It is an open, participative space offering a service to artists and to the public. It provides support for creative work and artistic production, presents individual and group exhibitions, organises activities and educational programmes, and has a project for artists in residence.  It works with artists from this country and abroad, and with guest curators.

For this project, the Alternative Art Guide, we present young artists who have experience in formulating visual concepts with a marked theoretical, thought-provoking or critical content: Núria Güell, Alicia Kopf and Marc Padrosa. Their creative work is at an ideal stage to raise their international profiles.

Núria Güell analyses the ethics of institutions, highlighting abuse of power.  Alicia Kopf explores landscapes, contexts and stories, and combines them in her work. Marc Padrosa is interested in projects for research into form and geometry.

Núria Güell

The process is fundamental in the works produced by Núria Güell (Vidreres, 1981). Her creations deal with social, political, economic and sometimes humanitarian issues, questioning the limits of legality, the contradictions inherent in systems of control, and the system itself.  By altering aspects of everyday life, she creates other possible realities.

Her most recent work is more radical. Her project La Síndrome de Sherwood (The Sherwood Syndrome, Catalonia, 2013) made an artistic project from the censorship to which the artist was subjected after trying to use a document detailing the protocol followed by the riot police in Catalonia in a public debate. To carry out Demasiada Melanina (Too Much Melanin, Sweden, 2013) she asked the Göteborg Biennial to hire María, a political refugee denied asylum in the country, who lived in hiding with her family in the city. She hid from the audience, who then had to try and find her. After concluding her contract with the Biennial, María was able to obtain a residence permit and no longer needed to hide from the police. Ironically, in Kosovo, María was a police officer specialising in the disappearance and trafficking of women. Núria has received a number of national and international awards.

www.nuriaguell.net

Núria Güell, Humanitarian Aid. Action | Video-installation, video (miniDV, PAL, 16:9, color, stereo, 49:12 min), sofa, small table, carpet, framed picture of us, 2 heart-shaped cushions and 21 love letters. Cuba-España, 2008-2013

Núria Güell, Too Much Melanin, Sweden, 2013

Núria Güell, Intervention #1, Spain, 2012

Núria Güell, Displaced Legal Application #3: F.I.E.S. , Spain, 2011-2012

Núria Güell, Displaced moral application #1: Exponential Growth, Spain, 2010-2011, project in collaboration with Levi Orta

Núria Güell, Displaced Legal Application #1: Fractional Reserve. Action | Video-installation. Sketch of the master plan on a black wall, screen displaying the conferences, (miniDV, PAL, 16:9, color, stereo, 2:00:50 h.) and publication, Spain, 2010-2011

Núria Güell, Police Officers Contribution, La Habana, 2009

Alicia Kopf 

Alicia Kopf (Girona, 1982) is a multi-disciplinary artist who is very much at home combining video, writing and drawing.

Her project Articantartic features Edat Heroica de l’Exploració Polar, 1890-1920 (The Heroic Age of Polar Exploration), a period in which geographical research coincided with the early days of the cinema. She works using documents written by explorers, converting them into a first person narrative on resistance and the idea of conquest: “What led so many men to attempt to conquer these vast white spaces, of no apparent commercial or strategic interest? Articantartic is an extensive cycle which includes various exhibitions, including “Seal Sounds Under The Floor”, presented recently at the Joan Prats Gallery, the video “Àrticantartic” presented at the Tàpies Foundation as part of the exhibition Fugues, and “Endurance” presented as part of the IGAC digital art cycle Manual de l’artista líquid, curated by David Santaeulària. The project will conclude with a book focusing on the literary aspects.

As a precedent to this work we have Die Weltmeere Wunderatlas, where she brings together images and text within a file, searching for the aesthetic side of a research project and its context on the internet.

Before exploring oceanic and polar scenarios Alicia Kopf dissected more familiar everyday sites. In Maneres de (no) entrar a casa (Ways (not) to go indoors) she presented a series of narratives on the precariousness of young people’s lives: home, family and work.

http://www.aliciakopf.net

Alicia Kopf, Seal Sounds Under The Floor

Alicia Kopf, Seal Sounds Under The Floor

Alicia Kopf, Endurance, 2013. Vídeo 10’50’’, edició 3 u.

Alicia Kopf, drawing (detail), ink on paper, 86 x 60 cm.

Alicia Kopf, Seal Sounds Under The Floor (detail)

Alicia Kopf, Seal Sounds Under The Floor (front cover)

Marc Padrosa 

Marc Padrosa (Girona, 1978) is a sculptor who is fascinated by the forms and poetry of fragility. His work is marked by subtlety, lightness and chiaroscuro, with a special interest in the possible links between art and science. He uses geometry through sculpture, drawing and photography to speak about man’s ability to generate symbolic and metaphorical spaces.

