The March 2021 monthly Cover Story ‘Eulàlia Rovira. A Knot which is Not’ is now up on our homepage: www.lttds.org
“This video was developed during and departing from the exhibition Things Things Say, and was inspired by the history of the space which hosted it. It comprises a live reading in Catalan by Eulàlia Rovira that was filmed, without the presence of an audience, in the galleries of Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Centre of Barcelona immediately following the end of the exhibition and the de-installation of the works of art.”
El vídeo és fruit d’una recerca que l'artista va iniciar amb la inauguració de l’exposició “Coses que les coses diuen” (17 d’octubre de 2020 – 17 de gener de 2021), comissariada per Latitudes a Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Centre of Barcelona, i que es fa pública un cop s’ha clausurat i les sales del centre d'art són novament buides. El vídeo podrà veure's en qualsevol moment després de l'emissió en directe.
“Si bé la línia recta és còmplice de l’abaratiment i l’estandardització de molts productes, a on ens du la corba, o encara millor, el nus? Donant girs a les històries de la mateixa fàbrica tèxtil de la Fabra i Coats i als objectes que en sortien, la llengua que ens parla exercita paraules que les mans semblen haver deixat de reconèixer.” – Eulàlia Rovira
“Si bien la línea recta es cómplice del abaratamiento y la estandaritzación de muchos productos, ¿adónde nos lleva la curva, o aún mejor, el nudo? Dando giros a las historias de la propia fábrica textil de la Fabra i Coats y a los objetos que de ella salían, la lengua que nos habla ejercita palabras que las manos parecen haber dejado de reconocer.” – Eulàlia Rovira
“Whilst the straight line is complicit in the price decrease and standardisation of many products, where does the curve, or better still, the knot, lead us? Putting a new spin on the stories of the Fabra i Coats textile factory and the objects found there, the language they speak to us uses words that our hands seem to have stopped recognising.” – Eulàlia Rovira
‘Things Things Say’ is an exhibition at Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Centre of Barcelona (17 October 2020–17 January 2021) presenting sculpture, photography, films, text and voice by Adrià Julià, Annette Kelm, James N. Kienitz Wilkins, Sarah Ortmeyer, Eulàlia Rovira, Francesc Serra i Dimas, Stuart Whipps, Haegue Yang, as well as meaningful things from the Friends of Fabra i Coats archive.
The exhibition springs from the past of Fabra i Coats—an industrial complex once dedicated to the manufacturing of cotton thread. Taking on the genre of the ‘it-narrative’ in 18th century English literature—as well as the approaches of object journalism and microhistory—the exhibition tacks back-and-forth between “exceptionally normal” things and the extraordinary global narratives of labour, obsolescence, and the industrialisation of nature, that they trigger.
In the lecture, Latitudes discuss how Modern art and modernist art history largely assented to the ontological and epistemological lie which imagined humanity and the humanities making their own history by themselves, while hiding the fact that their productions, relations, and economy were always teeming with biophysical processes. The increasing violence by which the limits of the planet, its feedback loops and tipping points, are forcing themselves into world events has profound consequences for how we narrate (art) history and curate exhibitions in the web of life.
New disciplines are broaching the separation between human activities and Earth systems – environmental law, political ecology, ecological economics, and so on. Likewise, what is at issue when artists, curators, exhibitions, and museums venture into new formations and shared rather than adjacent perspectives? What is at stake in a curatorial ecology, an environmental art history, or in integrating socio-natural processes into an institution’s account of itself, and so on? Turning to a world-systems approach as well as the insights of micro-history, Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa Luna presented a series of curatorial and artistic perspectives on such questions, drawing from “uncomfortable objects” and “dishonest research” [1] across their exhibitions “4.543 billion. The matter of matter” ( CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux 2017–18), ‘Hemauer Keller: United Alternative Energies’ (Kunsthal Aarhus, 2011), “Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities” (Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, 2008) and related projects such as the residency programme “Geologic Time” (Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, 2017).
[1] “Uncomfortable objects” is a notion borrowed from artist Mariana Castillo Deball, and “dishonest research” from artist Mercedes Azpilicueta.
Installation
view of "Producing time in between other things" (2011). Three videos
(12' 30'', 5' 22'', 36' 11''), 32 colour photographs (76x115 cm &
50x75 cm), 49 wooden legs, and MDF platforms with objects made by Jos
van Gorkum between 1976 and 1996. Photo: Roberto Ruiz. Courtesy: ADN
Platform.
More installation photos of the exhibition here (flickr).
