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Longitudes cuts across Latitudes’ projects and research with news, updates, and reportage.
Wolfgang Tillmans’ “Truth Study Center (NY)” (2010)
Mon, Dec 11 2023
The cover of “The Last Observer” featured Wolfgang Tillmans’s “Truth Study Center (NY)”. Issue 6 of the catalogue-in-progress of “The Last Newspaper” (New Museum, 2010). Edited by Latitudes.
For ”The Last Observer”, the sixth of the ten issues of “The Last Newspaper” (pdf here), we commissioned then-writer Lorena Muñoz-Alonso to interview artist Wolfgang Tillmans about his work “Truth Study Center (NY)” (2010). Tillmans’ work shared the floor with our temporary office and is a project he began in 2005 with a show at his London gallery Maureen Paley.
Forward ten years. In 2021, the interview “Is This True or Not?” was included in the 352-page reader “Wolfgang Tillmans: A Reader” (ISBN 9781633451124), published on the occasion of his retrospective “To Look Without Fear” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and edited by Roxana Marcoci and Phil Taylor – see pages 171 to 173.
We recently received a request to use our Tillmans’s New Museum installation photograph in the highly anticipated publication “Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance” (Verso Books) by our former teacher, and now professor in the Ph.D. Program in Art History at CUNY Graduate Center in New York, Dr. Claire Bishop.
Cover of the forthcoming book “Disordered Attention: How We Look at Art and Performance” (Verso Books, 2024).
Photo: LeBal Books here.
Forward ten years. In 2021, the interview “Is This True or Not?” was included in the 352-page reader “Wolfgang Tillmans: A Reader” (ISBN 9781633451124), published on the occasion of his retrospective “To Look Without Fear” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and edited by Roxana Marcoci and Phil Taylor – see pages 171 to 173.
(Above and below) Wolfgang Tillmans, “Truth Study Center, 2005–”, installation view at the New Museum, 2010. Photos: Latitudes, Barcelona. Courtesy the artist and Maureen Paley Gallery.
In “Disordered Attention...”, Bishop “identifies trends in contemporary practice – research-based installations, performance exhibitions, interventions, and invocations of modernist architecture – and their challenges to traditional modes of attention. Charting a critical path through the last
three decades, Bishop pinpoints how spectatorship and visual literacy are evolving under the pressures of digital technology.”
The book will be available from June 2024. An excerpt was published in Artforum in April 2023, titled “Information Overload”.
RELATED CONTENT:
- Night at the (New) Museum, 11 Dec 2010
- At Last...The Last Newspaper catalogue!, 10 Dec 2010
- 'THE LAST OBSERVER' AVAILABLE NOW! #6 issue of the 10 Latitudes-edited newspapers for 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition, New Museum, 10 Nov 2010
- Max Andrews reviews in frieze: ‘A Provisional History of the Technical Image, 1844–2018’ (LUMA Foundation, Arlès) and Pere Llobera's ‘Acció’ (Bombon Projects, Barcelona) and ‘Kill Your Darlings’ (Sis Galería, Sabadell), 4 January 2019
Latitudes hosts the MA Curating Contemporary Art students of the Royal College of Art in Barcelona
Tue, Oct 7 2014 |
| Photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption). |
This morning we had an informal discussion with second-year students of the Royal College of Art's MA Curating Contemporary Art programme to present and reflect on our collaborations with three Barcelona-based artists – Martí Anson, Ignasi Aballí and Francesc Ruiz. It was an opportune moment to reconsider the old chestnut of "the artist-curator relationship" and the important role of artist advocacy and friendship in curatorial work.
Our first case study was with Martí Anson and was in the context of our participation in the 2010 iteration of 'No Soul for Sale – A Festival of Independents' at Tate Modern, coinciding with Tate's 10th anniversary. In our presentation we discussed how Martí's project "Mataró Chauffeur Service" began by the simple need for us to get to London and present our projects in the festival context, how we worked together with Martí in thinking which was the best format for the project to develop considering all the budget would have to be raised and that the invitation was limited to offering 25m2 at Tate Modern's Turbine Hall.
