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Spanish contemporary art worldwide
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WEXFORD. Lara DomEnech "Looking behind the Painting" Wexford Arts Centre
19th october - 8th november 2014
Lara DomEnech is a Spanish artist based in Wexford. She graduated with BA (Hons) from the faculty of Fine Arts, San Carlos, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia in 2011, and her first solo exhibition was held in Sala Campoamo in 2012. In this body of work, DomEnech's overriding interest is exploring the hidden structure of the painted surface, creating an alternate space for consideration, and transforming it into the focal point for the viewer.
There is always part of the image you do not see, it is the side facing the wall. I've noticed that side - the hidden side, and in my new series of works I have endeavored to show this to the viewer - decomposing the picture frame and transforming it into the focal point of attention'.
Drawing inspiration from artists such as Lucio Fontana and Enrico Castellani whose work, through the late fifties, explored the underside of the painted surface and became widely influential to the emerging generations of artists, DomEnech investigates the concept of a hidden space. The playful use of fabrics - semi transparent and opaque, guide the viewer's attention to the sides and underside of the canvas, as well as through to the wall supporting the object. A large selection of the works are composed of spots and spillages of acrylic paint randomly applied. The underside of the markings are presented in addition to the apparatus of the frame itself. (Wexford press-release)
Wexford Arts Centre. Cornmarket. Wexford. Ireland.
Image: "Unstable Room" Lara DomEnech
ROME. Sam3 "Monumental" Galería Wunderkammern
4 october – 8 november, 2014
Sam3 (Elche, Spain, 1980) lives and works between Murcia and Madrid. The publication Arte Español Contemporaneo 1992 – 2013 (La Fábrica, 2013) includes him among the most important Spanish contemporary artists. His public interventions with large black anthropomorphic silhouettes are visible all over the world. Sam3's "shadows", as he calls them, reflect on the human condition: between refined poetry on one side and sharp irony on the other, these figures imply alternative meanings and often very provocative and subverting ones.
His exhibition Monumental is part of the new art project by Wunderkammern titled Limitless that will bring to the gallery five of the most important artists of the international Urban Art scene: Sam3 (Spain), L'Atlas (France), Sten&Lex (Italy), Alexey Luka (Russia) and 2501 (Italy). This project explores the concept of limit in its diverse forms and manifestations. The silhouettes by Sam3 aspire to overcome the constraint of the human life and its temporary condition. The anthropomorphic figures represent the individual's effort to reach a monumental glory set in a boundless eternal time. Such illusion is then interrupted when the silhouettes are driven purely by their emotions, leading them to short-sighted objectives, self-destructive fights, dictatorial conducts. They face the edge of existence.
Sam3 uses a great variety of artistic techniques, from sculpture to murals, experimenting with videos and animations. For Monumental the artist will present at Wunderkammern a complete new series of artworks, ranging from ceramics, using black and white colours, to new works with graphite and ink on paper and canvas. Before the exhibition opening, he will produce a public intervention in Rome. (Wunderkammern press-release)
WUNDERKAMMERN. Via Gabrio Serbelloni, 124 Rome
http://www.wunderkammern.net http://www.sam3.es
Image: Giorgio Coen Cagli (courtesy Wunderkammern)
PALERMO. "A Soul in common." Palazzo Chiaramonti Steri
30 october – 09 december, 2014
Project "Crown of Aragon. History and Art" leads to Palermo, Sicily, his exhibition "A Soul in common." The exhibition, which opens on October 30, is organized by the Government of Aragon and has the support of the Regional Assembly of Sicily, the Federico II Foundation, the Embassy of Spain in Italy, the Instituto Cervantes in Palermo and Università degli Studi di Palermo.
The exhibition, through 75 photomontages, architectural influences between Aragon and Sicily during the period of ownership of the Crown of Aragon, over 200 years of history, from the reign of Peter III to the reign of Ferdinand II of Aragon, King of Sicily.
The architectural influence between Sicily and Aragon is reflected in the exhibition "A Common Soul" has 46 buildings (23 and 23 Aragonese Sicilians) who have been subjected to a comparative study are shown. It's both constructive and stylistic characteristics common to assert the existence of a common soul. Professor of Architecture, Aurelio Vallespín, highlighted in the presentation, treatment similarities light with blinds, the wooden roofs, the relief and the color or the use of limestone among other, also states that "Aragon in Sicily arelike brothers." (Cervantes Palermo press – release)
Palazzo Chiaramonti Steri. Piazza Marina, 61. 90133 Palermo. (ITALIA)
Image: "Un Alma Común. Arquitectura sículo-aragonesa" I. Cervantes Palermo
SA PAULO. Salvador Dalí "Retrospective" Tomie Ohtake Institut
19 october 2014 – 11 january 2015
This exhibition calls the audience to dive into the oneiric, provocative and fanciful universe of Salvador Dalí.
Including approximately 164 works, paintings, drawings and prints, in addition to documents and photographs from major institutions holding the artist's collections, i.e., Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation (Figueres), the Centro de Arte Reina Sofia National Museum (Madrid) and Salvador Dalí Museum (Florida), the exhibition presents the artist's production since the 1920s all the way to his last works, providing visitors a clear perception of Dalí's evolution – not only in terms of technique -, but his influences, theme capabilities, ideological references and forms of symbolism.
In the words of curator Montse Aguer, the works have been selected to "show not only surrealist Dalí, but also an artist that gets ahead his time, is daring and shows up in defense of the artist's unshackled imagination in his/her own creative processes. Concomitantly, the exhibition strolls over Salvador Dalí's artistic and personal paths."
Curator: Montse Aguer
The exhibition in Brazil will include around 164 paintings, photographs, films and objects lent by the Reina Sofía, the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí in Figueres, Spain and the Dali Museum in St Petersburg, Florida.(I.Tomie Ohtake press-release)
Instituto Tomie Ohtake. Av. Faria Lima, 201. Pinheiros. Sao Paulo
Image: Salvador Dalí. I.Tomie Ohtake
BERLIN. Ignacio Evangelista "Changing Realitys. Images of a World in Transition" Alexanderplatz Subway
21 october – 3 november, 2014
In recent years, Europe has shown itself mainly as a continent in crisis. It is interesting, however, to tell the many other stories: those of the small utopias and grand visions that have been realised in everyday life. Crossing borders, photographers go out in search for traces of this other Europe. Their works show us people facing the current economic and social challenges with courage and creativity. Beyond traditional Western lifestyles and consumerist habits, they are generating models for sustainable living in a globalised world.
The exhibition CHANGING Realities at the Alexanderplatz subway station presents 16 photographic positions with exceptional aesthetic visual solutions. On billboards – ordinarily altars of Western consumerist society – they create a surprising 'art space', and thus constitute not only an exhibition, but also an artistic intervention in public space.
Artists: Lela Ahmadzai, Toby Binder, Laura Böök, Marc Brinkmeier, Linda Dreisen, Ignacio Evangelista, Maria Feck, Michael Heck, Heiko Hellwig, Hannes Jung, Paul Langrock, Michael Löwa, Ines Querido, Daniel Rihs, Gordon Welters, Gerhard Westrich.
Ignacio Evangelista, born in Valencia 1965 (Spain).Bachelor degree in Psychology, University of Valencia. His photographic series show the relationship, sometimes contradictory, between nature and the artificial, between animate and inanimate. Although the series can be formally very different from each other, always a common theme underlying all of them, related to the human trace (mdf press-release)
U-Bhf Alexanderplatz Bahnsteig U8. 10178 Berlin
www.changingrealities.de http://ignacioevangelista.com/
Image: Ignacio Evangelista. Zdarky Pstrazna CZ PL."After Schengen"
NEW YORK. Juanli Carrión "Apocryphal Times" Friedman Benda Gallery
october 30 - december 13, 2014.
Apocryphal Times is an exhibition that presents the work of eleven international artists who grapple with the ultimate-elusive concept of time. Striving to grasp time's essence, these artists were invited to reflect on traditional temporal notions and to create narratives that defy, fictionalize, or capture 'time' as we know it. Organized by Thorsten Albertz, gallery director at Friedman Benda, and artist Tamara Kostianovsky.
Through sculptures, performative works, installations, and drawings, the artists in the exhibition demonstrate a common preoccupation with clocks, memory, ruins, the aging body, and anxiety about the future. Informed by the power of history, myths, scientific theories, and personal experiences, the selection of works ultimately challenge the idea that 'time' is what keeps everything from happening at once. Featuring the work of Diana Al-Hadid, Juanli Carrion, Cesar Cornejo, Lars Fisk, Valerie Hegarty, Hedwige Jacobs, Jessica Lagunas, Aili Schmeltz, Julien Salaud, Mark Lawrence Stafford, and Tamara Kostianovsky.
The digital prints of Spanish artist Juanli Carrion postulate further on peripatetic projections of time and the hierarchy of memory in the virtual realm, by using thousands of layered images of 'ruins'. Born in Yecla, Spain. 1982. Lives and works in Brooklyn. (Friedman Benda press-release)
Friedman Benda. 515 West 26th Street. New York, NY 10001
http://www.friedmanbenda.com http://www.juanlicarrion.com
Image: Un-Dramatics After the Fall, 2011. Archival C-PRINT and Saint. Juanli Carrión
BERLIN. Vicky Uslé "Weightlessness Encounter" Alexander Levy Gallery
September 18 – November 08, 2014
The gallery alexander levy is pleased to present the second solo show by young Spanish painter Vicky Uslé in Berlin.
Vicky Uslé, born in 1981 in Santander, Spain, is continuing her investigation on the possibilities of painting as well as navigating deeper into the complexity of surfaces. She uses drawing and painting to express observations, dreams and reflections from her everyday life. Inspired by architecture and nature, Uslé creates her own language of painting.
In her new work cycle of paintings, which will be shown for the first time, she constructs and deconstructs forms and rearranges them into dynamic situations. As known in her earlier works, Uslé consciously uses the visible brushstroke to create organic and floating forms. For her new works, the use of two traditional and opposite syntaxes are coming more to the fore. The allusion to architecture is becoming stronger. With her paintings, Uslé comes into connection with parts of our world that generate new visions and she changes their perception. Industry and nature can exist side by side without disturbing each other, a desirable utopia. (A. Levy press-release)
Alexander Levy. rudi-dutschke-str. 26 | d-10969 berlin
Image: Vicky Uslé
MOSCOW. "Dalí y Media" Modern Art Museum
30 october 2014 – 1 february 2015
Salvador Dalí's artworks are traditionally divided into periods, directly related to the geopolitical situation in the world. However, the exhibition in the MMOMA will not be arranged chronologically. Viewers can choose the way they go through the exhibition themselves. The show is divided into two parts, inextricably connected with each other. The first one will demonstrate Dalí at work. Covers and articles for Vogue, GQ, TV Guide, Newsweek, Town&Country, This Week magazines and many other editions will introduce the audience to Dalí the illustrator and the art director, the writer and the editor. The MMOMA halls will tell about each new role of the artist. The second part is a world of images which are an integral part of the era of the Fourth Estate, where the artist worked. Giant eggs, female legs in Bryans Hosiery, lips and, of course, Dalí's famous mustaches recreate the unique space of Dalí's mad world. But surrealism will be interrupted by a hall of ratio, without which it is impossible to imagine the work of the genius with media. Numbers have accompanied from the very beginning of his creative work be it circulation of a publication he has contributed to, a number of covers or the author's emoluments he received from one of the largest publishing houses.
