Two corrections:

• Curated by ... Mariana Cánepa Luna, NOT Cánapa.

• The exhibition will be on view until 11 May.

Lara Favaretto, Plotone, 2005. 20 air-compressed tanks, 20 pressure regulators, 20 distributing, 20 timers, 20 electro valves, 20 whistles, plastic cables, 165 x 10 each tank. Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Franco Noero, Torino.

In the 16th issue of UOVO magazine, Mariana Cánepa Luna from Latitudes interviewed Turin-based artist Lara Favaretto. The issue focuses on the relationship between art and architecture, man and environment, and includes interviews by Raimundas Malasauskas with Adam Carr, Tobias Putrih with Silvia Sgualdini, Michael Sailstorfer with Francesca Pagliuca, Dahn Vo with Adam Carr, Vincent Lamouroux with Céline Kopp, Daniel Arsham with Merce Cunningham, Tatiana Trouvé by Lillian Davies; texts by Michael Rakowitz, Liam Gillick, Marjetica Potrc and Hans Op De Beeck, and many more...

Here is a peek at that interview (you can download the full text from Latitudes' website, here or buy the issue):

MCL: In your recent Frieze Commission you sent out a letter inviting the Queen of England to visit the Frieze Art Fair (Project for Some Hallucinations, 2007). The letter in which she declines the invitation was pinned to a tree inside the fair. What kind of arrangements would you have made if the Queen had accepted?

LF: Very Few! After an official inspection by the Royal Staff, everything would have followed the Royal Protocol. My work stopped before that, with the very possibility of projecting an apparition, a ‘platonic’ intervention, a Goliardic visualisation, or a confrontation with the appearance of a movie star from early cinema. It was an objectless hallucination, a kind of sentimental investigation that was projected to appear yet be autonomous in denying itself. The failure was long-awaited and foreseeable and was highlighted at the fair by the sound of applause, that put an end to the great daily spectacle as everyone was heading for the exit.

Lara Favaretto, Project for Some Hallucinations, 2007, Frieze Art Fair Project, October 2007. Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Franco Noero, Torino. Photos by Latitudes.

MCL: In the context of that commission you said that ‘when one listens to the narration of an idea that is so powerful it ultimately does not matter if it's ever realised’. Can you tell me another such idea or story?

LF: Don't you think it's like that? I think that if very few words can describe a work, just enough to capture the work's physiognomy, it could end up being even stronger than the work itself. The border is really subtle. Telling a story also means suspecting deception and trying to improve it, waiting for it to suddenly unravel, and having fun as much as I have. A story I haven't understood is: ‘I've been studying disguises for a long time now. I am hired to shadow one of the most important people on the American political scene. I am currently based high in the Tora Bora caves.’

Lara Favaretto lives and works in Turin, Italy. In 2008 she will be artist-in-residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; the Hayward Gallery, London, and at the Proa Foundation, Buenos Aires, where she will subsequently have solo shows. She will also present work at The British School at Rome and participate in the 16th Sydney Biennial. She is represented by Franco Noero in Turin and Klosterfelde in Berlin.

The news broke on Saturday afternoon that Manuel J. Borja-Villel (Burriana, Castellón, 1957) will be the new Artistic Director of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (MNCARS), and will start his new job at the end of January 2008. Borja-Villel has been Director of the Museu d'Art Contemporani Barcelona (MACBA) since 1998, and was founding director of the Fundació Tàpies (1990-1998). Despite his appointment not being a shock exactly, the news is important as it is one of the first appointments in Spain to follow the controversial 'Código de buenas prácticas' (Code of good practice) whereby there shouldn't be any more 'al dedo' ('made') appointments. Instead an international call for applications should be held, and was in this case, and appointments be made according to the decision of a selected international committee. And following each candidate's proposals and presentations, and not their political orientation.

