Thu, Jun 1 2023Crystal Bennes’ working designs for the giant tapestry pecunia non olet. June 2023 cover story on www.lttds.org
The June 2023 monthly Cover Story “Crystal Bennes futures” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org
“Earlier this year, Latitudes was commissioned to write a text on the work of the America-born Scotland-based artist, researcher, writer and educator Crystal Bennes for the latest edition of the Freelands Artist Programme. ”
→ Continue reading (after June 2023 this story 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 projects and activities.
→ RELATED CONTENTS:
- Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
- Cover Story, May 2023: Ruth Clinton & Niamh Moriarty in Barcelona, 1 May 2023
- Cover Story, April 2023: Jerónimo Hagerman (1967–2023), 1 Apr 2023
- Cover Story, March 2023: Art, Climate and New Coalitions, 1 March 2023
- Cover Story, February 2023: Soil for Future Art Histories, 2 Feb 2023
- Cover Story, January 2023: Claudia Pagès’ ‘Gerundi Circular’, 2 Jan 2023
- Cover Story, December 2022: “The Melt Goes On Forever. David Hammons and DART Festival, 1 December 2022
- Cover Story, November 2022: Jorge Satorre’s Barcelona, 1 Nov 2022
- Cover Story, October 2022: Stray Ornithologies—Laia Estruch, 3 Oct 2022
- Cover Story, September 2021: Erratic behaviour—Latitudes in conversation with Jorge Satorre, 31 August 2021
- Cover Story, July–August 2022: Incidents (of Travel) from Seoul, 1 July 2022
- Cover Story, June 2022: Cyber-Eco-Feminist Incidents in Attica, 1 June 2022
2023, 2024, commodities trading, cover story, Crystal Bennes, profile, Publication, writing
Mon, May 2 2022May 2022 cover story on www.lttds.org
The May 2022 monthly Cover Story “Things Things Say in print” is up on our homepage: www.lttds.org
“Do you trust things to write human history? To speak on behalf of natural history? Did you ever own a pair of dungarees? When do trivial details become vital? Can a pebble destroy an empire if the emperor chokes at dinner? Would the pebble stand accused? Do you ever feel that the thing we call theory and the thing we call art are moving in different directions?”→ Continue reading
→ After May 2022 this story 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 projects and activities.
→ RELATED CONTENTS:
- Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
- Cover Story, April 2022: Mix and Match. Laia Estruch at PUBLICS, 1 April 2022
- Cover Story, March 2022: The passion of Gabriel Ventura, 1 March 2022
- Cover Story, February 2022: Rosa Tharrats’ Textile Alchemy, 1 Feb 2022
- Cover Story, January 2022: “Rasmus’ Doubts”, 2 Jan 2022
- Cover Story, December 2021: Between Meier and Meller: Toni and Pau at the Teatre Arnau, 1 Dec 2021
- Cover Story, November 2021: Notes for an Eye Fire, 2 Nov 2021
- Cover Story, October 2021: Fear and Loathing in Lebanon, 1 Oct 2021
- Cover Story, September 2021: Erratic behaviour—Latitudes in conversation with Jorge Satorre, 31 August 2021
- Cover Story–July-August 2021: Panorama: a wide view from a fixed point, 2 July 2021
- Cover Story–June 2021: ‘Fitness food: Salim Bayri’s Amsterdam’, 1 June 2021
- Cover Story–May 2021: RAF goes viral, 2 May 2021
2022, Ajuntament de Barcelona, Barcelona, coses que les coses diuen, cover story, edited by Latitudes, Eulàlia Rovira, fabra i coats, ICUB, publicación, Publication, things things say, website
Tue, Mar 1 2022
March 2022 cover story on https://www.lttds.org
The March 2022 monthly Cover Story “The passion of Gabriel Ventura” is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org
«La tàctica és acariciar el moment: convertir l’esquerda en discussió verbal, gestual, multicanal, enfonsar-hi les visions»
«The tactic is to caress the moment: to convert the crack into a verbal, gestural, multi-channel discussion, to scuttle visions»
→ Continue reading
→ After March 2022 this story 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 projects and activities.