Dalí's oeuvre in mass media was inextricably connected with the imagery one finds in his art. His work as an illustrator was neither casual nor a temporary passion. It was one of the foundations of his total oeuvre. (MMOMA press-release)
MMOMA, 10 Gogolevsky boulevard
Image: Photo Monde, 02/1954. Image Rights of Salvador Dalí reserved. Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, Figueres, 2014
JOHANNESBURG. Ángel Haro "The Contortionist" RES Gallery
20 september– 12 november, 2014
The practice of contortionism, if one goes back in time, originated in the Fairs of medieval Europe, when the skills and the extravagance to twist the body into extraordinary forms was a way of earning a precarious living. It is evident that the physical conditions of a contortionist are exceptional, but the effort to challenge the possibility of the human body goes beyond existent criteria. The trade of 'troubadour', somewhere between a tightrope walker and a masochist, has been travelling through time and cultures for centuries and, even though using similar techniques to their forbears, is still captivating to us today. Maybe it has something to do with our morbid ways of being, with an insatiable need to observe and be observed, perhaps the unexpected break or freak accident, experiencing the capabilities of the human body pushed to its limits, vicariously living through a body which is not our own? The flexibility, pain, tension, balance, sacrifice, eccentricity and spectacle go hand in hand with an activity that is as anachronistic as it is contemporaneous.
Eventually it seems to be a question of how to maintain a sense of stability against the apparent 'juggleristic' contradictions imposed upon us by the laws of physics and molecular order. It is in this sense that the metaphor of the human condition, facing adversity in search of the impossible as a possibility for adaptation through our own transmutation, that the artist Angel Haro, with these drawings and collages, is bringing to us. With this glance into the world of the contortionist Haro is relating their rare and solitary talents to what we do everyday just to survive. (RES press-release)
RES Gallery, Chester Court, 140 Jan Smuts. Johannesburg
Res Gallery http://angelharo.com
Image: Ángel Haro
PARIS. Carlos Pérez Siquier "Playas" Mois de la Photo. Tagomago Gallery
23 october – 10 december, 2014
Some images within the history of photography are so radical people just don't know where to place them. The beach images of Carlos Pérez Siquier (b.Almeria 1930) look as fresh now as the day the were taken and we must bear in mind the context of contemporary photography in both Spain and Europe at the time Back in the early 1970's Europe was still in the thrall of black and white photography, if you were a serious practitioner, colour was the domain of either the commercial world or snapshot photography. Over in the USA, there were seeds of colour photography establishing a Museum presence with the likes of William Eggleston and Stephen Shore, but only by the end of this decade.
His work was not influenced by other practitioners. I would have loved to have heard the response to these images as they were released in Spain, but for sure I can't imagine great enthusiasm from the traditional world of black and white humanistic photographers. They could easily be read as heresy! The brash subject matter, the intense colours, it could all appear so trivial. In one sense I would like to claim I was influenced by this work, but sadly I never saw these images when I started shooting beaches in colour, latterly with the ring flash and macro lens, where unbeknown to me the anguage with Siquier did have some overlap. But I recall the first time I saw these images, about 15 years ago and they stopped me in my track, but I assumed they were recent work. I was amazed when I saw they were taken in the early 1970´.
So here we are, many years later and we can now start to appreciate better these remarkable images. They have been published in more recent years, but this new edit is not only most welcome, but can also help us to understand one of the most underappreciated and truly original bodies of post war Spanish photography. Martin Parr. (Colecctania press-release)
Galería Tagomago, 4 Villa Ballu. 75009 Paris
Image: Carlos Pérez Siquier.
PAU. Picasso "L´éternel Feminin" Beaux Arts Musée
18 september – 8 december, 2014
This exhibition demonstrates the importance of the female model in the work of Picasso.The artist himself spoke of "eternal feminine." The 67 prints and drawings here are dated from 1927 to 1964. It shows among other portraits of his companions and wives, and is immersed in his pictorial inspiration of the Italian Renaissance.
The works on display are from the collections of graphics Fundación Picasso Málaga. (Musée Beaux Arts press-release)
Musée de Meaux Arts. Rue Mathieu Lalanne, 64000 Pau
Image: Fundación Picasso, Málaga
NEW YORK. Xavier Rodés "Solo Show" Axelle Gallery
11 october – 2 november, 2014
This fall, Axelle Soho will host a solo exhibition for Barcelona native, Xavier Rodes. Following the success of Rodés' debut US solo show at our sister gallery in Boston last year, Axelle is excited to present his new collection to New York City. Rodés' seascapes, landscapes and serene city scenes are distinguished by their unique and meticulously executed approach to light and detail.
Rodés' articulately rendered oil on canvas paintings each capture a very specific moment in time – a time when the light, the tide and the sky were just so. His works convey an unusual harmony between nature, architecture and the hand of the artist. He frequently depicts piers and harbors built into vast oceans and seas; however, his tranquil compositions of American and European towns reveal a world where man-made beams rise almost organically from the water without disrupting the beauty of the natural surroundings. Whether painting sunny coastal towns, quiet snowy scenes or his whimsical still lifes, Rodés' works demonstrate an innate ability to sensitively render light, precision and emotion.
Born in 1971, Rodés studied art at EINA College in Spain, where he focused on Industrial and Urban Landscape. Following Rodés' first exhibition in 1996, he has exhibited his work at many galleries throughout Spain. He has taken part in several international fairs such as those in Strasbourg, London and Madrid. His paintings are present in many private and public collections and in galleries worldwide, including USA, France, Switzerland, and Argentina. Today, he lives and works in El Masnou, a town not far from Barcelona. (Axelle gallery press-release)
Axelle Fine Arts (Galerie Soho) 472 West Broadway. New York, NY 10012
http://www.axelle.com/new-york http://www.xavierrodes.com
Image: Lobster Dock. Oil on canvas. Xavier Rodés
MOSCOW. Samuel Salcedo "That's Why I'm Easy, Easy like a Sunday Morning" Osnova Gallery
15 october – 16 november, 2014
Samuel Salcedo (Barcelona 1975) takes us with his sculptures to a world of strong contrasts and powerful instincts in conflict. His figures are isolated in an empty room full of cruelty but also irony. Their expressions of feelings are repulsive and at the same time friendly with absurd ideas but also with known characters. His latest works revolve around the most absurd social behavior of human beings and treats them with humor and irony. Salcedo manipulates the stereotypes from the mass media that camouflage our true identity representing men behind masks and dressed up as other persons. A circus society that Salcedo exaggerates representing men of hard gestures and child behavior. Though guys who lose their credibility and recall the influence of popular culture and advertising. (I. Cervantes press-release))
Galereya Osnova. VINZAVOD 4º Syromiatnichesky per, 1-6. 105120 Moscú
http://www.samuelsalcedo.com http://osnovagallery.com
Image: Samuel Salcedo
ASUNCIÓN. Olmo Calvo "Fourth World (made in Spain)" Centro Cultural de España Juan de Salazar
15 october - 08 november 2014
The exhibition "Fourth World (made in Spain)" by Spanish artist Olmo Calvo, is presented within the framework of WILD EYE, Month of Photography in Paraguay which this year celebrates its fourth edition. "Defeat, disgust, opportunity, powerlessness, anger, oppression, fraud, fighting, anger, shame, inequality, injustice, theft, manipulation, lies, heartbreak, resignation, looting, resistance, despair, sadness, incomprehension, dignity, isolation, rejection , solidarity, drowning, death, revenge? "are some of the feelings, sensations and thoughts that generated the crisis in people who suffer.
Olmo Calvo, Santander, 1982, began photographing for the newspaper Molotov in 2001 while studying for his advanced Diploma Program in Image Studies in Madrid. Afterwards, in 2004, he was part of the founding committee of the newspaper Diagonal www.diagonalperiodico.net, acting as head of the photography department. Concurrently, he continued his training, thanks to scholarships granted by the Regional Government of Cantabria, studying photojournalism and digital editing at Agencia Cover's PhotoEscuela in Madrid and the Motivarte Photography School of Buenos Aires.
In 2006 he was cofounder of the SUB photographer's cooperative in Buenos Aires www.sub.coop, working regularly on photojournalism in Argentina. He has been awarded several international prizes for his work with Sub coop, such as the Cuenca International Art Biennial prize (Ecuador, 2009), and various Latin American Pictures of the Year awards in 2010. His photographs have been published in both national and international media. Presently he works freelance, publishing his work at www.diagonalperiodico.net, www.sub.coop and other media in Argentina, Ecuador, Colombia, France, Germany and the US. Recently he has been awarded with the Louis Valtueña International Award of Humanitarian Photography 2012. (CCEJS press-release)
Centro Cultural de España Juan de Salazar. Tacuary, 745/ Herrera, 834
Asunción, Paraguay
http://juandesalazar.org.py http://www.olmocalvo.com
Image: Olmo Calvo
CURITIBA. Isidro Blasco "Landscape Deconstruction" MUMA. Municipal Art Museum
18 october 2014 – 1 february, 2015
A Curitiba new look. That's what Isidro Blasco proposes in his solo exhibition entitled Landscape Deconstruction in the Muma Curitiba Municipal Art Museum. Curated by Denise Gadelha, the exhibition is an art installation of 26 meters long. They are photographs and videos offering to visitors a different perception of the city.
Isidro Blasco (Madrid 1962) combines architecture, photography and installation to explore themes of vision and perception in relation to physical experience. Using digital photography and common building materials to assemble three-dimensional constructions that reconstruct interior spaces and outdoor environments culled from the artist's personal cityscape. His work often references the realm of private or domestic space. Blasco normally begins by selecting one angle in a room or outdoors and then constructs a new space from the perspective of that vantage point. Though the distortions and emphases that Blasco orchestrates risk comparison with the actual streetscapes or rooms he's re-creating, the resulting effect is a fragmentation of a single line of sight that is reminiscent of Cubist collages. Blasco's three dimensional sculptures result in an elliptical succession of multiple angles, producing a space that is at once recognizable and entirely new.
Blasco's three dimensional sculptures result in an elliptical succession of multiple angles, producing a space that is at once recognizable and entirely new.
Isidro Blasco (b.Madrid 1962) is held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Chicago Institute of Contemporary Art, The Baltimore Museum of Art and many International Museums.
(MUMA press - release)
MUMA: Av. República Argentina, 3430, Terminal do Portão. Curitiba
http://isidroblasco.com http://www.fundacaoculturaldecuritiba.com.
Image: Isidro Blasco
ALTKIRCH. Daniel Steegmann Mangrané "Animal que no existeix" Centre d´Art Contemporain
19 october 2014 – 18 january 2015
Animal que no existeix inhabits an immaterial, abstract and unstable space. Animal que no existeix wanders through Daniel Steegmann Mangrané's exhibition, developing in it, as a process of exchange and operations of transformation.
Animal que no existeix is a perceptible space with no object. Animal que no existeix is made up of relations between subjects (entities) and exchanges of perspectives which engage the viewer in visualizing the potential for transformation of the phenomena perceived. Animal que no existeix spatializes viewpoints in the exhibition, and by being one with it, the viewer tries to adopt them … these viewpoints.
Animal que no existeix may (at times simultaneously) use drawing, collage, cut-outs, film, and installation, and develop organically to achieve the right level of abstraction allowing it to migrate from one piece to the other. Animal que no existeix overlays different strata of relations and ramifications. Geometric grids, and in the middle of these grids, a lozenge. A combination of V-shaped chevrons that can be multiplied ad infinitum. An element structuring the abstract motifs of the "people who draw" of Amazonia, referring to the myth of the Great Anaconda a seasoned, chevron-striped snake which allegedly taught the Indians how to weave and draw. Animal que no existeix makes the wall vibrate and crunch and dissolves in the abstract space of thought. Animal que no existeix is an ambiguous song which has lost an S'. Animal que no existeix is an animal which does not exist.
A monographic book of Daniel Steegmann Mangrané designed by Manuel Raeder and edited by Rivet will be released in 2015. (CRAC. Alsace press-release)
The exhibition is supported by KriskaDECOR, Montblanc, Spain.
