There are movements in the Spanish art scene: new directions at the CGAC, the MUSAC, the Virreina Centro de la Imagen and the Museo Picasso in Malaga, a competition about to be resolved at the Canódromo and Hangar… but in addition to these variations of institutional pieces, other synergies are beginning to be detected. Other types of initiatives are beginning to emerge, more flexible and dynamic. A few weeks ago, an article by Bea Espejo in “El Cultural” of El Mundo made an inventory of a dozen independent initiatives in Madrid that defined their sphere of action outside the institution.
MEETING SPACES
At the beginning of November, a one-off event took place in Barcelona, which brings together rather than disperses, which brings energy to the scene and in which something more than the desire to occupy a space for a weekend can be seen. This is Entes, an exhibition that was presented in an apartment in the Gracia district and that brought together thirty artists in just over 40 m2. The formula is not new. We remember Se Alquiler or 22a, two initiatives that provided a space for the presentation of exhibitions, projects and meetings. It is not new, we said, but it provides something very necessary in these times of institutionalization, crisis and discontent: discussion, debate, exchange of ideas, collaboration and positive energy. It is the antithesis of the culture of complaint. It works almost like Nike’s “Do it”: – You don’t like the scene? – Then get moving, do something.
The idea of Entes arose from casual conversations between a group of artists and friends and was concretized a few months later, becoming bigger with new names of artists who wanted to join. English: Efrén Álvarez, Usue Arrieta, David Bestué, Luz Broto, Fito Conesa, Julieta Dentone, Pol Esteve, Laia Estruch, Jaume Ferrete, Ana García-Pineda, Rubén Grilo, Daniel Jacoby, Tamara Kuselman, Marc Larré, Fran Meana, Irene Minovas, Momu & No Es, Mariona Moncunill, Marc Navarro, Daniela Ortiz, ferranElOtro, Diego Paonessa, Gabriel Pericàs, Maria Ramió, Alex Reynolds, Joan Saló, Daniel Steegmann, Ricardo Trigo, Vicente Vázquez, Martín Vitaliti and Marc Vives are the thirty-one artists who have exhibited their work. They are more or less complex projects that have been synthesized as much as possible when they are formalized. I will mention just three as examples: the drawing of the interior of the Capella de Sant Corneli de Cardedeu, as a reference to the final point of a project by Luz Broto in that same place and whose proposal, the extraction of a stone from the wall of the Capella, generated a reaction and a controversy as disproportionate as it was significant; the small photograph accompanied by a caption in which Daniela Ortiz concentrates an action as secret as it is subversive that links everyday life and historical commemoration and the two laminated photographs/posters by Daniel Jacoby in which he exemplifies and quantifies the notions of small and large, based on the results of a questionnaire launched from his Web page.
But the most outstanding thing, apart from the irregularity of the works, is the spirit of collaboration, of initiative, of exchange, of creating context, of placing ourselves in the “here and now” as the only way to be able to locate ourselves on a more open, larger and more international map.
[Article published in Bonart, 2009]
