No Soul for Sale – A Festival of Independents, with Martí Anson

Following Latitudes’ participation in the June 2009 New York edition of ‘No Soul for Sale’, Latitudes was invited to participate in the second edition of the festival, an initiative of the artist Maurizio Cattelan and curators Cecilia Alemani and Massimiliano Gioni. Presented in the context of Tate Modern's 10th Anniversary celebrations, Latitudes collaborated with Catalan artist Martí Anson (Mataró, 1967).

In response to the need to travel to London, Anson set up the company Mataró Chauffeur Service in honour of his hometown, and drove Latitudes from Barcelona to London and back. Designing the livery of the single vehicle fleet, his uniform, and the journey to Tate Modern and back (including the ferry journey Santander–Portsmouth) all formed a part of the project. The gold-trimmed black vehicle’s design was based on the original look of the yellow-and-black Mataró taxis from the 1960s, a branding later ‘stolen’ by neighbouring Barcelona’s taxi fleet.

The car itself formed the basis of Latitudes’ temporary office-encampment in the Turbine Hall and was parked up for the weekend alongside a ‘typically Spanish’ picnic scenario of camping chairs, folding table and parasol as well as a slideshow of images of the journey. In this setting Latitudes presented films and publications relating to their recent projects. The scenario also served as a meeting point for a series of informal encounters with invited artists and curators. The car interior was a screening space for films by artists Bik Van der Pol, Marjolijn Dijkman, Jan Dibbets and Christina Hemauer & Roman Keller, as well as a series of ‘making of’ videos produced as part of ‘Portscapes’, the Latitudes-curated commissions series developed with the Port of Rotterdam and SKOR (Foundation for Art and Public Domain, Amsterdam) during 2009.

‘No Soul for Sale’ featured nearly 70 innovative independent art spaces, not-for-profit organisations and collectives from Cali, Berlin, Philadelphia, Hong Kong, Lisbon, New York, Manila, Beijing, etc. Participants presented talks, screenings, performances alongside each other without partitions walls, following a do-it-yourself spirit. The first edition took place in New York at X initiative, and it gathered over 30 not-for-profit centres, alternative institutions, artists’ collectives and independent spaces.

Participants: Alternative Space LOOP (Seoul), Arrow Factory (Beijing), Arthub Asia (Shanghai/Bangkok/Beijing), Artis - Contemporary Israeli Art Fund (New York / Tel Aviv), Artspeak (Vancouver), Artists Space (New York), Auto Italia (London), Ballroom (Marfa), Black Dogs (Leeds), Barbur (Jerusalem), Capacete Entertainment (Rio de Janeiro), Casas Tres Patios (Medellín), Centre Cinématèque de Tanger (Tangier), Cinema Project (Portland), cneai= (Paris-Chatou), Collective Parasol (Kyoto), Dispatch (New York), e-flux (Berlin), Elodie Royer and Yoann Gourmel - 220 jours (Paris), Filipa Oliveira + Miguel Amado (Lisbon), FLUXspace (Philadelphia), FormContent (London), Galerie im Regierungsviertel/Forgotten Bar Project (Berlin), Green Papaya Art Projects (Manila), Hell Gallery (Melbourne), Hermes und der Pfau (Stuttgart), i-cabin (London), K48 Kontinuum (New York), Kling & Bang (Reykjavík), L'appartement 22 (Rabat), Latitudes (Barcelona), Le Commissariat (Paris), Le Dictateur (Milan), Light Industry (New York), Lucie Fontaine (Milan), lugar a dudas (Cali), Machine Project (Los Angeles), Mousse (Milan), Museum of Everything (London), Next Visit (Berlin), New Jerseyy (Basel), Not An Alternative (New York), no.w.here (London), Oregon Painting Society (Portland), Or Gallery (Vancouver), P-10/Post Museum (Singapore), Para/Site Art Space (Hong Kong), Peep-Hole (Milan), PiST (Istanbul), PSL [Project Space Leeds] (Leeds), Rhizome (New York), Salamanca (Jerusalem), San Art (Ho Chi Minh City), Studio 1.1 (Liverpool), Suburban (Chicago), Swiss Institute (New York), The Mountain School of Arts (Los Angeles), The Royal Standard (Liverpool), Thisisnotashop (Dublin), Torpedo - supported by the Office for Contemporary Art Norway (Oslo), Tranzit (Prague), Viafarini DOCVA (Milan), Vox Populi (Philadelphia), Western Bridge (Seattle), Western Front Society (Vancouver), White Columns (New York), Y3K (Melbourne), 2nd Cannons Publications (Los Angeles), and 98 Weeks (Beirut).