His work transmits sensitivity and contemplative depth. Introspection in research highlights the value of forms and gives meaning to shade. His variations and repetitions of geometrical forms on paper exercise a hypnotic attraction. The delicate, precise and meticulous finish of each piece does not hide the fact that each one is only part of a mental process which brings together metaphors of imaginary architectural creations, ephemeral constructions and ideal structures, which we see as more perfect, lasting and immortal than any organic form. They may be finished works or the preliminary version of a final piece which may never be created. According to Marc Padrosa: “mock-ups occupy an ambiguous space between two worlds, still close to the idea but prior to its materialisation […], they allow day-to-day experimentation and research to acquire a form and this form can be displayed as a work of art which is part of the process”.

Marc Padrosa, Solve et coagula, photography  30×40 cm, 2012

Marc Padrosa, Ars Magna, cyanotype, 30×40 cm, 2013

 Marc Padrosa, Melencolia.1, photography 30×40 cm, 2013

Marc Padrosa, Augenlicht, sculpture, 120×30 cm, 2013

Marc Padrosa, Il corpo ombroso, photography/sculpture (series of 21 photographs for paper sculptures), 21×30 cm, 2013

Carme Sais

Carme Sais (Girona, 1964) is a cultural administrator, exhibition curator and director of spaces devoted to art and culture. She has been working in public services in Girona since 1992. Since 2013 she has been the Director of Bòlit Contemporary Art Centre in Girona. She has also been the Director of La Mercè Cultural Centre and Head of Girona City Council’s Culture and Education Department.

She holds an arts degree from Barcelona Autonomous University and has undertaken further studies in art history and cultural and heritage management with specialised Master’s courses at the University of Barcelona, the University of Girona and the UNED distance university. Her career has focused mainly on contemporary art and culture. She sees contemporary art as a constantly evolving source of human knowledge and expression providing society with values, education and a critical attitude. She is interested in exploring new ways of connecting art and the public, creative work and the economy, innovation and risk, as well as opening up channels for discussion and exchange.

As Director of Bòlit Contemporary Art Centre she has developed Bòlit Emprèn, a programme to support creative industries and the visual arts. She has also set up the ETAC working group, formed by art centres in the Pyrenees-Mediterranean Euroregion, and is preparing a project for resident artists in Girona, with a view to opening up new channels for exchanges with other cities.

She is President of the Professional Association of Cultural Administrators in Catalonia (2011-2014) and co-author of the Guia de Bones pràctiques de la Gestió Cultural de l’entitat (Guide to Good Practice in Cultural Management, 2010).

http://www.bolit.cat/

Girona is the capital of a province on the periphery of a centralised state. The Girona metropolitan area has a population of just over 125,000. At present the infrastructures and platforms available to artists are insufficient and the situation in which they work is generally precarious. Art here suffers from a certain degree of stagnation and isolation. The latter is partly self-imposed and translates into a search for local self-sufficiency but it is also in part inevitable, given the difficulty artists experience in establishing their presence elsewhere.

The recession has led to high unemployment, greater social differences, a less effective education system, and other problems. High rates of taxation on cultural products (currently 21%) have had a serious impact on the art and culture sector. Today the market for art is extremely small, there is little interest in collecting art and only about 10 galleries have survived in the area. Private initiative is still weak and cannot make up for the shortcomings of the public sector in supporting creative work and providing new platforms for the dissemination of art. Overall, there is a clear lack of social recognition for culture and the arts. There are, however, signs of hope in fresh initiatives by artists and their search for new opportunities in other countries.

The following spaces and centres feature a great deal of interesting work in the field of contemporary art:

http://xarxaprod.net

http://www.naucoclea.com

http://www.addaya-art.com

http://www.festivalingravid.com

http://gresol.blogspot.com.es

Núria Güell suggests her own list of interesting artists, projects and spaces that reflect her way of understanding art and aim to stimulate critical thought:

http://www.taniabruguera.com

http://www.santiago-sierra.com

http://www.democracia.com.es/

http://artistasantifascistas.org

http://www.adngaleria.com/

Alicia Kopf: http://www.galeriajoanprats.com/ i http://www.igac.org

Marc Padrosa: http://atriumartis.com/

30 June 2017 / by / in
Drunk Miami forest

The other day while I was sipping whisky with the artist  Liam Gillick in a bar we talked about car factories. Some movie with Antonio Banderas in it was playing in the background. 