A year later, we invited Martí to present Joaquimandson, a project centred on researching and recuperating the fabrication of 1960s low-budget furniture designs his father produced for friends, family and clients in Mataró. A selection of the furniture was exhibited at Meessen de Clercq, Brussels, alongside works by Sarah Ortmeyer, Kasper Akhoj, Maria Loboda and Charlotte Moth
In the summer of 2009, Carol Yinghua Lu invited us to curate a new commission by Ignasi Aballí at the SUITCASE Art Project, the then project space of the Today Art Museum in Beijing. The resulting interventions in the eight display cases of the Yintai Centre, focused on absence, nothingness and invisibility, recurring concerns in Aballí's practice. A year after, we interviewed Ignasi for 'The Last Star-Ledger', the yellow issue of 'The Last Newspaper' publication we edited in the context of the New Museum show in 2010. The interview 'Rank and File' focused on his series of newspaper-cut outs from El País newspaper that he has been doing since 1997.
After a short presentation on the context of the 2009 exhibition "Sequelism part 3: Possible, Probable or Preferable Futures" at Arnolfini in Bristol, and Francesc Ruiz's stair-barrier commission, Ruiz discussed his Yayoi, Sukia and "The Green Detour" commission for Contemporary Image Collective in Cairo, and of course Francesc's weekly cartoons for the ten 'The Last Newspaper'. Here an interview with Francesc published in the third issue, 'The Last Register" and a profile of his work included in frieze magazine.
Thank you Galeria Estrany · de la Mota for the temporary gallery take over!
Related content:
- Ignasi Aballí's exhibition catalogue 'Nothing, or Something' available now, 26 October 2009
- flickr gallery with installation shots of "Sequelism Part 3..."
- Publication release: 'Mataró Chauffeur Service', a project by Martí Anson & Latitudes for 'No Soul for Sale', Tate Modern, London, May 2010, 11 March 2011
- Ignasi Aballí at ARTIUM and Latitudes' archive (Beijing & New York),20 May 2012
This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Lunchtime Art Forum and seminar with PhD candidates in Curatorial Practice, MADA | Monash Art Design & Architecture, Melbourne, 14 May 2014
Tue, May 6 2014 |
| Announcement on MADA | Monash University Art Design & Architecture's website. |
Lunchtime Art Forum: Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna)
14 May 2014
12:30h
Lecture Theatre G1.04, MADA | Monash Art Design & Architecture
900 Dandenong Road / Caulfield East / Victoria 3145 / Australia
Free entry / all welcome
On May 14 Latitudes will present an overview of the projects they have commissioned, participated in or self-initiated as curators, such as the series of new public projects Portscapes (Port of Rotterdam, 2009), the two iterations of No Soul for Sale: A Festival of Independents (New York in 2009 and London in 2010), or the exhibition series Amikejo (MUSAC, León, Spain, 2011).
The lecture will be followed by an afternoon seminar with candidates from the Curatorial Practice PhD [download course pdf] during which Latitudes will present two of its recent projects that are the basis of ongoing research since 2010. Firstly, its involvement as a partner organisation of The Last Newspaper exhibition at the New Museum, New York (2010–11) and secondly, its self-initiated research #OpenCurating (2012–13) formed by ten published interviews with curators, artists and editors that focused on digital strategies, new forms of interaction between publics with artworks, and their production, display and discursive context. To conclude, Latitudes will moderate a debate around the responses to four of the interviews.
This lecture is framed within Latitudes's Visiting Curators Programme residency at Gertrude Contemporar until June 7th.
Related content:
Visiting Curator Program, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 12 May–7 June 2014 (28 April 2014)
| ES |
Lunchtime Art Forum: Latitudes (Max Andrews y Mariana Cánepa Luna)
14 mayo 2014
12:30h
Lecture Theatre G1.04, MADA | Monash Art Design & Architecture
900 Dandenong Road / Caulfield East / Victoria 3145 / Australia
Entrada libre
El 14 de Mayo Latitudes presentará varios de los proyectos que se le han comisionado, en los que ha participado o ha iniciado de motu proprio como comisarios, tales como la serie de nuevos proyectos en el espacio público Portscapes (Port of Rotterdam, 2009), las dos iteraciones de No Soul for Sale: A Festival of Independents (Nueva York en 2009 y Londres en 2010), o el ciclo expositivo Amikejo (MUSAC, León, 2011).
La conferencia será complementará con un seminario con los candidatos del doctorado en Curatorial Practice [descargar pdf del curso] durante el cual Latitudes presentará dos de sus proyectos que forman la base de su investigación en curso desde 2010. En primer lugar, su participación como organización asociada en la exposición The Last Newspaper en el New Museum, Nueva York (2010–11) y en segundo lugar, la investigación #OpenCurating (2012–13) formada por diez entrevistas publicadas online con comisarios, artistas y editores, enfocadas en el análisis de las estrategias digitales y las nuevas formas de interacción entre los públicos y las obras de arte, su producción, exhibición y su contexto discursivo. A continuación Latitudes moderará un debate en torno a los contenidos de cuatro de las entrevistas de #OpenCurating.