Centre Rhénan d´Art Contemporain, 18 rue du chateau. Altkirch
http://www.cracalsace.com http://www.danielsteegmann.info
Image: Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, Phasmides, 2012
PARIS. Alberto García-Alix "A false horizon" Maison Européene de la Photographie
21 october 2014 – 25 january 2015
This exhibition of photos by Alberto García-Alix, on show at the Maison Européene de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris from 21 October 2014 to 25 January 2015, brings together a selection of the León-born photographer's best work of the past five years. Through leaps in time, these photographs establish dialogues with other works from the artist's past, paying special attention to unpublished works that help contextualise the photographer and his oeuvre.
To cite Alberto García-Alix, Un horizonte falso (A false horizon) is "a world of altered presences trapped in an instant of eternal silence. Here the visible is a metaphor of itself and of a thought. Thought as a revelation fuelled in a monologue that is stretched over a horizon. A false horizon..."
The ambiguity of photography, life, death… Portraiture and self-portraiture, defying natures, urban landscapes and plays on scale dominate García-Alix's snapshots in this project. The exhibition is organised by the Maison Européene de la Photographie (MEP) with the collaboration, in addition to AC/E, of the artist's main galleries: Kamel Mennour (Paris) and Juana de Aizpuru (Madrid). RM publishers have been entrusted with the exhibition catalogue. (AC/E press-release)
La maison Européenne de la Photographie. 5/7 Rue de Fourcy - 75004 Paris
http://www.mep-fr.org http://www.albertogarciaalix.com
Image: Alberto García Alix
PORTO. Rafael Navarro " A destiempo" Galería Serpente
20 september – 1 november 2014
In this exhibition, the artist wanted to use color to transfer their experiences and feelings to the public, showing through his inner world images.
For that, first used digital photography and breaks with traditional black and white, betting on the color. Navarro uses fragmentation, abstraction, movement image and dialogue between glances to communicate about their inner abstractions.
Born in 1940 in the city of Zaragoza, Rafael Navarro began his long artistic career the early seventies. His work is a reflection of your inner world, where the obvious show has rarely been a target. The artist, who as an experienced teacher mastered the arcane art, often waives themotion control, the acutance, or rigorous mechanical accuracy that allows photography to leave open the eloquence of the form and must cross subjetivities which truly meet the work and the reader. One of the constants in his extensive work is the importance that it exerts its fascination with nature, the human body free from the artifices of the garment, where a fold is another landscape mode or how cycles and times their way and leave their mark on a stone or a plant mass.
His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in national and international over 700 times and is part of relevant funding institutions worldwide. Among the hundreds of references and publications that collect their work should be noted books like Diptychs (1986), Le report of corpo (1997), Catalogue Raisonné 1975-1998 (2000), Do not disturb (2001), Photobolsillo 44 (2002), In the workshop Miró (2006), Light Bodies (2006) and most recently At the wrong time (2011). In recognition of his contribution to contemporary art, The Royal Academy of Fine Arts of St. Louis, has awarded its incorporation as Academician. (Galería Serpente press-release)
Galeria Serpente – Rua Miguel Bombarda 558, 4050-379 – Oporto, Portugal
http://rafaelnavarro.es http://www.galeriaserpente.com
Image: Rafael Oporto
WASHINGTON. Bernardí Roig "Intersections" The Phillips Collection
october 25, 2014 – march 08, 2015
Mallorcan artist Bernardí Roig installs six sculptural works in unexpected interior and exterior spaces, challenging visitors to rethink the definition of the museum.
Bernardí Roig (b. 1965) participates in the contemporary art projects series Intersections at The Phillips Collection. Roig draws parallels between his and Honoré Daumier's works, both of which offer poignant social commentary.
Roig addresses the existential dualities of entrapment and liberation, blinding and illumination, absence and presence. Typical of the artist's work are the cruel-looking white plaster figures cast from real people, often cornered or crushed against walls or twisting in pain. By including the element of light —whether a single light bulb, neon tubes, or fluorescent lights— Roig's work blends minimalist forms with highly charged expressions of anxiety and loneliness.
Intersections is a series of contemporary art projects that explores —as the title suggests— the intriguing intersections between old and new traditions, modern and contemporary art practices, and museum spaces and artistic interventions. Whether engaging with the permanent collection or diverse spaces in the museum, the projects suggest new relationships with their own surprises. Many of the projects also riff on the nontraditional nature of the museum's galleries, sometimes activating spaces that are not typical exhibition areas with art produced specifically for those locations.(Phillips Collection press-release)
The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St NW, Washington, DC 20009
http://www.phillipscollection.org https://www.facebook.com/BernardiRoig
Image: An illuminated head for Blinky P. (The Gun) (2010) Galerie Klüser, Munich
MEXICO. Darío Villalba "Enigmas del deseo" Luís Adelantado Gallery
19 september – 29 november, 2014
In this show, "Enigmas del deseo" (Enigmas of desire). Villalba has chosen to give us an extensive tour of his production, with particular emphasis on the structure of enigmas of desire, as the exhibition title itself indicates. The works range from 1974 to the present. We find relevant pieces from his career, such as: La espera Blanca (1974), Superficie interior-fusión (1993), Autorretrato (1995), Hombre Brecha (2008) or the latest polyptych Picadilly Rent (2014), recently exhibited in Centro del Carmen in Valencia, Spain.
As Manuel Segade explains in his text "Brechas", 'Villalba's work is defined by the gap which it offers, a space in between painting and photograph, sprinkled by both. The fixing of the photographic stops being well-known, so as to suspend the gestural movement of painting. The photograph is thus trapped as a sign which requires pictorial action to develop its significance. The inherent nostalgic of the image is driven by the desire to be a painting in a permanent escape from each other. As if the immersed body of the photographic emulsion would lead to a new emerging pictorial body, the overlays generate an enormous vitality of emotional intensity.
His work explores material sedimentation despite its apparent essentialization of the image, giving way to a compressed text, in-sandwiched, where banality is not possible because what is left in between is a space for fundamental questions. That is the reason for the elemental importance of a photographic background as working material, a sediment which is always human, on the edge inside the support, on the surface of the pictorial subjectile. Villalba has recognized his mutual distrust of both techniques, but he has never expressed his distrust in the experience. Sigfried Krakauer defined something similar with a term of modernity: the demonic ambiguity'.
Darío Villalba (San Sebastian, 1939) is a compulsory reference for understanding the development of art after the informalist generation of the 1950´s, as well as the main link in Spanish art with the international vanguard movements, who´s postulates he subverts. In 1970, at the XXXV Venice Biennale, he presented his "encapsulated" that brought him fame and artistic significance. He is electected a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando on the 12th of march of 2002 and he is awarded by the King of Spain the Gold Medal for the Merit in Fine Arts in the same year. (Luis Adelantado press-release)
Luís Adelantado Gallery. Laguna de Terminos 260. Col. Anahuac. 11320 Miguel Hidalgo. México DF.
Image: S/T. Darío Villaba, 2014
MEXICO. Montserrat Soto "Silenciosos Susurros" Luís Adelantado Gallery
19 september – 29 november, 2014
The photographs shown in the show Silenciosos susurros (Silent whispers) by Montserrat Soto at Luis Adelantado Gallery Mexico represent places extended in time. They are images which introduce the past and the present in a continuous evolution in a continuous rethinking of contemporaneity. In this exhibition, Soto leaves on the walls of the gallery a reflection on the exterior and interior world, on the recognized and the expectation of what will come, in a constant study of the environment in which we live and its desires. Her photographs of landscapes glide us to places we know and where we live and look in a special way to join them in their half-spaces created on the walls of the gallery as a trick creating new spaces within the same walls.
Silenciosos susurros is part of the project Montserrat Soto has been working on in recent years about different communities in the world and their current developments and which is included under the title of Doom city, del hombre nómada al hombre sin lugar. (Doom city, from nomad to man without a home).
Montserrat Soto (1961) lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. She has presented her work in the last years in Sanish Authors Collective Big Sur, in Berlin with "The limits of perception"; in Joan Miró Foundation from Barcelona, in Room Koldo Michelena of San Sebastian, in CGAC center of Santiago de Composela and Fundación Telefónica in Madrid, inside PHotoEspaña. (Luis Adelantado press-release)
Galería Luís Adelantado. Laguna de Terminos 260. Col. Anahuac. 11320 Miguel Hidalgo. México DF.
http://www.luisadelantado.com http://www.montserratsoto.com
Image: "Invasión sucesión 44". Montserrat Soto 2014
BRAGA. Joan Fontcuberta "Miracles & Co" Encuentros da Imagem. Museum of Image
19 september – 31 october, 2014
Under the theme"Fé e Esperança" runs until October 31 the 24th edition of the Encontros da Imagem, the main festival of photography in Portugal, which is headquartered in Braga, and this year highlights is the Catalan photographer Joan Fontcuberta.
Miracles & Co is a "photo-essay" which reveals a farce: the monks of a mysterious monastery in Karelia (Finland) offered a course of interdenominational miracology. The work addresses fiction within fiction.In addition Miracles & Co is a tribute to spirit photography and the language of comics. Fontcuberta creates a work of esperpentic poetics, with a strong theatrical dimension, in which through documents, photographs, videos and objects he de-dramatizes the irrational force of religious feelings, their economic mercantilism and their political instrumentalization.
Joan Fontcuberta, born in Barcelona in 1955, artist, teacher, writer and curator Joan Fontcuberta is one of the most significant figures in contemporary photography. After beginning his career in advertising, he went on to teach in the faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona, as well as numerous other institutions including Harvard University. He co-founded PhotoVision magazine in 1980 and has many other publications to his name. He was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture in 1994, received the 1998 National Prize in Photography from the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the National Prize in Culture for Visual Arts from the Catalan Government and was last year chosen as the recipient of the Hasselblad International Award in Photography.
BesidesFontcuberta, have also been invited other Spanish photographers like Susana Girón (Huesca, Granada, 1975) with "The Cathedral of the Don Quijote" in Arquivo Janes, Oriol Segon Torra (Manresa, 1981) in the TOCA with "Young Patriots" Daniel Diaz Trigo (Lugo, 1971) "Poseer para non Esquecer" in the Mosteiro de Tibães, Jordi Burch (Barcelona, 1979) with "Change your Heart" in the box above and Hector Mediavilla (Barcelona, 1970) with "SAPE" Container # 01 Faith in a public art project taking place in containers located at Praça da República
(Encontrosdaimagem press-release)
Museu da Imagem . Campo das Hortas, 35/37. Braga.Portugal
http://encontrosdaimagem.com http://www.fontcuberta.com
Image: Joan Fontcuberta
CARACAS. Luis Pérez Calvo "Ahí Viene La Plaga" Backroom Projects
october 3 - november 15, 2014
Luis Pérez Calvo, is a compendium of American pop dotted with thoroughbred nostalgic elements that come to life through painting and collage.
From the aesthetics of comics, Luis Pérez Calvo invites contemplation of small everyday stories and "insignificant" or "vulgar" details that go unnoticed for ordinary urbanites.