→ RELATED CONTENTS:
- Archive of Monthly Cover Stories
- Cover Story, February 2022: Rosa Tharrats’ Textile Alchemy, 1 Feb 2022
- Cover Story, January 2022: “Rasmus’ Doubts”, 2 Jan 2022
- Cover Story, December 2021: Between Meier and Meller: Toni and Pau at the Teatre Arnau, 1 Dec 2021
- Cover Story, November 2021: Notes for an Eye Fire, 2 Nov 2021
- Cover Story, October 2021: Fear and Loathing in Lebanon, 1 Oct 2021
- Cover Story, September 2021: Erratic behaviour—Latitudes in conversation with Jorge Satorre, 31 August 2021
- Cover Story–July-August 2021: Panorama: a wide view from a fixed point, 2 July 2021
- Cover Story–June 2021: ‘Fitness food: Salim Bayri’s Amsterdam’, 1 June 2021
- Cover Story–May 2021: RAF goes viral, 2 May 2021
- Cover Story—April 2021: Cover Story – April 2021: Lara Almarcegui at La Panera, 2 Apr 2021
- Cover Story—March 2021: Eulàlia Rovira's ‘A Knot Which is Not’ (2020–21), 1 mar 2021
2021, 2022, Ana Dominguez Studio, Barcelona, cover story, curated by Latitudes, gabriel Ventura, MACBA, poem, Publication, website
Wed, Apr 20 2016
Nicholas Mangan, ‘Ancient Lights’ (2015). Installation views, Chisenhale Gallery, 2015. Co-commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery, London and Artspace, Sydney. Courtesy the artist; Labor Mexico; Sutton Gallery, Melbourne; and Hopkinson Mossman, Auckland. Photo: Andy Keate.
We have just wrapped up an interview with Melbourne-based artist Nicholas Mangan to be published by Sternberg Press as the catalogue of his forthcoming solo exhibition ‘Limits to Growth’, co-produced by Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), Melbourne (opening July 20) and Institute of Modern Art (IMA), Brisbane (where it will be on view from October 29), it will later travel to Kunst-Werke Institute of Contemporary Art in Berlin (summer 2017).
The five-part interview weaves together a discussion of his recent works ‘Nauru, Notes from a Cretaceous World’ (2009), ‘A World Undone’ (2012), ‘Progress in Action’ (2013), ‘Ancient Lights’ (2015) and his newest piece ‘Limits to Growth’ (2016), to be premiered at Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA). Part of an ongoing dialogue with Mangan, it developed from a public conversation event at Chisenhale Gallery, London on 7 July 2015.
‘Limits to Growth’ references a 1972 report commissioned by the Club of Rome that analysed a computer simulation of the Earth and human systems: the consequences of exponential economic and population growth given finite resource supplies. The overlapping themes and flows of energies in the five of Mangan’s projects discussed in the interview might be read as an echo of the modelling and systems dynamics used by the simulation to try and better understand the limits of the world’s ecosystems.
Mangan is presenting ‘Ancient Lights’ (2015) at his Mexico City gallery LABOR on April 22, a work co-commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery in London and Artspace in Sydney.
RELATED CONTENT:
- Latitudes conversation with Nicholas Mangan on 7 July 2015 at Chisenhale Gallery, London;
- Cover Story, July 2015: Nicholas Mangan’s ‘Ancient Lights’;
- Locating Ancient Lights signs around London with Nicholas Mangan;
- Max Andrews, Feature on Nicholas Mangan, 'Landscape Artist', Frieze, Issue 172, Summer 2015;
- Mariana Cánepa Luna, 'What Lies Underneath', interview with Nicholas Mangan, Mousse Magazine #47, February–March 2015.
2016, catalogue, editorial, interview, Melbourne, Nicholas Mangan, Publication
Tue, Mar 29 2016
Pages with the story behind Plaça dels Àngels.
When giving a presentation or tour of an exhibition or project we have worked on, we are often asked how the project emerged – if there was a particular trigger or point of origin. In the case of José Antonio Hernández-Díez’s exhibition currently on view at MACBA (until June 26, 2016), our approach was a familiar one to us – we started by both delving in-depth in researching the artists previous works while at the same time looking into the history of the venue where the exhibition was going to take place.
We are very fond of a book that has been in our library for many years – 'Histories and legends of Barcelona' by Joan Amades (Edicions 62). This two-volume tome gathers some of the myths behind Barcelona place names and includes the tales behind both familiar and obscure buildings, st
reets and monuments in the city. The story that
most captivated us
concerned the chapel of the Convent dels Àngels, and
it is recounted in the essay we
wrote to accompany the exhibition
(published as the
Quaderns Portàtils #32 – pdfs available in
Spanish and
English and epub in Spanish only)
. It goes as follows:
(...) "Outside the doorway of the deconsecrated sixteenth-century church that formed part of Barcelona’s Convent dels Àngels there once stood the stone figure of a dog, standing upright on its hind legs. Two separate legends account for its existence, as recorded by ethnologist and folklorist Joan Amades in the 1950s. A boorish man would routinely interrupt the services and torment the church congregation, it is said. He was punished by being turned into a dog. The other version states that the canine figure commemorates the thwarting of a robbery. The church once displayed an image of Saint Roch, the patron saint of dogs, accompanied by a hound. It is said that the prospective thieves were frightened away as the image miraculously began to bark. (The supernatural mythology of the chapel does not cease there – in 1627 an image of Christ began to sweat blood profusely.)
Sculpture of a dog once stood in front of La Capella dels Àngels, the church of the Convent dels Àngels.