La conferencia se enmarca dentro de la residencia como parte del Visiting Curators Programme en Gertrude Contemporary, del que Latitudes participa hasta el 7 de junio.
Contenido relacionado:
Visiting Curator Program, Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne, 12 May–7 June 2014 (28 abril 2014)
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This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Conferencia dentro del ciclo "Oficios de la cultura", Aula Cultura OBS Caja Mediterráneo, c/ Salzillo 7, Murcia, 17 de octubre, 20h. Entrada gratuita.
Mon, Oct 15 2012
Publicación del ciclo expositivo 'Amikejo' (Mousse Publishing, 2012).
Mariana Cánepa Luna de Latitudes discutirá el rol del comisario a partir de tres proyectos recientes de Latitudes. Estos casos de estudio trazan enfoques de índole editorial (The Last Newspaper, New Museum, Nueva York (2010)); como organización participante (las dos ediciones del festival No Soul for Sale: A Festival of Independents en X Initiative, Nueva York (2009) y en Tate Modern (2010)); y en un ciclo expositivo anual ('Amikejo', MUSAC, León (2011)).
Este ciclo de conferencias mensuales analiza las diferentes profesiones que operan en el campo del arte contemporáneo, presentando aspectos que caracterizan la labor del crítico, el comisario, el productor cultural, el investigador y los responsables de espacios independientes. + info...
Ciclo co-dirigido por Ana G. Alarcón, Isabel Durante y Pablo Lag, componentes del grupo curatorial Primer Escalón.
Fotodocumentación de la conferencia aquí.
Este ciclo de conferencias mensuales analiza las diferentes profesiones que operan en el campo del arte contemporáneo, presentando aspectos que caracterizan la labor del crítico, el comisario, el productor cultural, el investigador y los responsables de espacios independientes. + info...
Ciclo co-dirigido por Ana G. Alarcón, Isabel Durante y Pablo Lag, componentes del grupo curatorial Primer Escalón.
Fotodocumentación de la conferencia aquí.
The Last Newspaper exhibition catalogue, New Museum, New York, 2010–11.
Lecture within the cycle "Cultural Professions", Aula de Cultura Caja Mediterráneo, Murcia, 17 October, 20h. Free.
Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes will discuss the role of the curator in the context of three of Latitudes' recent projects. These case studies trace Latitudes' approach in an editorial context (The Last Newspaper, New Museum, New York (2010)); a year-long exhibition series ('Amikejo', MUSAC, León (2011)) and as an invited organisation (the two editions of No Soul for Sale: A Festival of Independents in X Initiative, New York (2009) and Tate Modern (2010)).
This cycle of monthly conferences centres on different professions within contemporary art, discussing aspects that characterise the practice of a cultural producer, a critic, a curator, a researcher and a member of an independent art space. + info...
Cycle co-directed by Ana G. Alarcón, Isabel Durante and Pablo Lag, from the curatorial group Primer Escalón.
UPDATE: Photo documentation of the lecture here.
This cycle of monthly conferences centres on different professions within contemporary art, discussing aspects that characterise the practice of a cultural producer, a critic, a curator, a researcher and a member of an independent art space. + info...
Cycle co-directed by Ana G. Alarcón, Isabel Durante and Pablo Lag, from the curatorial group Primer Escalón.
UPDATE: Photo documentation of the lecture here.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Conferencia "El contrato curatorial: analogías y casos de estudio". Jueves 14 Junio a las 20h, CGAC, Santiago de Compostela
Tue, Jun 12 2012
'The Last..." los diez números semanales que conforman el catálogo final de la exposición "The Last Newspaper" (New Museum, 2010).
Foto: Latitudes | www.lttds.org
| ES |
"El contrato curatorial: analogías y casos de estudio" analiza modelos extraídos de personajes de la cultura popular así como la terminología legal que pueden ayudarnos a definir algunos de los códigos éticos y profesionales que se establecen entre artistas y comisarios. A través del proyecto editorial 'The Last Newspaper' realizado por Latitudes en el New Museum en el 2010, se especulará sobre dicha relación y sobre como ésta dialoga con el público como participante del proceso curatorial.