Depression is often caused by the feeling that the weight of the universe is too heavy on us. Or sometimes it's simply caused by boredom. When patterns become too defining they can force us into depression or boredom or both. Opening little doors to small bits of in-comprehensive information, or information that we somehow feel passionate about seems to me like a positive thing.  This sounds like some pseudo-new-age advice that my older brother would post on his new spiritual facebook page but in a way I think it's true. 

Another sensation I like is when something makes you feel less important compared to bigger picture of the planet, history, the world or whatever. Things that make feel small like moutains and big animals (a big cow for example).

 

Ryan Rivadeneyra

Ricardo Trigo

Mimosa Echard

 

These three artist kind of do both things at once.  Make you feel lost in a bottomless well of information, stories and mystery and at the same time spit bits of interesting information or beauty that stimulate your brain like a sour and sweet lemon candy. 

Ryan Rivadeneyra makes power point presentations that talk about love and stuff he does on vacation.  Ricardo Trigo makes mostly videos about the stupidity and complexity of language while talking with scientist and his motorcylcist friends.  Mimosa Echard does installations with sticks and painted over pictures of her sisters and french mountain hippy villages. 

 

Ryan Rivadeneyra, Blue Moon, Performance, 2013

 

Ricardo Trigo, Plinth 9 Informationalism, concrete and HD video, 2013

 

Mimosa Echard, Cendrier, Faience

 

The images Ryan uses in his presentation are pretty amazing. The kind of simple honesty about things he thinks about is completely abducting like a nice google hole on some juicy train of thoughts. 

http://www.ryanriva.com/

 

Ryan Rivadeneyra, Livin' La Vida Loca, Video, installation, and performance, 2012

 

Ryan Rivadeneyra, Verde Chillon,Performance, 2013

 

Ryan Rivadeneyra, Verde Chillon, Still from Performance, 2013

 

Mimosa's pieces remind you how really simple things can be incredibly beautiful and intriguing (or sometime scary). Like the simpleness of making mud paties or painting rocks. Or eating a home made yogurt. 

http://www.mimosaechard.com/

 

Mimosa Echard, Pèlerinage à l'île de Cythère, Postcard , oil paint, 2012

 

Mimosa Echard, Bruce Lee, Analog Photography, 2014

 

Mimosa Echard, Untitled, 2013

 

Ricardo's work in the other hand transmits the kind of nice feeling you would get as a kid while listening to Donatelo from the ninja turtles explaining how one of his machines worked.  You knew it didn't make any sense but that was part of the magic and wonder. 

http://www.ricardotrigo.net/

 

Ricardo Trigo, Easy. complicating speech, without the or a., HD video, 2012

 

Ricardo Trigo, Plinth 9 Informationalism, concrete and HD video, 2013

 

Ricardo Trigo, Inneficient piece 1(Xavi said to me: you are from Berlin. And I said to him: I am from Palafrugell.), NZI helmet and concrete, 2013

 

To finish I'll cite a fragment of Ricardo Trigo's Statement. I hope you enjoy it. 

“Complexity is a concept which different fields of knowledge deal with to describe and explain reality through nonlinear coordinates. This term opens up a new nominal context formed by interactions, blurs, turbulences, whirlwinds, junctions and strange attractors. This idea is inserted into the script of my works in order to dynamite them from within. I understand complexity in art as a question that addresses the work’s potential multiplicity of meanings. It is from this complexity that a schizophrenic scenario is being created, with its inevitable saturation effect, and in which the difficulty of drawing a kind of art with a relevant role, and a socially validated and strategically functional value – for the cognitive and emotional development of society –, is being doubted.”

 

 

Quim Packard

Quim Packard (Reus,Spain,1985) is an artist and curator  who lives in-between Barcelona and Grenoble where he coordinates the curatorial programme the École du Magasin. Through drawings, music, teaching and curatorial projects he investigates the political-social aspects of institutional dynamics and certain myths and philosophical traits of western pop culture. Some of his most recent projects include:  “Wild Spirit”, an investigation around the construction of the idea of nature by western society through out history and popular references; “The Last Institution”,  a para-curatorial project that formed a framework and communication structure of a possible post-apocaliptic cultural institution and “A Place No Cars Go”, an exhibition of works, films and music that investigated certain “back to basics” mythologies. 