Luis Pérez Calvo (Madrid, 1962) is a painter and illustrator. His childhood was marked by the circus, double programs theaters continuous session, cassettes, discs, Sunday visits to the popular market of El Rastro, the festivals and comics. His work has been published in We are the dead (NSLM), The Ugly, Visual, Trauma or Lucky !, and today is represented by the Madrid Liebre Gallery. (Backroom press-release)
Backroom Projects, Altamira 1060.Caracas
http://backroomprojects.com http://elblogdeluisperezcalvo.blogspot.com.es
Image: Luis Pérez Calvo
BEIRUT. Darío Álvarez Basso "Natural Entropy" Art Factum Gallery
25 september – 24 october, 2014
Like the alchemist, Dario Álvarez Basso works tirelessly with his colors to come up with his organic yet abstract paintings. Characterized by their vibrant colors and incredibly visible textures, his works resemble alien terrains, microscopic features, lands, mountains, and valleys from other dimensions. Like the alchemist whose sole occupation is to find the coveted elixir of life, or to turn metals into gold, Dario's imagination allows him to experiment with his hands and his paints in order to come up with a spectrum of works that do not resemble any worldly item, yet the viewer seems to yearn towards it, its shapes, its textures; it all seems quite novel yet intimately familiar. In a way, Dario is on a journey to establish his own 'fifth element' through his paintings. (Art Factum press-release)
Art Factum Gallery, Rehban street, alley 204, bldg 13, Medawar district, Quarantine, Beirut , Lebanon
http://www.artfactumgallery.com http://www.dariobasso.com
Image: Dario Álvarez Basso.
MEXICO. Juan Herreros " Dialogue Architecture" Franz Mayer Museum
01 october – 30 november, 2014
This travelling exhibition shows the architectural and intellectual production of the Herreros Arquitectos office. It presents a selection of forms, constructional details and maps of work equipment that are shown without references to the buildings to which they belong precisely in order to establish an independent dialogue on the 'what', 'how' and 'who' that can be used by third parties as a starting point for other explorations.. (AC/E. press-release)
Museo Franz Mayer. Hidalgo 45. Centro Histórico. México D.F
http://www.franzmayer.org http://estudioherreros.com
Image: Herreros Arquitectos
ÉVORA. Ricardo Calero "Space of Thoughts II" Triennial Alentejo Alentejo, Évora Museum
1 october – 23 november, 2014
Ricardo Calero leads to Evora Museum, materials resulting from installation "Space of Thoughts II" a nomadic sculpture that is also a space where programming lock conversations about culture, art and heritage. The work in iron, built in the shipyards of LISNAVE and inspired the Alentejo, patent chimneys since June in Sertório Square, is the protagonist of captured during the Spanish artist in residence Alentejo images and the stage production and transportation of the piece to Évora. A tribute to the natural landscape and architectural Alentejo. (Trienal Évora press-release)
Museu de Évora. Largo Conde de Vila Flor. 7000-804 ÉVORA
Image: Ricardo Calero
ÉVORA. Eugenio Ampudia "Dónde # 4 Sleeping Library" Triennial Alentejo. Public Library
01 – 30 october, 2014
The Évora Public Library hosts the exhibit "Dónde # 4 Sleeping Library" by Eugenio Ampudia, work filmed in Portugal at the invitation of the National Palace TnA Help and already presented in the latest edition of ARCO in Madrid . In Alentejo, the choice of space is also evocative of the figure of the Cenacle, which has the Public Library and the Museum of Évora among his greatest achievements.
Like the openings of the other works in this series, the Spanish artist proposes an "open night" where the public will be invited to bring their sleeping bags and sleep in the exhibition space. The gesture of sleep has been repeated by Ampudia in places like the Prado Museum, the Alhambra in Granada and the flag of the IFEMA on ARCO. (Trienal Évora press-release)
Public Library. Largo Conde de Vila Flor. 7000-804 Évora. Portugal
www.eugenioampudia.net http://mg-consulting.com.pt
Image: Eugenio Ampudia
ISTAMBUL Joan Miró "Women, Birds and Stars" Sakip Sabanci Museum
23 september 2014 – 1 february 2015
The exhibition titled 'Joan Miro: Women, Birds and Stars' focuses on the artist's mature period and is partly organized by Joan Miro Foundation in Barcelona.
Creations including oil and acrylic paintings, lithographs, etchings and assemblages with relevant models and drawings as well as his textiles and ceramic works will be exhibited.
Speaking at a press conference at Sabanci Museum, director Nazan Olcer said that preparation for the exhibition took three years."Our dream was to add the third link with this great Catalan master to the trilogy of Spain's great masters," Olcer said, referring to the museum's earlier exhibitions of Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dali.
"Some of his art in different techniques and some of his personal belongings will be exhibited for the first time in Turkey," she added. "A series of documentaries will also be shown at the exhibition thus giving us the chance to observe the artist's life, inner world, his transformations, friends, anger and reaction to the political events in his country and in the world," she said. Miro's grandson Joan Punyet Miro was also at the launch. Speaking to The Anadolu Agency, Punyet Miro said that one of the objects displayed at the exhibition had a special meaning for him as it reminded him of his childhood. Posing along with a water tap he said: "When I was a child I was using the water tap to fill a tank where I was swimming in Catalonia. One day the water tank disappeared and it was used in one of his sculptures."
Punyet Miro described the exhibition as "complete" as there are paintings, drawings, sculptures and tapestries. Rosa Maria Malet, director of the Joan Miro Foundation, said that Miro defined himself as 'painter' but a painter who tries to work with all kind of material that he finds. "He was a big explorer and a big teacher; Miro tried to explore new techniques," Malet said.
Both an artist and sculptor Miro was born in 1893 in Barcelona and lived between Barcelona and Paris. The great Catalan artist died in Mallorca in 1983.(Anadolu Agency press-release)
Sakip Sabanci Museum, Sakıp Sabancı Cad. No:42. Emirgan 34467. İstanbul
Image: Joan Miró Foundation
LONDON. Curro de los Ríos "Photography" Raven Art Society
24 september - 30 october 2014
Photographer Curro de los Ríos shows his work in London for the first time in a group exhibition along with works by Australian Nick Delaney and British Carinthia West.
Born in Madrid, de los Ríos became interested in photography through his father and studied photography, video and film at the prestigious Centro Video Studio. Inspired by the work of Helmut Newton and Richard Avedon, he began his career creating portraits in his own studio but soon he starting working as a photojournalist and fashion photographer.
Since then he has developed a solid and interesting career thanks to his images that blend beauty and threat, familiarity and controversy. His works are known for their passion, dynamism and exciting narrative, which cause a great impact on the viewers. (Raven Art press-release)
Raven Art Society, 41 Albert bridge road. London SW 11. http://ravenartsociety.com http://www.currodelosrios.com
Image: Curro de los Rios
BRUGGE. Alicia Framis "Framis in Progress" Cultuurcentrum
21 september – 23 november, 2014
The Cultuurcentrum features a large retrospective exhibition by Spanish artist Alicia Framis (1967, Barcelona). Framis gained international recognition for performances and projects in public spaces that focus on human existence and social relationships. Her projects are interdisciplinary and intersect with fashion, architecture and design. Framis seeks to bridge the distance between the artist and viewer. All of her work is designed to create unexpected encounters and experiences.
Framis believes that normal art objects are too limited to convey ideas and emotions, and that as an artist you can best reach the public through direct contact and interaction. Her contribution to Utrecht's Festival a/d Werf in 1996, for instance, was Compagnie de Compagnie, an escort service of identical twins who accompanied solo travelers to festival locations. In 1997 and 1998, Framis offered herself as a "dreamkeeper" for 40 days, a service for people who wanted company as they slept at night. At a number of exhibition sites, including the 2001 Berlin Biennale, she developed a mini-relaxation space exclusively for women where they could indulge in a male "comforter." In 2003 she created a sensation with her project Anti-Dog. This clothing line is based on a new material that is both bullet-resistant and resistant to dog bites (2003). In the project Not for Sale (2008) Framis brings attention to global child slavery using necklaces and photos of children. Since 2009, Framis has worked on the project Moon life Academy. For this piece, she challenged a number of artists, designers and architects to develop innovative products and prototypes for living on the moon with the ultimate goal of also having positive repercussions for life on earth. (Cultuurcentrum press-release)
Cultuurcentrum Bruges, Buiten Smedenvest 1. 8000 Brugge
http://www.aliciaframis.com http://www.ccbrugge.be
Image: AC/E. Alicia Framis
MOSCOW. Ricardo Santonja "The Art of Architecture in Spain" Schusev State Museum of Architecture
september 18 – november 4
This exhibition, bringing together 50 images by the photographer Ricardo Santonja, showcases the legendary contemporary architecture of Spain. Among the masterpieces captured by Santonja's photographic lens are the futuristic Valencia Opera House by Santiago Calatrava, the high-tech poetic Library at the Reina Sofia Art Center by Jean Nouvel, the radically minimalist Tenerife Arts Center by Herzog and de Meuron, and Carme Pinos' avant-garde CAIXA FORUM in Zaragoza. The exhibit devotes special attention to experimental architecture—an International Center of Advanced Technologies, a solar house, a central heating station, and a river aquarium—and to social projects such as schools, hospitals, and mass housing. Although these structures serve dissimilar purposes and differ one from another in architectural language, through Ricardo Santonja's lens they are drawn into a single aesthetic sequence, united as objects within the urban and natural landscape, with details—stairs, windows, corridors—accentuated. Santonja's wonderful sense of light draws out form, plane and color, integrating the Spanish architecture of recent years into a unified artistic and figural project. Through the art of photography, the exhibition presents the most recent international developments in the construction of public and residential buildings: the social, ecological, technological, and experimental. A program of special events, including masterclasses, lectures, and excursions, will be held along with the exhibition to present the various aspects of the project to a wide audience.
Organizers: Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, MA, The Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Embassy of Spain in Moscow, The Cervantes Institute. (Schusev Museum Press-release)
SchusevState Museum of Architecture: 119019, Russia, Moscow, ul. Vozdvizhenka, 5/25
Image: Ricardo Santonja
SANTIAGO DE CHILE. Luis Úrculo "Estados de Reposo" Museo de Arte Contemporáneo
6 september – 9 november, 2014
Luis Urculo (Madrid 1978) lives and works between Madrid and Mexico DF
"My background in architecture has always been a very deep influence and a starting point in the investigation of my work. I am interested in all that is peripheral to architecture, the processes, developments and approaches that can be manipulated, sampled and translated into other scales, adapting to the composition of the project, creating new scenes/ experiences / expectations not contemplated previously.
I work on a redefenition of the possible tools, procedures and formats within architecture. Mainly is an investigation focused on representation and the capture-narrative of the 'invisible' that defines the space. A work not so directly related with the gravity and weight, a value which has been a main unit to measure construction and its mediatic impact on the last decades. Luis Úrculo"
Works exhibited in the XIth Venice Biennial – Spanish pavilion, Montevideo Biennial, MAXXI (Rome), Storefront for Art & Architecture (New York), Tokyo Wonder Site Shibuya (Japan), Lisbon Triennale, Fabrica Features (Lisbon), The Popular Workshop (San Francisco), Sala Gasco (Chile), Dama Aflita Gallery (Porto), Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho (Chile), Centro Cultural de España en Buenos Aires (Argentina), Parque Cultural Valparaiso (Chile), Transculturelles des Abattoirs (Casablanca), National Glyptoteque (Athens), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Bienal Iberoamericana de Medellin, ZonaMACO (México), ArtBasel 2010, CutLog Art Fair FIAC10 (Paris), ArteBA, JustMAD.
MAC, Quinta Normal Av. Matucana 464
http://www.mac.uchile.cl/ http://www.luisurculo.com/blog
Image: "Estados de Reposo" Luis Úrculo
TOKIO. Miguel Ángel García, Carmen Van den Eyenden, Antonio Mesones, Vicky Kylander, Vicky Uslé y Nacho Zubelzu "The Light in the Forest" Instituto Cervantes
19 september – 30 october, 2014
The resting place as a topic of European culture can be reflected in the forest. This is the theme that explores the exhibition, as mysterious space where fantasy is done and has great symbolic.
Encompassed in the programming of the Year Dual Spain-Japan 2013-2014, the exhibition includes works by six artists who live and develop their career in Cantabria: Miguel Angel Garcia, Vicky Kylander, Antonio Inns, Vicky Uslé, Carmen Van Den Eyden and Nacho Zubelzu.