"El contrato curatorial: analogías y casos de estudio" analiza modelos extraídos de personajes de la cultura popular así como la terminología legal que pueden ayudarnos a definir algunos de los códigos éticos y profesionales que se establecen entre artistas y comisarios. A través del proyecto editorial 'The Last Newspaper' realizado por Latitudes en el New Museum en el 2010, se especulará sobre dicha relación y sobre como ésta dialoga con el público como participante del proceso curatorial.
Conferencia organizada en colaboración con el Máster en Arte, Museología y Crítica Contemporáneas, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, donde Latitudes será profesor invitado el viernes 15 Junio, y donde discutirá algunos de sus proyectos incluídos No Soul for Sale (en X Initiative y en Tate Modern), Portscapes, Campus y Amikejo.
CGAC (Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea)
CGAC (Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea)
Rúa Valle Inclán s/n
15704 Santiago de Compostela
T: 981 546619
| UK |
The lecture "The curatorial contract: analogies and case studies" draws from popular culture and legal terminology to help define some of the ethical and professional codes at work between artists and curators. Through the editorial project 'The Last Newspaper' developed by Latitudes at the New Museum in 2010, the presentation will speculate on this relationship and how it dialogues with the public-as-participant.
Conference organised in collaboration with the Máster en Arte, Museología y Crítica Contemporáneas where on June 15, Latitudes will be visiting lecturers and discuss a range of their projects including No Soul for Sale (at X Initiative and at Tate Modern), Portscapes, Campus and Amikejo.
CGAC (Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea)
Rúa Valle Inclán s/n
15704 Santiago de Compostela
T: 981 546619
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
15704 Santiago de Compostela
T: 981 546619
Commissioner Gordon calls Batman: the institutional alliance with those operating outside the law.
| UK |
The lecture "The curatorial contract: analogies and case studies" draws from popular culture and legal terminology to help define some of the ethical and professional codes at work between artists and curators. Through the editorial project 'The Last Newspaper' developed by Latitudes at the New Museum in 2010, the presentation will speculate on this relationship and how it dialogues with the public-as-participant.
Conference organised in collaboration with the Máster en Arte, Museología y Crítica Contemporáneas where on June 15, Latitudes will be visiting lecturers and discuss a range of their projects including No Soul for Sale (at X Initiative and at Tate Modern), Portscapes, Campus and Amikejo.
CGAC (Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea)
Rúa Valle Inclán s/n
15704 Santiago de Compostela
T: 981 546619
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
#OpenCurating Research Project awarded the 'BCN Producció 2012' grant
Mon, Jun 11 2012
| UK |
Building on concerns explored by Latitudes during “The Last Newspaper” project (New Museum, 2010), and drawing on the emerging practices of so-called 'Open Journalism' – which seek to better collaborate with and use the ability of anyone to publish and share – #OpenCurating is a research project which will investigate how contemporary art projects can function beyond the traditional format of exhibition-and-catalogue in ways which might be more fully knitted into the web of information which exists in the world today. #OpenCurating is concerned with new forms of interaction between publics – whether online followers or physical visitors – with artworks and their production, display and discursive context.
The project is structured around three elements: a Twitter discussion moderated around the hashtag #OpenCurating. Secondly, a series of ten new interviews with curators, artists, journalists and online strategists, each of which will be published as a digital edition, and a final public event in Barcelona.
The project is structured around three elements: a Twitter discussion moderated around the hashtag #OpenCurating. Secondly, a series of ten new interviews with curators, artists, journalists and online strategists, each of which will be published as a digital edition, and a final public event in Barcelona.
#OpenCurating has been awarded the first BCN Producció 2012 Research Grant of the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona.
| ES |
Partiendo de las preocupaciones exploradas por Latitudes durante el proyecto editorial realizado durante “The Last Newspaper” (New Museum, 2010), y basándose en las prácticas emergentes del denominado 'periodismo abierto' ('Open Journalism') – que trata de mejorar la colaboración y utilizar la habilidad de cualquier persona para publicar y compartir – #OpenCurating es un proyecto de investigación que indagará cómo los proyectos de arte contemporáneo estan planteándose más allá del tradicional formato 'exposición y catálogo', analizando las nuevas formas de interacción entre los públicos – sean seguidores online o visitantes físicos – con obras de arte, su producción, exhibición y su contexto discursivo.