The exhibition "The Margins of the Factory" (ADN Platform, Sant Cugat, 25 January–30 April 2014) presents two recent projects by the Rotterdam-based duo Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum that are motivated by their interest in art's relationship with labour. Each explores sculptural form and manufacturing processes from the perspective of artists who have not usually made objects. Jaio & van Gorkum undertake what are in part sociological investigations by documenting the local, marginal effects of the displacement of manufacturing industries over the last two generations with the emergence of the global market. Emerging from the artists' personal history and implicating the direct effects of their own vocation as well as work they ask of others, the projects are moreover complicit in asking what kind of industriousness brings value and what political life objects might have.
The exhibition opening featured a performance by British “avant-folk” musician Nathaniel Robin Mann developed for the occasion in collaboration with Jaio & van Gorkum
around the raw footage of "Work in Progress" (2013), a film by the
artists showing men and women at work in the Lea Artibai region in
Basque
Country, where they trim rubber parts destined for the global
automobile industry.
Photos: Roberto Ruiz.
Mann
interpreted the Basque popular song “Oi Peio Peio” – a dialogue between
a woman worker and her cruel boss "Peio", who insists she carries on
working throughout the night. He
keeps telling her to carry on with the next step in the spinning
process, until the sun comes up and it is too late to go to sleep. First
collected in Cancionero Popular Vasco in 1918, the song was popularized
by singer–songwriter Mikel Laboa, founder of “Ez Dok Amairu” (“No
Thirteen”), the cultural movement of Basque poets, musicians and artists
whose name was a suggestion of sculptor Jorge Oteiza.
Nathaniel Robin Mann
performing "Oi Peio Peio" during the exhibition opening of "The Margins
of the Factory". Video by Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum.
While
singing, Mann manually assembled a device which broadcasted his
prerecorded voice to a transistor radio, with which he then performed a
moving duet. The performance is Nathan's response to the themes and issues explored in the installation of "Work in Progress", infused with his own longstanding interest in work song and traditional music.
Video entrevista en castellano con subtítulos en inglés.
Segundo capítulo del ciclo 'Amikejo': Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum Laboratorio 987, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León 9 Abril – 12 Junio 2011 Para el segundo capítulo de 'Amikejo', Iratxe Jaio y Klaas van Gorkum presentan un proyecto en torno a los valores cambiantes del trabajo y la propiedad, examinando las posibles lecturas alternativas, tanto políticas como personales, de un mismo legado cultural.
Citando a los propios artistas: “El abuelo de Klaas era de una generación que consideraba que el ‘tiempo libre’ debía invertirse en algo productivo. Al jubilarse, encargó a sus antiguos compañeros del taller que le forjaran un torno para poder dedicarse a tornear la madera. A una edad avanzada, pudo completar su modesta pensión vendiendo los frutos de su afición a la comunidad que conformaba su red social en aquel momento. A su muerte, dejó a su hijo una caja de puros llena de recortes de revistas, bocetos y patrones de diversos objetos que se podían fabricar con madera torneada, con la idea de que en algún momento pudieran ser de utilidad.Jaio and van Gorkum han tomado el contenido de esta caja como punto de partida para una exploración conceptual y reflexiva de la idea de la producción artística. Durante el último año, han rastreado lo que queda del legado del abuelo de Gorkum, Jos van Gorkum (1911–1996) y han podido localizar casi ochenta artículos en las casas de una extensa red de familiares, amigos y antiguos vecinos a lo largo y ancho de los Países Bajos.
La exposición presenta una selección de unos treinta utensilios domésticos realizados por Jos van Gorkum –entre los que se encuentran candeleros, cuencos, ensaladeras, pies de lámpara y pedestales– acompañados de fotografías tomadas en el contexto doméstico original donde se encontraba cada uno de los objetos seleccionados. Los artistas también han podido recuperar la torneadora original con la que se fabricaron los artículos y la han vuelto a poner en marcha. Documentando cada paso del proceso en video, han realizado una serie de experimentos de torneado, vinculando sus acciones físicas en tanto que artistas (y diletantes profesionales) con la productividad del obrero industrial jubilado.
Los resultados de este proceso se incorporaran a la instalación como elementos de apoyo de la plataforma en la que se exhiben los objetos originales. Además, tres monitores muestran una película corporativa de la fábrica de hélices Lipps en la que Jos van Gorkum trabajó hasta su jubilación; el torno en el que los artistas han producido las 49 bases de madera torneada que soportan la plataforma expositiva; y por último el proceso de digitalización de los recortes de revistas, dibujos y plantillas para realizar objetos de madera guardados en una caja de puros que Jos van Gorkum legó a su hijo al morir. (+ info...)
Cookies Advice: We use cookies. If you continue browsing, we consider that you accept their use. Aviso de Cookies: Utilizamos cookies. Si continua navegando, consideramos que acepta su uso.