http://quimpackard.wordpress.com/

http://www.ecoledumagasin.com/

30 June 2017 / by / in
Conversational places

The Green Parrot is a non-profit space dedicated to contemporary art practices that opened in April 2014. From our office window we can hear the screams of the Quaker parrots, a species from Argentina that has adapted very well to the Mediterranean climate and lives together with other local birds since more than a decade. It is a colourful element that contrasts with the local fauna of pigeons, doves and sparrows. These green parrots reinforce Barcelona’s pseudo-tropical image, that of a holiday destination that brings each year more than seven million tourists looking for sun and party. The huge cruise boats that dock every week in the port are the same as those from the Caribbean. We also have a corrupted government and our local identity is disappearing in favour of a flattened global souvenir. So yes, we can say that Barcelona has got some of the characteristics of a tropical enclave. We are closer to what is known to be the global south than anything that happens culturally beyond the Pyrenees. At The Green Parrot, we try to give a hint of colour to the gloomy moment we are living in, and we want to get out of the precariousness of the system through celebration. Similar to what the Argentinian parrot did, we have to adapt to certain conditions through other economies and other ways of doing, linked to generosity and to a close relation with the artists, the audience and a critical discourse.

The selection for the Alternative Art Guide comes from three artists that have been or will be related to The Green Parrot by taking part in our exhibitions or in any of our activities. Their work looks critically at our present state of affairs, not by direct complaint but through a reflection on our local historical memory, especially through the space of the city and its architecture.

Lúa Coderch

The first exhibition hosted at The Green Parrot was called The World of Interiors, referring to an artist book by Marc Camille Chaimowicz in which the well-known bourgeois interiors magazine had been intervened with images that referred to issues of gender and class. We used the name to reflect on the former domestic space and to ironically relate art with decoration. For this show, Lúa Coderch created a series of curtains that changed the perspective of the interior and exterior of the space. Its geometrical pattern reflected on a series of photographs that had lately appeared on the press that depicted oligarchs, football players and millionaire’s interiors, often being vandalised or abandoned after a scandal. We also produced a limited edition made of cushions and chairs with the same fabric.

Lúa Coderch, The Palaces Left Behind, 2014. Textile curtains. Photo: Roberto Ruiz. Courtesy: The Green Parrot.

Lúa Coderch, The Palaces Left Behind, 2014. Textile curtains. Photo: Roberto Ruiz. Courtesy: The Green Parrot.

Lúa Coderch, The Palaces Left Behind / Edition, 2014. Series of upholstered cushions. Photo: Roberto Ruiz. Courtesy: The Green Parrot.

Lúa Coderch recently exhibited at the Miró Foundation The Magic Mountain. Her work was a narrative in 72 chapters, extended along the 72 days of the exhibition around the idea of historical present, and on the tyranny of constantly having to define your expectations. She reflected on the location of the Foundation, the Montjuïch mountain, a very touristic enclave and a never-ending resource to produce discourse and imaginary: it is where the 1992 Olympics took place and the International Exhibition of 1929, where the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion was installed. The inflatable Onix Wall is a real size replica of one of the walls in the German Pavilion. Its malleability conceptualises the relativity of the notions of time.

http://www.bacelos.com/artistas.php?art=Lxxxu%3Ba+Coderch

http://www.luacoderch.com

Lúa Coderch, International Style [Onix Wall], 2013. PVC inflatable. © Pere Pratdesaba.

Domènec

Domènec is an artist that looks at Modern architecture as one of the most productive but also complex imaginary constructions. For his whole career, he has looked at numerous examples of spaces and interrogating its social conditions. In one of his recent projects Spanish Architecture, 1939-1975 (2014), he offers us a catalogue of some of the public works made with the sweat and blood of Republican prisoners. After the Spanish Civil war hundreds of thousands of Republican prisoners were sentenced to force labour. Numerous public infrastructures and government buildings, from the Guadalquivir Canal to the sinister Valle de los Caídos, were built by the State or by private companies employing this cheap workforce.

Domènec, Spanish Architecture, 1939-1975 (2014). Series of images, digital copies on aluminium each measuring 45 x 60 cm.

In the mid 19th century the French philosopher and utopian socialist Étienne Cabet put forward his ideas in Voyage en Icarie, a novel inspired by Thomas More’s Utopia, which envisaged a future fair and just society in which there would be no property or money. The Icaria project achieved wide acclaim among the working class in Catalonia; and one of its most renowned followers was Narcís Monturiol who hailed from the town of Figueres in the north of Catalonia. In 1848 following a call by Cabet, a group of adventurers, which included a number of Catalans, set sail for Texas with the aim of building their own Icaria; alas this ephemeral adventure turned out to be a tragic failure. The installation was set in Figueres’ public space, close to the monument dedicated to Narcís Monturiol.

Domènec, Voyage en Icarie. Ingràvid Festival, Figueres, Spain, 2012.

