The current state of performance

We are experiencing a boom in performance. Many museums and institutions are incorporating this type of manifestation into their programmes or creating specialised departments. This is the case of Moma or Tate or, closer to home, the Miró Foundation, the Tàpies Foundation or Fabra i Coats, to name just a few. But why this resurgence […]

Not just a royal affaire

Link to the article in A*DESK A Royal Affair (2012) is a film that confirms the excellent health of Danish cinema, and also the concentration of talent per square metre in such a small country. It is not a cult film, nor is the director, though the name Lars von Trier appears as executive producer. […]

Satire and parody as critical strategies

In the field of branding, “baseline” is the advertising phrase that accompanies the brand in all the media supports used to promote it. Nike’s “Just do it”, Nokia’s “Connecting people”, the “Move your mind” of Saab or Apple’s “Think Different”. In colloquial terms, branding professionals refer to the “baseline” as “vaseline”, that is to say, […]

The narrative condition

Link to the article in A*DESK La condición narrativa (The narrative condition) is the suggestive title that the curator Alexandra Laudo (founder and director of the platform Heroínas de la Cultura (Cultural heroines) –an equally great title -) has bestowed on the exhibition that she is presenting in La Capella and that was the winning […]

Allegations, appropriations and civil disobedience

Link to the article published in A*DESK In 1970, Hannah Arendt gave a lecture titled “Civil disobedience”, that she defined as “what arises when a significant group of citizens becomes convinced that the normal channels for change no longer function, or that the Government persists in modes of action, that the legality or constitutionality of […]

Islands of freedom

Link to the article in A*DESK Sir Ken Robinson said in a famous TEDTalks presentation that creativity ought to have a central role in the education of children, that it is fundamental to stimulate creativity and imagination, to discover and promote the features that make us different and unique. While, in these parts, we seem […]

Knockdown prices

Link to the article in A*DESK What does it mean to be the citizen of a country in a globalised world? What is it worth? What are the implications? In 1998 Matthieu Laurette began a piece, that is still in progress, titled The Citizenship Project, in which he began to investigate the conditions required to […]

Repositories and auto-archiving

Link to the article in A*DESK Having learnt the lesson about the importance of the archive, with role models like Archive fever by Derrida or the Atlas Mnemosyne by Aby Warburg we are now seeing the need to revise, rethink and why not, rewrite it. In these days two on-going exhibitions in Barcelona and an […]

Las estructuras del arte. Una entrevista con Mario García Torres

Link to the article in A*DESK Mario García Torres works with very specific elements (hidden stories, rumours or un-clarified details) from the history of art, film, other artists, events from the past, etc. These investigations transform into stories that can take the form of diaporamas, videos, books, curated exhibitions or postcards, to mention just a […]