This is the first time in collaboration with the Government of Cantabria and the Association of Contemporary Art Galleries of Cantabria (AGACC), works of these artists travel to Tokyo. (I.Cervantes press-release)
Cervantes Bldg. 2-9 Rokubancho. 102-0085 Chiyoda-ku Tokio
Image: Miguel Ángel García
BRUSSELS. Carles Congost "Bright Like A Diamond" Komplot Gallery
11 september – 29 november, 2014
The Belgian curatorial collective's Alberto García del Castillo has invited artist Carles Congost and creative duo Sarah & Charles to the space to exhibit their recent video works exploring the "blurry almost-kitsch atmosphere on the border between 'I did not want to do that' and 'this is actually how I see it'".
Self-described as an exhibition with the "foundational characteristic of über-felicity" or "a narrative strategy revealing disenchant", Bright Like a Diamond will feature Congost's 2014 single-channel video work The Artist Behind The Aura and Sarah & Charles's latest video titled Props For Drama: Suspension of Disbelief.
With the support of Vlaamse Overheid, Embajada de España en Bruselas - Cooperación Española, Instituto Cervantes de Bruselas, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, Gemeente Vorst, Loterie Nationale and COCOF. (Komplot press-release)
Komplot. 295, Voxemlaan. 1190 Bruselas. (BÉLGICA)
http://www.kmplt.be http://carlescongost.blogspot.com.es
Image: Carles Congost
BEIJING. Perico Pastor "Xi'an-Barcelona-Pekin: Papeer Roads, Rivers of Ink" Instituto Cervantes
24 september 2014 – 22 february, 2015
As part of Beijing Design Week 2014, which is the guest Barcelona city, the Cervantes Institute and the Institut Ramon Llull offer this exhibition, from the perspective of Barcelona artist Perico Pastor, how cultural exchanges established throughout the Silk Road have finished modifying and configuring both the public and private space in European and Chinese cities. With the representation of people, objects and places using the traditional technique of Chinese ink on paper, Perico introduces us to the human landscapes of cities like Barcelona, Beijing and Xi'an, and we discover the nature of its inhabitants: the customs and styles lives of three of the most important urban areas of the planet in the twenty-first century. (I.Cervantes press-release)
Instituto Cervantes , A1 Gongtinanlu, Distrito Chaoyang.100020 Pekín
http://pekin.cervantes.es http://www.perico.net
Image: Xativa. Perico pastor
VIENNA. Joan Miró "From Earth to Sky" Albertina Museum
12 September 2014 - 11 January 2015
With his imaginative pictorial motifs, Joan Miró is one of the most popular artists of the 20th century. The Albertina is dedicating a solo exhibition to the Catalonian artist containing around 100 paintings, drawings and objects, which strives to emphasise the poetic quality of the famous Surrealist.
Miró's painting is characterised by a sense of lightness and spontaneity. He looks upon the world with a carefree, almost childish fascination for all things. His unmistakable pictorial language is as magical as it is universal. Moons, stars and comets, eyes and insects, birds and women populate his paintings and are among the most recognisable elements of his art. Miró's works provide insight into his poetic perception and interpretation of the original, of that which is actually essential in things, the world and the universe. Curator: Dr. Gisela Fischer. Guest Curator: Jean Louis Prat (Albertina press-release)
AlbertinaMuseum. Albertinaplatz 1, 1010Vienna. Austria
Image: Metamorphosis. Joan Miró 1936
SAO PAULO. "How to talk about things that don't exist" 31st Bienal de São Paulo
6 september – 7 december, 2014
The title of the 31st Bienal de São Paulo, How to talk about things that don't exist, is a poetic invocation of art's capacities, of its ability to reflect and act upon on life, power and belief. The sentence, neither a question nor a proposition, entangles, through art, the mystical and spiritual side of life with political and social ideals – all this in a constantly changing world. It intends to communicate optimism about the possibilities of art today – an optimism that echoes that of the Bienal and the projects within it. The range of possibilities for action and intervention is open – an openness that is the reason for the first of the two verbs in the title to constantly change, anticipating the actions that might make present these things that don't exist. We started by talking about them, later to move onto living with them. This was followed by using, struggling against and learning from those same things, in a list that has no end.
The 31st Biennial of São Paulo under the direction of Charles Esche, who along with spanish Pablo Lafuente and Nuria Enguita Mayo, Galit Eilat Oren Sagiv, besides the French commissioners associated curatorial team Benjamin Seroussi and the brazilian Luiza Proenca, selected and monitored a total of 81 projects, collective and individual responsibility, developed by more than 100 participants and totaling about 250 works.
On the Spanish side, you will see projects by Teresa Lanceta (Barcelona, 1951), Pedro G. Romero (Aracena, Huelva, 1964), Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa (San Sebastián, 1963), Asier Mendizabal (Ordizia, Guipúzcoa, 1973) and José Val del Omar. (31 Bienal Sao Paulo press-release)
31 Bienal de Sao Paulo. Bienal Pavilion Av. Pedro Álvares Cabral, Ibirapuera Park, Gate 3
http://www.31bienal.org.br http://www.teresalanceta.com http://www.macba.cat/es/romero-pedro-g http://www.valdelomar.com
Image: 31 Bienal de Sao Paulo.
ROSARIO. Rosana Antolí, Job Ramos and Alex Reynolds "Contarlo todo sin saber cómo" Macro, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo
26 septembre - 04 november, 2014
Contarlo todo sin saber (Telling everything without knowing how) is a curatorial project that is designed as an approach to the idea of narrative quality. It asks what we can and want to tell through art, what role emotions play in narrative and what contents appear in contemporary creation as to fiction, reality, politics and society.
The Macro, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Rosario, is running this project, which was presented in 2013 at the CA2M in Móstoles (go to the project) with the aim of establishing an institutional link between both museums. It is curated by Martí Manem. AC/E is collaborating in the project by supporting the participation of Spanish guest artists Rosana Antolí, Job Ramos and Alex Reynolds. (AC/E press-release)
Macro, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Estanislao López 2250 (Bv. Oroño y el río Paraná) · 2000 Rosario. Argentina
http://www.macromuseo.org.ar http://www.rosanaantoli.com http://www.jobramos.net http://www.alexreynolds.net
Image: Macro.Rosario
GWANGJU. El Último Grito: Rosario Hurtado y Roberto Feo "Gwangju Biennale 2014"
6 September - 3 November, 2014
Under the artistic direction of Jessica Morgan and entitled Burning Down the House, the 2014 Gwangju International Biennale, now in its tenth year, reflects on the events of destruction and self-destruction that are followed by the promise of something new and the hope of change. This year Spain is represented by the design studio El Último Grito formed by Rosario Hurtado and Roberto Feo, who explore our relationship between object and culture through different disciplines and a broad variety of projects.
Throughout the Biennale, the artists examine movement, image, sound and form, presenting a subtle or very prominent smoke motif in different spaces in the manner of a desktop background. In it images and forms are darkened almost to black, and sometimes even disappear.
El Ultimo Grito's work continuously researches our relationships with objects and culture. The studio's output is across a multitude of platforms for an range of international clients, museums and organizations including Magis, Lavazza, Matadero Madrid, Marks & Spencer, Figueras, UNO, LABORAL, Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofia, British Airways, Claudio Buziol Foundation, the Sorrell Foundation and Victoria & Albert Museum. Their work is in the permanent collections of MoMA in New York, Stedelijk in Amsterdam and the V&A in London(AC/E press-release)
Gwangju Biennale 2014. 111 Biennale-ro, yongbong-dong, Buk-gu, Gwangju , 500-845, Republic of Korea
http://www.gwangjubiennale.org/eng http://www.eugstudio.com
Image: "mise en scene" El Último Grito
DALLAS. Luis Vidal: "Encounters" Dallas Center for Architecture
10 september – 31 october, 2014
Spanish architecture firm luis vidal + architects (LVA) will bring its innovative architectural exhibition to the AIA Washington Chapter during the Architecture Week 2014.
Encounters represents an architectural installation created to discover, explore, and display the work of Spanish practice luis vidal + architects (LVA) —a celebration of their vision and main projects over the last ten years, including the soon-to-be-inaugurated Terminal 2 at London's Heathrow Airport, scheduled to open in June 2014.
The exhibition was conceived to create a meditational space in which one may experience the architectural queries and needs of the 21st Century through the critical eye of unconventional architect, Luis Vidal. This is not an architectural exhibition as you have ever seen before. A "vertical garden" planted by hand: the installation (6,000 "flowers", 80 projects, 18 cities) will take the viewer through a personal journey along the conceptual map of Luis Vidal and his collaborators.
About Luis Vidal
Luis Vidal (b. Madrid 1968) studied architecture at the University of Greenwich (London, UK) where he specialized mainly in airports and transport infrastructures and graduated with honors in 1994. In 1995, he was elected the youngest member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
Luis Vidal was project director of the new Terminal T4 for Madrid Barajas Airport, and co-author and director of the new Warsaw International Airport. He has also worked on an additional 24 airport projects. Vidal is the concept and lead architect of the new Terminal 2 at London Heathrow Airport. (SpainArts&Culture press-release)
DallasCenter for Architecture, 1909 Woodall Rodgers Fwy, Dallas, TX.
http://www.luisvidal.com http://dallascfa.com
Image: Luís Vidal + arquitectos (LVA)
WASHINGTON. Pep Carrió e Isidro Ferrer" Think with your hands" Artisphere, Terrace Gallery
19 september – 30 november, 2014
This is an innovative exhibition design that will enable visitors to explore the creative universe of two designers with a renowned career, Pep Carrió and Isidro Ferrer, and also to move around their works through Augmented Reality devices, 2D and 3D animations, video and other multimedia content."Think with your hands" has been designed as an experimental project attempting to explore the possibilities offered by new technologies applied to the sensitive and imaginative world of the works by Isidro Ferrer and Pep Carrió.
The project has been developed by Unit Experimental Publishing, a collective comprising researchers in the Faculty of Fine Arts and the Higher Technical School of Computer Engineering at the UPV.
The exhibition comprises over a hundred works by Pep Carrió and Isidro Ferrer, including drawings, notebooks, collages and objects that, viewed through the touch-sensitive screen of a mobile device, are activated virtually and their contents appear multiplied and extended, sometimes very playfully by means of 3D animations, other times through additional documentation and information, through videos and audio material. "We wanted to investigate the possibilities offered by mobile devices for an exhibition and for this reason we took careful stock in order to imagine all kinds of things or events that might occur when we look at them through screens and bring up other images hidden to the naked eye so as to be able to amplify what we can view at an exhibition", says Nuria Rodríguez, from the Art and Environment Research Centre at the Polytechnic University of Valencia and curator of the exhibition.
"Think with your hands" allow visitors to experiment and view the works by Isidro Ferrer and Pep Carrió differently, but also to envisage other information-rich formats, such as texts by the artists or interviews, and to relate the work on display with other archive images. It is an experiment that attempts to provide an extensive inventory of the potential offered by new technologies for accessing knowledge and enhancing our perception. This exhibit invites visitors to explore works in new ways, transforming illustrations into three dimensional experiences through mobile technology. To that end, Artisphere will be providing iPads for public use when exploring the art, free of charge. Once the exhibit has ended these iPads will be donated to a local school(Artisphere press-release)
Artisphere (Terrace Gallery), 1101 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA 22209
http://artisphere.com http://www.pepcarrio.com/Pensar-con-las-manos
Image: Pep Carrió, Isidro Ferrer.
KÖLN. Mauro Fariñas, Peyrotau & Sediles and Isabel Tallos "Spaces and dreams - Spanish Photography" 100 Kubik Gallery
05th September - 01st November 2014
"Spaces and dreams - Spanish Photography" shows the latest photographic works of Mauro Fariñas (* 1984), Peyrotau & Sediles (* 1975) and Isabel Tallos (* 1984).