El proyecto se estructura a partir de tres elementos: una discusión en Twitter moderada por el hashtag #OpenCurating. En segundo lugar, una serie de diez entrevistas a comisarios, artistas, periodistas y expertos online, cada una de los cuales será publicada en una edición digital y por último, un evento público que tendrá lugar en Barcelona.
| ES |
Partiendo de las preocupaciones exploradas por Latitudes durante el proyecto editorial realizado durante “The Last Newspaper” (New Museum, 2010), y basándose en las prácticas emergentes del denominado 'periodismo abierto' ('Open Journalism') – que trata de mejorar la colaboración y utilizar la habilidad de cualquier persona para publicar y compartir – #OpenCurating es un proyecto de investigación que indagará cómo los proyectos de arte contemporáneo estan planteándose más allá del tradicional formato 'exposición y catálogo', analizando las nuevas formas de interacción entre los públicos – sean seguidores online o visitantes físicos – con obras de arte, su producción, exhibición y su contexto discursivo.
El proyecto se estructura a partir de tres elementos: una discusión en Twitter moderada por el hashtag #OpenCurating. En segundo lugar, una serie de diez entrevistas a comisarios, artistas, periodistas y expertos online, cada una de los cuales será publicada en una edición digital y por último, un evento público que tendrá lugar en Barcelona.
#OpenCurating es ganadora de la primera convocatoria en la categoría de investigación de BCN Producció 2012, que otorga el Institut de Cultura de Barcelona.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Ignasi Aballí at ARTIUM and Latitudes' text on 2009 project in Beijing and a 2010 interview
Sun, May 20 2012
Ignasi Aballí "This is not the end". Courtesy of the artist.
On the occasion of Ignasi Aballí (Barcelona, 1958) exhibition 'This is not the end' at ARTIUM, Vitoria-Gasteiz (curated by François Piron, on view until 2 September 2011), we wanted to share two projects in which Latitudes collaborated with the Catalan artist.
Firstly, the interview “Rank & File” between the artist and Latitudes for which we discussed his ongoing List series. The text was originally published in 'The Last Star Ledger' (Issue #4 of 'The Last Newspaper' catalogue edited by Latitudes, New Museum, New York, 2010).
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| Read here: https://issuu.com/latitudes/docs/4_the_last_star-ledger/2 |
ARTIUM's 'This is not the end' includes the work "Tomar medidas" (Taking Measures, 2009), in which nine instruments are displayed measuring things we cannot see: dust particles, time, electrical fields, noise, temperature, the intensity of light, radiation, etc. The first version of "Tomar medidas" was produced for 'Nothing, or Something' (22 May–22 July 2009), an exhibition curated by Latitudes for Suitcase Art Projects, the project space of the Today Art Museum, located on three floors of the Yintai retail centre in Beijing – see images of the exhibition.
Following is the essay included in the small publication 'Nothing, or Something' produced to accompany the exhibition – see images of the publication.
'Ignasi Aballí: Nothing, Or Something'Following is the essay included in the small publication 'Nothing, or Something' produced to accompany the exhibition – see images of the publication.
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| Detail of the publication "Nothing, or Something" published by Today Art Museum and edited by Latitudes. |
The morning before Ignasi Aballí’s ‘Nothing, Or Something’ opened, we couldn’t help but overhear an American businesswoman having a breakfast meeting at our hotel. “We’re working very much with intangibles”, she declared – and, we had to concur, so were we. Aballí’s works for Suitcase Art Projects address immateriality, residues and traces. He prompts us to consider things that we cannot perceive directly or are too ordinary to be properly noticed. What is perhaps philosophy’s central and most enduring question – ‘Why is there something rather than nothing?’ – is simultaneously approached as a precise existential experiment and as if with the shrug of a silent comedian.
Despite drawing on the formal language of modernism’s impulse towards reduction and the ‘white cube’ of the museum as much as commonplace materials and unremarkable elements of daily existence, ‘Nothing, or Something’ has nevertheless been created for a situation that is neither fully ‘art’ (though presented under the auspices of the Today Art Museum), nor ‘life’, nor public space – but for a shopping centre. Walter Benjamin’s vast The Arcades Project (1927–1940) located the bustling arcades of nineteenth-century Paris – early versions of the contemporary mall – as heralding a decisive shift to the speed and commodification of things which signalled the emergence of the modern age. Following Benjamin’s concerns, Aballí’s project is preoccupied by the parameters of display while being experienced through a collision and confusion with its surroundings. The windows in which it takes place are located throughout three floors of the Beijing Yintai Centre, a recently opened retail destination hosting high-end fashion, jewellery and watch manufacturers in the heart of Beijing's Central Business District, in one of the tallest buildings in the city. In the context of an excess of brand visibility, signage and luxury product presentation strategies, the eight conceptually interlinked works which comprise ‘Nothing, or Something’ seek a counterpoint and temporarily make room for a different kind of looking, a slower revelation and, to borrow from Marcel Duchamp – to whom we will return – a ‘delay in glass’. The constraints and techniques of making something visible, and the very expectation of having something to see, become the projects’ points of articulation.