Parallel to this, we started looking at Hernández-Díez’s earliest works and investigating his pieces in MACBA’s collection. We found that the museum had his 1991 work San Guinefort on long-term loan in their collection, but it had never been exhibited. As narrated in our essay:
(...) "that
José Antonio Hernández-Díez (Caracas, Venezuela, 1964) had already
been dealing with Catholic belief and superstition in his art – and
moreover, specifically addressing canine veneration – is much more than
an uncanny coincidence for his exhibition at MACBA’s Convent dels Àngels
in 2016."
The legend behind Saint Guinefort is one of the more obscure intersections of Catholic
history and folk tradition:
(...) "Writing around 1260, the Inquisitor and
Dominican friar Étienne de Bourbon related his investigation into the veneration of Saint Guinefort in the Dombes region of France. He
discovered that this supposed Saint was, in fact, a dog. The account he
disclosed was that a knight and his wife had one day left their
greyhound Guinefort to guard their baby. When they returned to the
castle they found the cradle empty and Guinefort covered in blood.
Assuming it had murdered the baby, the knight hastily killed the dog,
only later realising his error. Guinefort had in fact fought off a snake
in order to save the child, who was found unharmed. Guinefort was
buried unceremoniously in the forest outside the castle walls. Hearing
of the martyred dog, local people began to believe in its power to
protect children and began to bring their sick infants to the grave.
Étienne de Bourbon was horrified to discover the strength of the
superstition that had taken root. Children were being left overnight by
Guinefort’s grave in the belief that he would rid them of spirits, and
several babies had died as a consequence. Defending the orthodoxy of the
church, the friar had the heretical remains of the greyhound dug up and
destroyed, razed the forest and outlawed the canine cult, yet there is
evidence of its persistence into the nineteenth century. The episode is
worth recounting in detail, as previous accounts of it in relation to
Hernández-Díez’s work have been misleading."
Coinciding
with our research period, in August 2014 we happened to be travelling near Lyon, France, and
took the opportunity to visit to the Bois de Saint Guinefort in the
Dombes region, where the story of Saint Guinefort emerged (and where the dog-saint may still be venerated every 22nd August, despite the regional tourism office assuring us the festival day was no longer celebrated).
Somewhere on the road between Villars-les-Dombes and Châtillon-sur-Chalaronne one can, with the help of a tagged flickr photo and GPS, find a sign, as seen below, which briefly narrates these peculiar events from the 13th Century.
Related Content:
- Video of the artist talking about 'San Guinefort' (1991)
- José Antonio Hernández-Díez, 'I will fear no evil’, Convent dels Àngels, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), Barcelona, 18 March–26 June 2016.
- Photodocumentation of the exhibition.
- Exhibition essay on José Antonio Hernández-Díez, Quaderns Portàtils #32, free-to-read pdf (Spanish & English) and epub (Spanish).
- Social media archive of tweets, Instagram, reviews.
- Exhibition of Hernández-Díez at the New Museum, New York in 2003.
- Pdf of the 1991 exhibition catalogue of Hernández-Díez's show at the Sala RG, Caracas.
- Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA)
- Works of Hernández-Díez at MACBA's collection.
2016, behind the scenes, e-books, Exhibition, José Antonio Hernández-Díez, latitudes, looking back, MACBA, microhistory, Publication, research
Tue, Mar 1 2016
José Antonio Hernández-Díez, "La Hermandad", 1994. Video installation. ”la Caixa” / MACBA Collection.
Latitudes is curating the solo exhibition 'I will fear no evil' of Venezuelan-born Barcelona-based artist José Antonio Hernández-Díez (Caracas, 1964), which will open at the Convent dels Àngels del Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA), on March 17.
'I will fear no evil' presents works from the beginning of Hernández-Díez’s career in the late 1980s and early nineties – several of which have not been seen since they were first exhibited – in dialogue with Filamentos (2016), a new series developed especially for the occasion.
José Antonio Hernández-Díez, "La Hermandad", 1994. Video installation. ”la Caixa” / MACBA Collection.
The present exhibition looks back to Hernández-Díez’s first experimental works with video alongside early iconic screen- and vitrine-based works, including three of those presented at the time of his landmark first monographic exhibition 'San Guinefort y otras devociones', held in 1991 at Sala RG in Caracas. This exhibition heralded what the artist termed as a ‘New Christian Iconography’, offering – as artist-colleague Meyer Vaisman described – ‘a techno-pop view of Catholicism’s most beloved symbols’.
An newly text by Latitudes will be published in Spanish as No. 32 of the Quaderns portàtils (Portable Notebooks) series. This MACBA-produced collection is freely distributed and downloadable from the museum website in PDF and ePUB format. An English translation will also be available as a separate PDF.
Exhibition runs between 18 March–26 June 2016 and is organised and produced by the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA). 2016, Barcelona, curators, Estrany de la Mota, Exhibition, José Antonio Hernández-Díez, latitudes, MACBA, production, Publication, Solo show