The photographs present in unique and very different pictorical solutions of perceiving space, the movement in it and ways of creating new dreams through space.
Mauro Fariñas (Madrid 1984) works with mid-sized formats and an analog camera. For the moment he is not attracted by the digital world and he likes to get into the darkroom to process his own photos. To get there, Mauro Fariñas makes sketches in which he gives expression to the idea of image that he wants to capture. Then he looks for elements that should appear in the scenography: objects, models, props, etc.
The preparation of the photo takes time and consists in meticulous work, because everything has to accord to his plan. Located behind the camera, he shoots and catches that imagined moment.
The atmosphere that the artist achieves with the lighting and treatment of the elements involved in the image, place the viewers in a suspenseful situation, because they tend to expect anything that won't happen. The artist is separated from the discourse of the image and the only connection is the title of the photo, an indication that the artist gives the viewers so that they can complete the rest of his message.
The Works of Aránzazu Peyrotau and Antonio Sediles Zaragoza 1975) bite into pieces the helpless consciences or stroke them without ceremony, with a language that only understands the subconscious of those who look and look again at their pictures. Peyrotau & Sediles create and measure images, giving them perpetuity in the mind, working as tattoo artists on virgin skin. They connect their intuition and shoot, giving an identity to the mind, and a body to the glance, to their dreams. They just do it, attacking the five senses of those who contemplate their works. Because their works smell and taste, and if you approach your ear, they will howl. Keeping this in mind, you could play a guessing game to try to identify the reasons that lead them to create what they create. A mistake! Clever is to enjoy their photos, going directly to the image.
Isabel Tallos (Madrid 1983) is, despite her youth, an established photographer. Her images full of strength and emotion show an impossible universe of great austerity in the mainly use of white. She likes to investigate in the field of illusory sensations. (100 kubik press release)
100 Kubik Gallery. Mohren Str. 21 50670 Köln
http://www.100kubik.de http://www.isabeltallos.com http://www.peyrotau-sediles.com
Image: Puente sobre el Danúbio. Isabel Tallos, 2010
HAMBURG. Toni Barrero & Ñaco Fabré "Art balear – encuentros" Kunstforum Markert
04 september - 30 november, 2014
The Cervantes Institute in cooperation with the Hamburg art gallery Kunstforum Markert Hamburg presents the exhibition of artists from Mallorca Toni Barrero (Soller, 1970) and Ñaco Fabré (Palma de Mallorca, 1965). Trained at the School of Arts and Crafts in Palma, Ñaco Fabré then extends his studies with painters Juan José Deudero and Ellis Jacobson and trips to London, Venice and Paris. His work has been exhibited in Palma, Madrid, Bordeaux and Cologne among other cities. He has been awarded the Premi Ciutat de Palma (2000) and in 2008 he was appointed professor at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Sebastian. Toni Barrero (Soller, 1970) has presented three solo exhibitions at Centre d'Art Contemporary Addaya Alaro (Mallorca) and numerous group exhibitions: Trentapertrenta in different editions of graphic or ImatgesRaonades among others. He also exhibited his works in the gallery Artara Mahon, forming part of the exhibition Amb Menorca to cap, and has participated in various art fairs and at Room Art Fair in Madrid. .( Kunstforum Markert press-release))
Kunstforum Markert Gruppe. Droopweg 31, 20537 Hamburg
http://www.kunstforum-markert.de http://www.tonibarrero.com http://ñacofabre.es
KÖLN. Jordi Urbón "Photography: Heroes" 100 Kubik Gallery
05th september - 01st november 2014
Jordi Urbón (Puigcerdá 1955) is the winner of the IV.bienal competition of the gallery 100 kubik.
Urbón creates in his computer generated images fictional worlds in which his "heroes" seem a little foolish but also something profound poetic.
Classical pictorial media as painting ecco in Urbons works, but are replaced by new artistic strategies, media and methods of work. (100 kubik press-release)
100 Kubik, Mohren Str. 21.50670 Köln
http://jordiurbon.com http://www.100kubik.de
Image: Jordi Urbón
AHMEDABAD. Taller La Casquería "Live Architecture" XII BEAU. Bienal Española de Arquitectura y Urbanismo
01 november – 31 december 2014
Since the year of its establishment, the Spanish Architecture and Town Planning Biennial – Bienal Española de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, formerly the Spanish Architecture Biennial – has been incorporating into its overall programme a number of specifically architecture-related activities organised by the various collaborating institutions and a travelling exhibition which each year features the works that are shortlisted and win awards in each of the categories on account of their qualities.
The theme of the 2013 biennial was 'Inflexión/Turning Point', and the award-winning and shortlisted projects focused on rehabilitation, a town planning based on change, and an architecture that is environmentally friendly and not costly to maintain.
As a result of this call and of the selected works, the Ministry of Development, with the collaboration of AC/E, is organising and producing the Live Architecture exhibition designed by the young architects' studio Taller de Casquería.
Live Architecture shows the award-winning architecture from a close and dynamic approach. The centrepiece of the exhibition is a major video installation that conveys not only the value of the prize-winning projects but also how they are used and experienced and how they behave over time, in daylight and with night illumination. Its design allows it to be shown simultaneously in several cities and in different formats.
The exhibition project was presented at the 12th Spanish Architecture and Town Planning Biennial (BEAUXII). Its aim is to make known the award-winning architecture in use, by showing the different stages of activity and how spaces are understood through their users. The focal point of the exhibition space is a black box with a large screen that displays all the information. All the buildings selected by the biennial are shown, evidencing their relations and unique features. Cross-cutting readings are made as equivalent or contrasting situations appear and are related on the screen. Management software was specially developed for this purpose to coordinate the different live entries in relation to the pool of recorded videos. A red light. . (AC/E press release)
Ahmedabad. India
http://tallerdecasqueria.com http://www.accioncultural.es
Imagen: XII Bienal de Arquitectura
FLORENCE. "Picasso and Spanish modernity" Palazzo Strozzi
20 september 2014 – 21 february 2015
As of 20 September 2014 Palazzo Strozzi in Florence will be focusing on modern art once again with a major new event devoted to one of the greatest masters of 20th century painting, Pablo Picasso.
The exhibition will present a broad selection of works by this great master of modern art in an effort to stimulate a reflection on his influence and interaction with such leading Spanish artists as Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Juan Gris, Maria Blanchard and Julio González: art reflecting on art and on the relationship between the real and the surreal, the artist's heartfelt involvement in the tragedy of unfolding history, the emergence of the monster with a human face, and the metaphor of erotic desire as a primary source of inspiration for the artist's creativity and world vision.
Picasso and Spanish Modernity will be showing some ninety works by Picasso and other artists, ranging from painting to sculpture, drawing, engraving and even film, thanks to the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi's synergistic cooperation with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. The works of art on display will include such celebrated masterpieces as Woman's Head (1910), Portrait of Dora Maar (1939) and The Painter and the Model (1963) by Picasso, Siurana, the Path (1917) and Figure and Bird in the Night (1945) by Miró and Dalí's Arlequin (1927), along with Picasso's drawings, engravings and preparatory paintings for his huge masterpiece Guernica (1937), none of which have been displayed outside Spain in such vast numbers before now.
Organised by Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía. Curated by Eugenio Carmona (Palazzo Strozzi press-release)
Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi - piazza Strozzi 50123 Firenze
Image: Pablo Picasso. El pintor y la modelo (The Painter and The Model), 1963. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid
MARSEILLE. Adriá Juliá "Ce que raconte la solitude" Le Cartel de la Friche
31 August - 21 December 2014
This is a group exhibition in which AC/E is supporting the participation of Spaniard Adrià Julià along with artists Bas Jan Ader, Meris Angioletti, Ali Cherri, André Cadere, Mathis Collins, Alighiero Boetti, Jimmie Durham, Naufus Ramirez-Figueroa, Julia Meltzer and David Thorne with Rami Farah, Gilad Ratman, Olve Sande, Benjamin Valenza, Guido van der Werve, Nancy Spero and writer Golan Haji.
The exhibition, curated by Elena Lydia Scipioni (Rome, 1979), explores the history of the artists and intellectuals who sought refuge in Marseilles when the Second World War broke out, and waited for an opportunity to escape to North America. In 1941, they stayed at the Villa Air Bel, where André Breton and a group of surrealists – Victor Brauner, Oscar Domínguez, Jaques Harold, André Masson and Frederic Delanglade – created a deck of hybrid cards (a mixture of traditional playing cards and tarot cards) known as 'Le Jue de Marseille' as entertainment. These cards are now held in the Musée Cantini, and are being shown especially on this occasion.
In this context Adrià Juliá (Barcelona, 1974) has been invited to create a new work based on Siegfried Kracauer's texts – 'Two planes', written in 1926, 'Apparition at Le Cannebière' (1928 / 1931) – and Walter Benjamin's texts 'Marseille' and 'Hashish'. Julià explores the spatial, social and geometric relations that Karacauser describes around a square in Marseilles, but without disclosing its exact location or name. The text describes the square, which is now unknown or has disappeared, as an everyday, controlled theatrical space. It can also be found in the text written by Walter Benjamin on Marseilles and even in the letters exchanged by the two abovementioned authors. Julià treats this square as a space for speculation and promotion, with different interlinked stories and chronologies. For this purpose he has made a film that is projected in the exhibition space and refers to the architectural framework dealt with in Kracauer's text. Julià sets out to make a slight shift in the focus of historical references in order to highlight the key role played by Marseilles. (AC Española press-release)
Le Cartel de la Friche, 41 rue Jobin - 13003 Marseille
Image: Adriá Juliá
BALTIMORE. Colective mmm.."Bus Stop" S. East Avenue
july 19 – december 31, 2014
As part of the project TRANSIT- Creative Placemaking with Europe in Baltimore, the Spanish artist collective mmmm… has created a fun and interactive bus shelter in S. East Avenue, Highlandtown A&E District, right next to the Creative Alliance.
This is a bus stop that you can't miss. It consists of three large sculptures that form the letters B U S. Each letter stands 14 feet tall and 7 feet wide and it's made with wood and steel. The artist collective mmmm... has created a place for the community to enjoy, interact, and meet while waiting for the bus. They have transformed the experience of waiting for the bus to an entertaining, leisurely space in the middle of the lively rhythm of Highlandtown.
mmmm… is a collaboration between Emilio Alarcón, Alberto Alarcón, Ciro Márquez and Eva Salmerón, who have been creating projects for public spaces since 1998 in Madrid, Spain. They have arranged 100 couples kissing simultaneously throughout the crowds of the city center. Noise levels on the streets unexpectedly plummeted during that moment of mass intimacy. They have scattered members of an orchestra that played the same music simultaneously on various streets. Pedestrians experienced the music differently depending on which street they walked past, the speed at which they walked, and by which direction they were headed.
They have also built the Meeting Bowls in Times Square (New York), large objects shaped like bowls with seating to accommodate eight people. They constructed temporary and playful urban furniture, designed to promote interaction by having those seated inside face one another. The Meeting Bowls were social places for gathering and getting to know people.
TRANSIT – Creative Placemaking with Europe is an initiative of the Washington DC cluster of the EU National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) and the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts (BOPA), supported by a grant from the European Union. TRANSIT is supported by the British Council, Goethe-Institut, SPAIN arts & culture, the Embassies of Austria, Greece, Ireland, Finland and Poland. (Spain arts&culture press-release)
Bus Stop, S. East Avenue, Highlandtown A & E District
http://www.mmmm.tv http://europeinbaltimore.org
Image: Bus Stop. mmm..
YOKOHAMA. Dora García y Karmelo Bermejo "Yokohama Triennale 2014" Yokohama Museum of Art
august 1st – november 3th, 2014
ART Fahrenheit 451: Sailing into the sea of oblivion (ART Fahrenheit 451: navegando hacia el mar del olvido) es el título de esta edición de la Trienal de Yokohama, que empezó en 2001.