That said, the decision to appoint the MACBA director has not been surprising for two reasons. Firstly, a few weeks ago the Spanish newspaper El País [15.11.07] announced Borja-Villel as the favourite for the job, together with a list of the top candidates. How were their names known when the process is supposedly strictly secret? Rightly, there was much discussion in the artistic community [read A-Desk and SalonKritik]. Secondly, the requirements for the job were that candidates should be a 'Spanish or national of a country member of the European Union' (appearing to rule out any Spanish-speaking Latin American candidates, or indeed any other non-European Spanish speaker, and clearly questioning the tip-off that had Dan Cameron shortlisted in the El País article). The candidates were also asked to have 'Excellent level of Spanish' and 'To present, in Spanish or anyone of the co-official languages in the Independent Communities, or English or French, the main lines of the Museum Plan for the Institution'. Spanish prefered, we get it. It makes one wonder what will be the requirements for the now vacant MACBA Director job, if they are to follow the 'código de buenas prácticas' with an open call.

One of the first responses to the appointment was from art critic and curator David G. Torres in A-Desk's blog, in which he briefly analysed the pros and cons of the mandate: Borja-Villel has put MACBA on the map – for sure – and has given a direction and coherence to its collection – again, yes – but it has lacked a dialogue with the city of Barcelona and its visitors. According to Catalina Serra [El País, 23.12.07], the Catalan arts community has already responded by demanding an international open call for the MACBA position, but with more time for the potential applicants to prepare proposals (candidates had a month to make their applications for the MNCARS job). Let's see what happens here; interesting times ahead! The news are, however, great for MNCARS, Spain's forever-in-crisis national museum, which has had no leading figure since September 2007, that lacks coherence in its collection, has a so-so programme, but of course holds a precious treasure in world history: Picasso's Guernica.

For more info read MNCARS' Press Release (Spanish) and the announcement in El País (23.12.07)

MACBA yesterday officially opened its excellent Centre d'Estudis i Documentació / Centro de Estudios y Documentación in an adjacent building to the main museum site on Plaça dels Àngels, Barcelona. 

The ground floor hosts an exhibition space, and the third floor hosts the luminous MACBA library and archive, with books, magazines and journals, as well as videos available for consultation. The tolomeo-lamped study tables have plugs for laptops, and according to staff, wi-fi will soon be available throughout. 

As the Director himself has commented, while other museums add cafés and shops, MACBA invests in hardcore study. For those who have been craving a no-appointment-needed contemporary art resource and study environment in the centre of Barcelona (us!), this initiative is a godsend.

MACBA Study Center
Plaça dels Àngels 8, 08001 Barcelona, Tel. 93 481 33 66
biblioteca@macba.cat

The December 07 issue of 'Dazed and Confused' have profiled UOVO magazine as a 'heavy-duty zine'. Their short review is subtitled 'Latitudes, the Spanish curators, take over the doorstep-sized art quarterly with the help from Dash Snow and Ryan McGinley' and the caption under the photograph reads 'Latitudes take over the reins at UOVO'.

They are indeed dazed and confused. We have NOT taken over the magazine nor have we met Dash Snow or Ryan McGinley, at least not yet. Snow and McGinley were interviewed in previous UOVO issues as were, in fact, all the other artists mentioned in the review.

However, Latitudes did guest edit the summer issue #14 (Green) 'Ecology, Luxury and Degradation' which included interviews and projects by artists such as Tue Greenfort, Sergio Vega, Michael Rakowitz, Lara Almarcegui, Federico Martelli, Noguchi Rika, Arturas Raila, etc. 

We are also collaborating with The Bookmakers Ed., the design office led by Chiara Figone which has just begun to publish monographs, as members of their Advisory Board together with Andrew Bonacina, Adam Carr, Lillian Davies, Silvia Sgualdini and Francesco Stocchi.

Sergio Vega, 'Paradise on Fire', 2007. Series of five inkjet archival prints, 106 x 134 cm each. Courtesy the artist and Umberto di Marino Arte Contemporanea, Naples.

We have launched the project website for 'Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities': www.greenwashing.lttds.org. The site will be updated over time as an extension to the printed catalogue, with expanded contents such as installation shots, interviews, artists CVs, etc.