Please excuse our appearance, for example, wryly offers the visitor an explanation for the apparent lack of anything in the display case beyond the out-of-place presence of pages from the Spanish newspaper El País (which has often been used by Aballí as the basis for his art) which are laid on the floor as if anticipating some messy activity. Summoning an in-between temporality of perpetual waiting, the vinyl text on the window requests pardon for an apparent hiatus in the rhythm of seasonal trends. Aballí’s work from 2005 entitled Próxima aparición / Próximamente / Coming Soon – a one hour film showing the text of its title – similarly places the audience in an irrational situation of viewing where the main event is declaredly taking place at another time. Coming Soon is also the title of the vacated shop scenario of ‘Nothing, Or Something’. Only traces are left on the premises. An inventory of products on sale is detailed in half-removed words on the glass. Torn posters hang from the side walls; dirty marks have been left by shelves at the back; the dusty outline of objects in a forgotten display case. Each is a reminder of what purports to have been a unit dedicated to photographic equipment. The awkwardly appended ‘coming soon’ vinyl text on the window creates some confusion, however, as to what has left and what has yet to appear. Dust has regularly featured as a material in Aballí’s work, bringing to mind not only Dust Breeding (1920) – Man Ray’s celebrated photograph of Marcel Duchamp’s The Bride Stripped Bare by her Bachelors, Even (The Large Glass) (1915–23) partially covered in a thick dusty layer – but less specifically a concern with entropy and the threshold of perception, where something is only readily perceivable through gradual accumulation or through its removal. Dust is “a very complex material ... a terminal, annoying, residual material that we don’t want” as the artist has described – particularly when it comes to photography.1 As he addressed in his recent exhibition ‘Without activity’, so many of the gestures and routines of (especially pre-digital) photography are concerned with cleaning, brushing and wiping away.2 The depositing of dust also becomes an analogue for the exposure of light on photographic paper and in essence the inevitable passage of time.
Dust is, unsurprisingly, present in the atmosphere of Beijing. In the work Beijing Air, Aballí takes the small volume of the city’s air present in a window display as the subject of what seems to be an encyclopedic annotated diagram cataloguing its actual and speculative, or feared, components. Text fixed to the glass and indicating lines describe the common gases present in air as well as a host of industrial pollutants, various airborne viruses and environmental particulate matter such as pollen. Many artists have commemorated the notion of blankness or explored the radically empty and each different reasons – the void can represent the wiping away of content and yet the preparation for something new. Aballí echoes this legacy – alongside Duchamp once more, whose Paris Air (1919) consists of a small vial of air from the French capital – yet his pseudo-scientific indications that nothingness is in fact not so easily achievable, at least for an earth-bound artist, brings humorous bathos to one of the central myths of the avant-garde.
Taking measures similarly adopts the language of objective inquiry with an absurd twist. Eight identical plinths occupy a vitrine and present scientific instruments which detect and measure invisible forces for the duration of the project – a stopwatch counts time, a digital barometer records the atmosphere pressure, a compass shows the magnetic orientation, a thermometer-hydrometer measures temperature and humidity, while a lux meter detects light. A sound meter measures in decibels alongside an instrument for sensing radiation. It is no surprise that an anemometer reveals that it is not windy in the vitrine. Contrary to immediate, decorative, or pictorial appeals to vision, Aballí proposes an ongoing sensitization to perceptions that escape direct representation. Yet evidently, we are still looking at something and instead, our aesthetic attention is displaced onto the design and the presentational mode of these instruments.