Es considerada una de las exposiciones más importantes de arte contemporáneo en Asia y pionera en Japón. Con el artista Morimura Yasumasa, como director artístico, la trienal se inicia en agosto y termina en noviembre de 2014, y se ubica en dos sedes principales: el Yokohama Museum of Art y el Shinko Pier Exhibition Hall. Los organizadores son la Ciudad de Yokohama, la Yokohama Arts Foundation, Japan Broadcasting Corporation, Asahi Shimbun, y el Comité Organizador de la Trienal de Yokohama (Organizing Committee for Yokohama Triennale).
El título proviene de la novela de Ray Bradbury "Fahrenheit 451". La historia trata de un grupo de gente que se resiste a la sociedad que prohíbe y quema libros, memorizando sus textos completos en un intento de traspasar secretamente la sabiduría que contienen. Ellos eligen ser "olvidados" por la sociedad, manteniendo una inmensa cantidad de memoria extraída de los libros. Esta exposición busca introducir obras de arte que compartan este espíritu y actitud más allá de generaciones y fronteras. Una selección de 70 artistas componen la exposición y todos los artistas han sido elegidos en base a aproximadamente 10 capítulos propuestos por el director artístico.
Entre los artistan seleccionados están los españoles Dora García y Karmelo Bermejo, que cuentan con el apoyo del programa PICE de AC/E para la internacionalización de la cultura española. (AC/E pres.-release)
YokohamaMuseum of Art, 3-4-1,MINATOMIRAI,NISHI-KU,YOKOHAMA 220-0012 JAPAN.
http://www.yokohamatriennale.jp http://www.karmelobermejo.com http://doragarcia.org
Image: Blank 2013, Karmelo Bermejo
ALBI. Angel Vergara "Fin'Amor" Centre d´art Le Lait
july 5 - october 31, 2014
The relationships with love, desire and sexuality reveal lifestyles, civilizations and historical periods. The subject of Vergara's solo exhibition Fin'Amor is courtly love; love in all its artistique, cultural and ideological guises, from the Middle Ages up to present day, between popular art and mass culture, between dominant culture and counterculture.
Angel Vergara (Mieres 1958) his work is a continued research into the power of the image. By means of performances, videos, installations and paintings he tests the limits of art and reality. He questions the way the contemporary image shapes our own reality. Every work is an attempt to break through the image and to make its impact come to the surface on an aesthetic as well as a socio-cultural and political level. Decontextualized images of reality are mediated by the artist and transformed into art. Vergara's work is the result of a constant dialogue between the artist, the ever transforming reality and its image. He creates a kind of reality "in-between". In this process the viewer is encouraged to question his way of perceiving the everyday and the way it is presented to him in an avalanche of images. Also, the position of the artist himself is questioned. How can he fill the gap between what is real and what is art? How can he make reality enter art and art enter back into reality?. Curator: Jackie-Ruth Meyer. (CA Le Lait press release)
Centre d'art Le LAIT, Moulins Albigeois, 41 rue Porta. 81000 Albi. France
MÉXICO. Isabel Muñoz "Childhood" Centro Cultural de España
july 22 - november 9, 2014
In 1989 the Convention on the Rights of the Childhood, defines the basic human rights that correspond to children anywhere and at any situation. However abuse, violence, malnutrition, sexual exploitation and slavery continue checking the lives of many children.
This exhibition of the spanish photographer Isabel Muñoz portrays these situations in 20 countries on 5 continents. There are 20 photographs that reveal the marked cultural differences and the lack of protection that many children suffering in the world. For the Children project, the winner of the Medal of Merit in Fine Arts Award Photo Spain and Spain, joined his gaze to the work of the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation for Development (AECID) and Unicef, promoters of the project.
Isabel Muñoz (Barcelona 1951) Spanish photographer who has featured in contemporary photographic field for its technical (using platinotype and large format), like its subject: the body, eroticism, dance, rural tribes and urban and children, among others; establishing, through his eyes, a social commitment. He has won various awards and most notably Bartolomé Ros Award for his entire career in PhotoEspaña 2009, the Gold Medal in Fine Arts 2009 and obtaining two-time World Press Photo and the National Award Unicef Spain 2010 at the Advocacy and Social Mobilization and COVET Foundation award. His work is in collections of the National Museum Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Photo Colectania, Fundación Canal Madrid, Maison Européenne de la Photographie and New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. (CCEMX press-release)
Centro Cultural de España en México, Pasaje cultural Guatemala 18-Donceles 97
Colonia Centro Delegación Cuauhtémoc. C.P. 06010 México, D.F. http://ccemx.org http://www.isabelmunoz.es
Image: Isabel Muñoz.
LONDON. Joan Fontcuberta "Stranger than Fiction" Media Space Gallery
23 july - 9 november 2014
An eye-opening collection of photographs and artefacts is set to intrigue visitors to the Science Museum this summer as Media Space stages the first major UK exhibition by award-winning Catalan artist Joan Fontcuberta.
Fontcuberta subtly questions the use of the photographic image as evidence, by combining visually compelling and mischievous narratives with an acute, deadpan humour.
With highlights including astonishing photographs of mermaid fossils and incredible reports on mysterious fauna, Stranger Than Fiction presents six conceptually independent narratives from Fontcuberta's body of work; a visual universe in which the real and the imagined combine to startling effect.
Co-curated by the artist with Greg Hobson, Curator of Photographs at the National Media Museum, the exhibition will feature some of Fontcuberta's best-known works, including photographs, film, dioramas, scientific reports and related ephemera to form the second show in the Science Museum's 550m² Media Space gallery.
Joan Fontcuberta, born in Barcelona in 1955, artist, teacher, writer and curator Joan Fontcuberta is one of the most significant figures in contemporary photography. After beginning his career in advertising, he went on to teach in the faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona, as well as numerous other institutions including Harvard University. He co-founded PhotoVision magazine in 1980 and has many other publications to his name. He was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture in 1994, received the 1998 National Prize in Photography from the Spanish Ministry of Culture, the National Prize in Culture for Visual Arts from the Catalan Government and was last year chosen as the recipient of the Hasselblad International Award in Photography.(I.Ramón Llull press-release)
Stranger Than Fiction is presented in collaboration with the Government of Catalonia, organiser of the Catalan Tercentenary programme.
London's Media Space, Science Museum. Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London, SW7 2DD
http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk http://www.fontcuberta.com
Image: Joan Fontcuberta
SÈTE. Miró "Towardsthe infinitely free, to the infinitely large" Paul Valery Museum
20 june– 9 novembre, 2014
The exhibition "Miró. Towards the infinitely free, to the infinitely large 'open at the Museum Paul Valéry, a set of 70 works in various stages, reflect the character of this artist who always considered free when imagining and creating a rich universe symbolic with a unique style.
Joan Miró was born April 20, 1893 in Barcelona. He died December 25, 1983 at Calamayor near Palma de Mallorca.
A major figure of twentieth century art, Joan Miro assert throughout his life an absolute freedom avoiding any agreement - Cubist, Surrealist, Abstract - that could lock him up. For six decades, the Catalan artist author of a language of signs of great wealth, painter and poet, engraver prolific, sculptor, ceramicist, illustrator and designer of sets and costumes for stage, will invent his world.
At 14, he studied at the Art School of Llotja. From 1912 to 1915,he enrolled in art school anti-academic Francesc Gali and devoted himself entirely to painting. By the early 20s, he shared this year between Paris and Mont-Roig, near Tarragona, and often very quickly the Surrealist group. In a continuing effort to pictorial research, he realized, by 1929, its construction, three-dimensional works made with wood, iron, objects founded, cut and assembled to announce his sculptures.
In 1940 he began work in ceramics, in Barcelona, with his friend Llorens Artigas (many vases and plates enamelled). Then he made his first sculptures in bronze and terra cotta. Exhibited in major museums, two foundations open to the public now bear his name.
Musée Paul Valéry, 148, Rue Fançois Desnoyer, 200 Sète
Image: Joan Miró
CHICAGO. Jaume Plensa "1004 Portraits" Millennium Park
18 june 2014 - december 2015
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Jaume Plensa's Crown Fountain, the artist presents four monumental sculptures installed in Millennium Park for this special exhibition, 1004 Portraits. The sculptures are portraits of young girls created in cast iron and resin; they continue the story of the original 1000 portraits of local Chicago residents that illuminate the Crown Fountain every day. (Millennium Park press-release)
MillenniumPark. 201 E. Randolph St., between Michigan Ave. & Columbus Ave. Chicago, IL 60602
http://jaumeplensa.com http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/millennium_park0.html
Image: Jaume Plensa
AUGSBURG. Jaume Plensa "The secret Heart" H2 Centre for Contemporary Art in the Glaspalast and Augsburg-Oberhausen gasworks
7 June 2014 – 30 january, 2015
Following an invitation by the Kunstsammlungen und Museen Augsburg, the Catalan artist Jaume Plensa designed a project for an extensive exhibition at three locations in Augsburg. The project's centrepiece is The Secret Heart / Das Geheimherz in the gasometer of the Augsburg-Oberhausen gasworks. Here, Plensa has installed a monumental suspended heart with an accompanying sound installation, giving a new meaning to this industrial space. When he first saw this space, in the disc-type gas holder, Plensa was both fascinated and daunted. Its massive dimensions presented a huge challenge: how could a contemporary artist fill such a space? Can art overcome the artificiality of this space? Would what is technically possible be at all compatible with the artist's creative ideas? Plensa's spectacular heart is the emphatic response to such questions. This creation, reminiscent of an anatomical model of a heart, forms the crystallising centre of Plensa's artistic deliberations, which seek to represent society as a complex image or symbol. The 'secret heart' is enclosed, or wrapped, in the steel cylinder of the building, in the interior of which the pulse of society becomes visible and audible. With this artistic concept, Plensa on the one hand takes up elements already present in his work to date, but the sculptural motif of the heart appears here for the first time.
Plensa's work is always location-specific. He analyses the locations he uses for his installations, gets a sense of their specific features and integrates them into his works, drawing artistic energy from the place itself. This reciprocal relationship between place and artwork is also evident in his installation Void – Air – Water in the ballroom of the Schaezlerpalais, the second exhibition location in Augsburg, where Plensa has arranged three sitting figures, illuminated in changing colours from the inside. The three figures are related to their theatrical context in the rococo ballroom and respond to it in a contemporary way. Finally, in the great hall of the H2 Centre for Contemporary Art in the Glaspalast, Plensa presents sculptures whose common formal feature is the letter, for example his Self-Portrait of 2013, a globe inside which the sitting artist sculpturally constructs himself, or Talking Continents (2013), a series of floating figures composed of letters which interact with the situation, the light and the breadth of the room. The artist describes his Augsburg project as a grown trinity, as moments of the emotional (gasometer), the rational (Schaezlerpalais) and the intellectual (H2), which come together to form an organic whole. (H2 press-release)
H2 – Zentrum für Gegenwartskunst im Glaspalast. Beim Glaspalast 1 D-86153 Augsburg. Germany
http://jaumeplensa.com http://www.kunstsammlungen-museen.augsburg.de
Image: "The secret Heart" Jaume Plensa
NEW YORK. Laura F. Gibellini "Dom (Variations)" Fresh Pond Road, Seneca Avenue and Forest Avenue Stations (M line).
june 17 – december 31, 2014
The project consists of a mosaic mural and twelve laminated windows located at the Fresh Pond Road, Seneca Avenue and Forest Avenue Stations (M line).
Dom (Variations) appears as an apparition at the Fresh Pond Station a warm and inviting bedroom welcoming commuters to their home station. A neat bed, wallpapered wall, firm pillows and shiny furniture complete the scene. The artist's intent is to reflect the path that flows from within the interior space of a cozy home to the exterior world, tracing the daily commute to work and the return home.