Domènec, Voyage en Icarie. Ingràvid Festival, Figueres, Spain, 2012.

Plácido (a film made in 1961, mainly shot in Manresa, considered to be one of the best films of the Spanish director Luis G. Berlanga). The tricycle would be turned into a mobile “commemorative monument”, an ironic device and a capsule of critical memory. Plácido’s Motocarro could be used in many forms and be the catalyst for different events. As a small, mobile multimedia display, the support for an open-air video projector, or it could use its loudspeakers to communicate and spread the activities of different collectives.

www.domenec.net

Domènec, Motocarro. Idensitat #5 Manresa, 2009/2010.

Domènec, Motocarro. Idensitat #5 Manresa, 2009/2010.

Oriol Vilanova 

Oriol Vilanova goes to the fleamarket each Sunday, no matter in which city he is, to complete his collection of postcards. He is also an architect. For the residency at the Palais de Tokyo he developed the project Ex Aequo (2012), looking at the Soviet and Nazi pavilion from the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris. Both pavilions represented two different ideologies but their image did not differ that much. Next to them, and with much less resonance, there was the Spanish Republican Pavilion, a beautiful and modest piece of Modern architecture by Josep Lluís Sert that held for the first time Picasso’s Guernika.

Oriol Vilanova, EXAEQUO. No hay escarcha de luz que se enfríe , postcards, 2012. Courtesy of the of the artist and Parra & Romero. Installation view, Palais de Tokyo Paris. Photo: © Aurélien Mole.

Entreacte (2013) composes a para-theatrical space, a wall that crosses the room of the Espai 13 at the Miró Foundation and divides the space in two. It is an ambiguous installation that calls attention but also rejects the audience. It alludes to the Modern architecture of the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion or the same Miró Foundation but its color turns it deliberately spectacular.

Oriol Vilanova, ENTREACTE , installation, 2013. Courtesy of the artist and Parra & Romero. Installation view, Fundació Joan Miró Espai 13 Barcelona. Photo: © Pere Pratdesaba.

Last Price (2014). A displacement of dynamics: a performance that erases the museum’s entrance fixed price in order to promote bargaining. It is about opening a new space for negotiation, with other times, other laws and certain theatricality between buyer and seller. A characteristic of Mediterranean culture that, although not visible, persists in the higher spheres of politics. The performance is executed between MACBA’s staff and the visitors.

Oriol Vilanova, LAST PRICE , performance, 2014. Courtesy of the artist and Parra & Romero.

Deuteranomaly (2014). A beige monochrome that colonizes the access to the exhibition. The intervention reflects on the continuity of the stereotypes and the role of fiction in the writing of history. The Spanish painter Marià Fortuny (Catalonia, 1838 – Roma, 1874) painted the famous Tetuan Battle (1863-1865) thinking on a very arid scenario, when in reality it was a very green landscape. But then nobody would have believed it was Africa.

www.oriol-vilanova.com

http://www.parra-romero.com/artistas/oriolvilanova_2012.html

Oriol Vilanova, DEUTERANOMALY , wall painting, 2014. Courtesy of the artist and Parra & Romero. Installation view, L’appartement22 Rabat.

Rosa Lleó

Rosa Lleó is an independent art critic and curator. Since April 2014, she runs, together with João Laia, the independent art space The Green Parrot in Barcelona. She holds a Degree in Humanities by the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona and a MFA in Curating from Goldsmiths, London.  While in the UK, she was a founder member of the curatorial platform Impress and she collaborated as researcher and editorial assistant for Afterall. In 2013 she participated in the Curatorlab research programme at Konstfack University, Stockholm. She worked for several years at the publishing company Actar. She has curated exhibitions such as Cas d’estudi (Can Felipa, Barcelona, 2013), Everything is Out There (La Casa Encendida, Madrid, 2010), A Fine Red Line, Live! (176 Project Space, London, 2009) and Aspen 11 (Neue Alte Brücke Galerie, Frankfurt, 2009). She regularly writes for Cultura/s –La Vanguardia’s cultural supplement– A*Desk, and occasionally for Afterall Online, Art-Agenda, among others.

The Green Parrot hosts a programme of four projects per year and a series of other items derived from each show such as The Green Parrot Readers: a series of critical texts in the form of small publications that generate a critical research beyond the works of the exhibition. The Green Parrot Cabinet: an exhibition space on a book cabinet that every three months invites an artist or an expert on publications to commission a project, and The Green Parrot Editions, a commissioned limited edition that expands each exhibition and contributes to the financing of the space.

www.thegreenparrot.org

30 June 2017 / by / in