The vitrine opposite this, Scenic Viewpoints, presents the visitor with an arrangement of what appears to be blank white sheets of paper taped to the inside of the glass. As with several of the other works, in this shopping centre context, it could well seem like an unfortunate-looking temporary situation. Something is changed, remedied, covered over and hopefully overlooked: nothing to see here! Yet the attentive are rewarded with an altogether different vision – looking through the gaps in the white ‘tiles’ through to the reflection in the mirrored back surface of the narrow space, one can piece together an exuberant compilation of sights. Each sheet is an enlarged colour postcard depicting views, events and landmarks from the artist’s home of Barcelona, a city whose popularity as a tourist destination lies in no small part to its presentation as a readily consumable and legible visual ‘brand’. Blankly monochromatic on the outside, Scenic Viewpoints refuses such a generalised overview. Its ecstatic orchestration of wide vistas and saturated spectacles is only visible to a peeping, prying viewer who then can only see a small part at one time while linking “the abundance of images around us with the scarcity of meaning we can attach to them”, as Bartomeu Marí has described of another of Aballí’s works Revelations (2005).3
The vitrines titled Illuminating and White Cube are sited facing each other. Illuminating consists only of the application of light. Very bright light. The installation of professional film lights which shine out from the vitrine creates a level of luminescence that is evidently excessive. With a seeming lack of anything in particular to illuminate, one is reflected in the mirrored vitrine in the looped process of beholding oneself beholding the work. A counterpoint to the tastefully spotlighted products in the neighbouring shops, the wastefully ‘incorrect’ situation highlights a stark condition of energetic consumption while literally highlighting its context. White Cube provides the backdrop to this intense reflexivity. It cancels the transparency of its vitrine through the application of whitewash on the glass, a technique commonly adopted by empty premises after going out of business. (Not coincidentally, some of the pages of the newspapers of Please excuse our appearance carry stories related to the recession, which are illustrated by closed-up shops.) As with Aballí’s Big Mistake (1998-2005) and other works using Tipp-Ex correction fluid (used to cover errors on writing or typing paper), the artist creates a quotidian monochrome, through a melancholic painting-like blanking-out activity that nevertheless is never properly a painting. If White Cube refers to a spectre of painting, Vitrines for a Vitrine seems to orientate around some missing sculpture or precious object. Yet as if the artist has been perpetually unconvinced by the plausibility of displaying something, nothing is on show – rather it is the condition of display which is demonstrated in a mise en abyme, itself within the regime of visibility of the shopping centre. Three clear acrylic display cases like those used in museums or in chic stores occupy the glass vitrine. Each contains one small photograph of different empty vitrines which the artist has encountered in various cities.
‘Nothing, or Something’ undoubtedly triggers perplexing situations for the shopping public and the workers of the centre who were more-or-less familiar with the art project’s presence or witnesses to its installation. For many, the works may well go completely unnoticed. Are we seeing what we are supposed to be seeing? Where is the work? When is the work? Yet it is not the intention of Aballí’s project to be disingenuous or confrontational. On the contrary, it operates through orchestrating and modifying simple possibilities for observation, deduction and reflection. Something or nothing is happening, is not happening, is not happening anymore, or is yet to happen. Enhanced by memory and hindsight the project allows a disarmingly humble visual retirement – the kind of complexity that emerges through ceasing or waiting. How and why are things added and subtracted from the world, or from sight? What is worth looking at, having or keeping, and what is to be doubted or erased? What does it mean to be more aware of the things we cannot see? Perhaps we are all working with intangibles?
– © Latitudes (Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna)
1 Ignasi Aballí, 0-24 h., Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2005, p.25
2 Sem Actividade / Without Activity, Museu de Portimão, 2008
3 Ignasi Aballí, 0-24 h., Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, 2005, p.11
Text originally published in 'Nothing, or Something', the publication accompanying the exhibition that took place in the Suitcase Art Projects, Beijing, China, 22 May–22 July 2009.
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This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Twitter.
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This is the blog of the independent curatorial office Latitudes. Follow us on Twitter.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
FAQ: Where can I find the publications edited by Latitudes?
Sun, Apr 22 2012
We often receive enquiries from folks interested in purchasing our publications. As editors (or contributors) we only hold a few copies, which over the years have been mostly entirely gifted to colleagues and donated to expand institutional archives.
MACBA’s Centre d'Estudis i Documentació (MACBA Study Centre) and The Banff Centre Library (Banff, Canada) hold reference copies of all of our publications – including the 2006 publication 'Land, Art: A Cultural Ecology Handbook' (out of print); exhibition catalogues such as Amikejo (2011), 'Greenwashing. Environment: perils, promises and perplexities' (2008) and The Last Newspaper (2010), the monograph 'Lara Almarcegui, Projects 1995–2010’ (2010) publications accompanying projects such as Ignasi Aballí's Nothing or Something (2009), Simon Fujiwara's Museum of Incest (2009), Mataró Chauffeur Service (2010), Campus (2011) or Portscapes' (2010) limited edition which includes Jan Dibbets' DVD with his commissioned film '6 hours tide object with correction of perspective' (1969–2009); exhibition booklets of the exhibition 'Exposition International...' at Meessen de Clercq in Brussels, and that dedicated to Lawrence Weiner 2008 exhibition at Fundació Suñol.