Based on the concept of "home," the mosaic mural, located across from the mezzanine entrance, depicts a lived in domestic interior scene, complete with scattered garments, books and a floor lamp. The pattern of the wallpaper on the bedroom's back wall derives from a map, while natural elements like tree-leaves and branches invade the room, and seem to themselves form into wallpaper. The image of a window within the mosaic emulates the real windows in the next two stations. Overall, the work seeks to inspire an ethereal and dreamy atmosphere that evokes memories of the past and of a dreamed home.
Laura F. Gibellini(Madrid 1978) is a visual artist and theorist whose work grapples with the notion of 'place' and what it means to inhabit the world. She is especially concerned with the emergence of specific places in the interstice between ideal and factual gestures, in the gap between conceptualization and practice. In her work, Gibellini pays particular attention to the conditions in which, at a given moment, specific artworks find their expression and manifest themselves. This places emphasis in the (thinking) process and how the artwork may appear as a result or residue of such development.
Gibellini's art practice involves substantial investigation in a variety of disciplines and extends to the field of writing. She uses drawing, collage, photography and video and, at times, she produces site-specific installations. (ISCP press-release)
Commissioned and owned by MTA Arts for Transit & Urban Design
Fresh Pond, Seneca Avenue and Forest Avenue Stations (M Line), Queens, NY
http://www.laurafgibellini.com http://www.iscp-nyc.org
Image: Laura F. Gibellini
NEW YORK. Beatriz Meseguer and Raúl Valverde "Videorover: Seasson 8" NURTUREart
20 june – 21 november,
2014 NURTUREart is pleased to present Videorover: Season 8, curated by Rachel Steinberg and featuring works by Spanish artists Beatriz Meseguer, Sofia Quirno, and Raul Valverde, along with Dave Greber, Victoria Keddie, Derek Larson, Brendan Lee, Alona Rodeh, and Adam Douglas Thompson.
Videorover, NURTUREart's dedicated video program, aims at becoming an ever-expanding forum for emerging and underrepresented artists working in video. This season's video works explore the idea of video as installation, highlighting the immersive potential that time based media hold. Through audio and visual tools and using the body as a reference point, this exhibition aims to interrupt our exteroceptive senses. For three weeks in June, Videorover: Season 8 will take over NURTUREart's main gallery space; opening in shifts for a series of three consecutive installations. Each installation will feature three of the selected artists, to allow for the works to expand in the space, while still in dialogue with the larger group of works.
On June 20, the second selection will open, featuring artists Beatriz Meseguer, Alona Rodeh, and Raul Valverde, whose works are centered on conditions of light and absence as a common ground. Architectural in nature, the focus of this group turns to the empty gallery space, where small interventions create chaos in the truancy of human interference. Here, the unnoticed subtleties of a gallery become the center of our attention. The resulting calm is enveloping, shifting our perspective to the architectural.. Beatriz Meseguer (b. 1981, Murcia, Spain) received a B.J. in Journalism from the Complutense University of Madrid, and studied at the EFTI International School of Photography in Madrid, and the School of Visual Arts in New York, where she currently lives. Since 2011, she has been experimenting with installation, photography and video. Her artwork is focused on constructing analogies and semantic games with a strong conceptual force. Her pieces and installations, often created from simple everyday objects, acquire a strong poetic sense through the use of small interventions. An attention for the essence of things as well as the importance of language, are prominent in her artistic practice. Space, memory, and transformation processes, are recurring themes in her work.
Raúl Valverde (b. 1980, Madrid, Spain. Lives and works in New York) received a BFA from Complutense University in Madrid, an MA from Central Saint Martins, London, and a MFA from School of Visual Arts, New York.
Raúl Valverde examines his own activity as an artist through the use of irony, appropriation, and illusion. The context in which his work is produced and displayed is a pivotal component to his projects, which overtly explore the relations between space and temporarily. He uses a variety of artistic media ranging from installation, video and digital animation to sculpture, drawing, photography, and publications. (NURTUREart press-release)
NURTUREart. 56 Bogart St. Brooklyn, NY 11206
http://nurtureart.org http://www.beatrizmeseguer.com http://www.valverderaul.com
Image: NURTUREart. New York
St. PETERSBURG. Juan Muñoz and Jordi Colomer "MANIFIESTA 10" State Hermitage Museum
28 june – 31 october, 2014
Manifesta is a European contemporary art biennial that takes place in a different city every two years. In 2014 Manifesta will be held in St Petersburg, the main venue being the Hermitage, which is furthermore celebrating its 250th anniversary. The curator of this year's event, German Kasper König, has made a very small selection of artists in comparison to previous years, including two Spanish artists: the deceased Juan Muñoz and Jordi Colomer. AC/E is collaborating in the project to exhibit the works of both.
Juan Muñoz (Madrid 1953 – 2001) His first exhibition was in 1984 in the Fernando Vijande galleryy of Madrid. Since then, his works have been frequently exhibited in Europe and other parts of the world. At the beginning of the 1990s, Juan Muñoz began breaking the rules of traditional sculpture by sculpting works in a "narrative" manner which consisted of creating smaller than life-size figures in an atmosphere of mutual interaction. Muñoz's sculptures often invite the spectator to relate to them, making the viewer feel as if they have discreetly become a part of the work of art. His slate-gray or wax-colored monochromee figures create a sort of discreetness due to their lack of individuality, but that absence of individuality questions the viewer, perhaps even so much as to make the viewer uncomfortable. When asked his occupation, Muñoz would respond simply that he was a "storyteller."
Jordi Colomer was born in Barcelona in 1962. He presently lives and works between Barcelona and Paris. Enjoying a gifted and marked sculptural sense, his work spans many mediums, centring on photography, video and the staging of both in exhibition areas. Often the creation of situations -befitting a kind of "expanded theatre"- allows the spectator to assess his/her relationship with the productions and his/her role in and before these. (Manifiesta 10 press-release)
StateHermitage Museum, Palace Square, 2, St Petersburg, Russia, 190000
http://www.hermitagemuseum.org http://manifesta.org/tag/manifesta-foundation
Image. Juan Muñoz, Jordi Colomer
VENICE. Ricardo Boffil "Towards biology, Time Space Existence" Palazzo Bembo, Venice Architecture Biennale
07 june – 23 november, 2014
The exhibition presents an architectural narrative based on La Fabrica the firm's well-known headquarters in a former cement factory in Barcelona. The exhibition extends the space far beyond its physical existence in Spain, to consider how it can also exist in other places, most specifically in Venice. Drawing upon past, present, and future similarities between Barcelona and Venice, the exhibition will reimagine La Fabrica as the Venice-based starting point of a communal/ individual journey and thought process that transcends physical and mental frames. (R.Boffil. Taller de Arquitectura press-release)
Palazzo Bembo, located at Riva del Carbon, 4793- 4785, Venezia 30124.
http://www.ricardobofill.com venice architecture biennale
Image: W Hotel, Barcelona. Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura
VENICE. "Grafting Architecture. Catalonia at Venice" Collateral event, 14th.Venice Biennale Architecture
7 June – 23 November
Catalonia returns to the Eventi Collaterali of the 14th Venice Biennale of Architecture with the project Arquitectures Empeltades/Grafting Architecture curated by Josep Torrents i Alegre together with associate curators Guillem Carabí Bescós and Jordi Ribas Boldú.
Casa Bofarull by Josep Maria Jujol (Tarragona, 1879 – Barcelona, 1949) is the starting point for understanding an architectural approach present in many buildings where the architect is faced with a pre-existing feature (physical or otherwise) and blends the new and old layers to beget a new architecture that is able to combine them harmoniously. The proposal will show the process and perception of a series of examples of Catalan architecture that begins with Jujol's work. (Venice Biennale press-release)
Cantieri Navali, Castello, 40 (San Piero di Castello)
http://www.llull.cat http://labiennale.org
VENICE. "Absorbing Modernity: 1914-2014" Spanish Pavilion. 14th. Venice Biennale. Architecture
7 june – 23 november, 2014
This year's biennale, based on the theme of 'Fundamentals', will focus on History, the constant features of architecture and the developments witnessed in the past hundred years in national architecture, which has evolved towards an interchangeable and global style.
Greater coordination and coherence will be sought between the National Pavilions, which will base their work on a single theme – 'Absorbing Modernity: 1914–2014.
The Spanish Pavilion will examine the concept of 'Interior' as the overall theme of the pavilion. As the curator Iñaki Ábalos explains, 'there is no architecture without an interior; there is no idea of architecture if there is no thought of interior in all aspects. The interior speaks of space, and space is, by definition, the theme of architecture.'
The result of exploring the central theme of 'Interior' will be approached as an investigation through different examples of Spanish contemporary architecture that evidence one of the distinguishing features of its identity and essential core: the need to understand or interpret it as an environmental construction. References from our modern history such as Coderch, Oiza and Sota, and works by earlier architects like Gaudí and Guastavino already pointed to this specificity and are essential to understanding many of the architectural designs that will be shown in Venice. (AC Española press-release)
Spanish Pavilion, Pavilion at Giardini Biennale di Venezia
http://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture http://www.accioncultural.es
NEW YORK. Juanli Carrión "Outer Seed Shadow #01" SoHo's Duarte Square
27 may – 10 november, 2014
In May 2014 Outer Seed Shadow #01 (OSS#01), a new public art exhibition by Spanish artist Juanli Carrión (Yecla, Spain 1982), will explore the realities of contemporary immigration in the form of a community garden installed in SoHo's Duarte Square.
The 2,000 square foot garden will be in the shape of Manhattan and will feature dozens of plants selected by immigrants. The plants will be placed according to the interviewee's real-life location on the island. Milagros, a Harlem resident, chose a palm tree from the Dominican Republic; Monroe on the Lower East Side selected English bluebells; and Clara chose Indonesian bamboo to represent her SoHo neighborhood, all of which will share the same intimate green space. OSS #01 will represent New York City's diverse immigrant communities and their experiences, and will simultaneously activate an underused public plaza at the foot of the Avenue of the Americas.
After years of living in New York, Spanish artist Juanli Carrión conceived of OSS#01 in 2012 when he started to consider permanent residence in the US. He wanted to revisit the long-established idea of the American "melting pot" and investigate the new realities of immigrant life in 2014, particularly in New York, the most symbolic of immigrant cities. Carrion conducted a series of on-camera interviews with immigrants living throughout Manhattan,performed in the comfort of their own homes,about their personal experiences of arriving in the city. At the end of the discussion, each interviewee selected a plant that exists both in their country of origin and the United States, which will represent them and their community in the public garden. (Outer Seed Shadow press-release)
Duarte Square at the corner of 6th Ave & Canal St, New York, NY 10013
http://www.outerseedshadow.org/ http://www.juanlicarrion.com
Image: Juanli Carrión
ISTAMBUL. Manolo Valdes "Paintings and Sculptures" Pera Museum
8 May - 21 July 2013
A leading figure of contemporary art, Manolo Valdés will be at Pera Museum between 8 May and 21 July 2013 with a selection of works that extend from the 1980s to the present. Following the dissolution of Equipo Crónica, the pioneering group of Pop art in Spain, which he cofounded, Valdés continued his career solo as of 1981. His works derive their strength from the masterpieces of the past, bear historic clues, colors, and textures, and make strong references to art history, carrying traces that extend from Velázquez to Zurbarán, and from Matisse to Picasso and Lichtenstein. Stripping a painting from its original context and reinterpreting it through pop art, the artist primarily focuses on figures, objects, and series.
Pera Museum, Meşrutiyet Caddesi No.65. 34443 Tepebaşı - Beyoğlu - İstanbul
Image. Manolo Valdés/marlborough gallery