MACBA's library also holds two further references: a recording of the conversation we organised as part of our #OpenCurating research with Dia Art Foundation Curator, Yasmil Raymond in 2013, later published as the #7 in the download-free edition; and Charley Independents, the issue that appeared coinciding with our participation in the second iteration of the festival 'No Soul for Sale' launched at TATE Modern in 2010.
Below is a list of all our publications and links to the distributors from where you can purchase them:
'Amikejo' (Mousse Publishing, 2012)
Available via Mousse Publishing (Milan) and Motto (Berlin)
Available via Archive Books (Berlin)
+ photos
+ info on the publication
Available at the The Århus Art Building, Århus (Denmark)
+ photos
+ info on the exhibition
Available via Motto Distribution (Berlin) and La Central (stores in Barcelona & Madrid). Special edition (in the box) available via the New Museum store (New York)
Available via Motto Distribution (Berlin) and La Central (stores in Barcelona & Madrid)
+ photos
+ info on the commissioning series
Available via Archive Books (Berlin) and La Central (stores in Barcelona & Madrid)
Available via Motto Distribution (Berlin)
Three of our earlier publications are out of print:
Out of print. Available for consultation at MACBA's library.
+ photos
+ info on the publication
+ info on the publication
+ info on the exhibition
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All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Newsletter #37 - October/octubre 2011
Mon, Oct 3 2011
THIS MONTH...
Participation in the symposia 'Antimonuments: Critique of Public Space', Espai d'Art Contemporani de Castelló, Saturday 22 October 2011. Coordinated by Ángela Molina and with the participation of Iria Candela (Assistant Curator, Tate Modern, London), Patricia Esquivias (artist, Madrid), Latitudes (independent curators, Barcelona) and Racons Públics (curator/architect, Barcelona).
UNTIL 15 JANUARY 2012...
'Amikejo: Fermín Jiménez Landa & Lee Welch', fourth and final exhibition of the cycle 'Amikejo' at the Laboratorio 987, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León, 24 September 2011–15 January 2012.
Read article by Bea Espejo (El Cultural, 2 August 2011) related to the artists' work and their collaborative working process (in Spanish).
'Amikejo: Fermín Jiménez Landa & Lee Welch', fourth and final exhibition of the cycle 'Amikejo' at the Laboratorio 987, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, León, 24 September 2011–15 January 2012.
Read article by Bea Espejo (El Cultural, 2 August 2011) related to the artists' work and their collaborative working process (in Spanish).
Follow #amikejo
FROM THE ARCHIVE...
Coinciding with the first anniversary of the beginning of 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition at the New Museum (6 October 2010–9 January 2011), readers are now be able to flick through the pages of the exhibition catalogue via Issuu:
#0 Contents + Index; #1 The Last Post; #2 The Last Gazette; #3 The Last Register; #4 The Last Star-Ledger; #5 The Last Monitor; #6 The Last Observer; #7 The Last Evening Sun; #8 The Last Journal; #9 The Last Times; #10 The Last Express.
Read the first issue 'The Last Post':
Read the first issue 'The Last Post':
Latitudes' 'The Last Newspaper' exhibition featured in the May issue of Shanghai-based magazine 'Art World Magazine'
Wed, Jun 29 2011
In their May issue, Shanghai-based Art World Magazine featured 'The Last Newspaper' (New Museum, 6 October 2010–9 January 2011) exhibition focusing on Latitudes' 10-week-long editorial project and re-publishing and translating four articles originally published in issues: #2 The Last Gazette (focus article on Hans Haacke's "News" by Julienne Lorz), #5 The Last Monitor (an essay on paperweights and newsstands by Harley Spiller), #6 The Last Observer (interview with Wolfgang Tillmans by Lorena Muñoz-Alonso), #7 The Last Evening Sun (focus article on Luciano Fabro's 'Pavimento-Tautologia' by Simone Menegoi) and #8 The Last Journal (an interview with Rirkrit Tiravanija by Desiree B. Ramos).
Thank you to Michelle Ding from Art World Magazine and to all the writers for giving permission to reprint in Chinese.Photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org