The invitation to participate in the European Cultural Congress in Wroclaw came to me with two good reasons to say yes. On the one hand, the invitation arrived from Poland, with which art’scene I have some contacts and good friends since 2000. On the other hand, the main theme of the congress, “Art for social change” could not seem more relevant to me. One of my main worries as a curator is the impact or the influence that contemporary art may have in society. They are based in the conviction that art is a practice rooted in individuality, personal obsession and a conflict-prone or rather critical relationship to its forms. Thus it creates a specific kind of knowledge, which goes beyond standards and is insisting on diversity and difference. With their proposals, artists offer their vision of the world, point at their mechanisms, problems and contradictions. That’s why one of the main problems of art today is the distance that separates it from the public, and the risk that thee proposals don’t have a real impact or echoe in society. Thus, “Art for Social Change” allowed to explore all these aspects.

Art can change society but sometimes its impact is merely symbolic or functions as conscience-soothing. That’s why I immediately thought on Antoni Abad’s project “Megafone”. The artist here does not set himself up as anyone’s spokesman, instead he provides the necessary means with which others can freely and autonomously express themselves and at the same time think alternatives. But to work really with a specific community and more in an unknown context needs time, dedication and respect in order to be able to access to the people and start working together. The calendar of the project 10 x 10 didn’t oofer us the necessary working calendar and with Antoni decided that the participation in the congress would work as a statement through a docummentary installation about former experiences with different communities. This would allow us to start exploring Wroclaw and detect the potential communities with whom develop Megafone in the near future. The theme of the congress was important but also was necessary that would not be merely theoretical, but could be put into action.

Some months after the Congress, we are in the first steps of working with the handicapped people in Wroclaw. The city is changing and with the Cultural Capital 2016 in the horizon it is important to bring into discussionthe idea of obstacles (physical and also metaphorically speaking).

I believe in art as a mechanism of social transformation, specially in a moment in which society needs to be transformed: we are pushed to be consumers instead of citizens. Information is accessible, we can choose many things, but at the same time it is difficult to discern the information, to form our own criteria, to think. Politicians no longer govern but follow the guidelines of economic interests. We need not to let our guard down…

http://www.culturecongress.eu/en/event/exhibition_10x10

http://www.culturecongress.eu/en/event/10x10_badia_abad

http://obieg.pl/rozmowy/22531

A chain reaction is a sequence of events, each caused by the previous one. It is also the name given to a chemical reaction in which the product of one event is the reactant in the next, and so on. A chain reaction implies a certain energy input, which generates an expansion of events. A chain reaction can be triggered by small impulses yet eventually generate vast transformations. Similarly, a chain reaction can be used to establish new references or new relations; in short, to contribute to new ways of looking, thinking and acting.

A video programme can also be seen as a chain reaction, one in which the first shot leads us on to the next so that our viewing of it is necessarily influenced by the preceding series of images, as well as by those that follow. Chain Reaction is the title given to this programme of videos, which brings together a selection of films from the Cal Cego Contemporary Art Collection. Cal Cego is a collection based, not on media or formats, but on artists and discourses. The Cal Cego Collection contains videos, projections, video-installations, photographs, installations, drawings, paintings and works in other formats more difficult to classify. Cal Cego is not based on fixed, immovable, pre-established cartographies of artists; its aim is, rather, to work as a compass, guiding the production of meaning. It is from this standpoint that a contemporary art collection can also be seen as a chain reaction in which genealogies of artists, works and discourses are generated, genealogies that cannot be read without taking into account the relations, associations, counter-positions, overlaps, revisions and even conflicts that they generate with each other.

The Chain Reaction video programme begins literally with a chain reaction, one created by the Swiss artists Fischli & Weiss through everyday objects. It continues with Ignacio Uriarte’s unusual choreography performed by files on shelves, followed by a definition of the self in relation to others in a video by David Shrigley and the performance of an animal obeying orders in Douglas Gordon’s film. Still on this animal theme, we come up against a pack of dogs face-to-face as Francis Alÿs uses his video camera to take us into the field of art. Christian Jankowski explores similar terrain as he converts spectators into sheep. Next, the art system is presented with acute vision and humour by Jesper Dalgaard and, finally, Bestué/Vives deliver yet another chain reaction, in this case one full of artistic references, without leaving the everyday, domestic sphere.

A chain reaction is a sequence of events, each one caused by the previous one. It is also a chemical reaction that gives rise to products that themselves cause another reaction equal to the first and so on. A chain reaction implies a certain impulse of energy that generates an amplification of events. A chain reaction can start from small impulses and can generate large transformations. At the same time, a chain reaction can be used to create new references or new relationships, in short, contribute to different ways of looking, thinking and acting.

A video programme can also be seen as a chain reaction, in which one video leads us to the next, so that its viewing cannot help but be influenced by the series of images that precede it and also by those that follow it. Chain reaction is the title of this video programme that brings together a selection of videos from the Cal Cego contemporary art collection. Cal Cego is a collection that is not based on media or formats, but on artists and discourses. At Cal Cego we find videos, projections, video installations, photographs, installations, drawings, paintings and other formats that are difficult to classify. Cal Cego is not based on fixed, pre-established and immovable cartographies of artists, but rather prefers to resemble a compass that guides the production of meaning. It is from this perspective that a collection of contemporary art can also be understood as a chain reaction in which genealogies of artists, works and discourses are created, the reading of which cannot ignore the relationships, associations, contrasts, superpositions, revisions and also conflicts that are generated between them.

The screening programme Chain Reaction literally begins with a chain reaction, the one proposed by the Swiss Fischli & Weiss, based on everyday objects, followed by a strange choreography by some filing cabinets by Ignacio Uriarte, to continue with the definition of the self in relation to others in the video by David Shrigley and the performance of an animal that follows instructions in the film by Douglas Gordon. Continuing with animals, the confrontation of some dogs with a strange element, a video camera by Francis Alÿs takes us into the field of art; relationships that Christian Jankowski explores by turning the spectators into sheep. The art system is presented with humour and also in an acute manner by Jesper Dalgaard and, finally, Bestué/Vives stay in a domestic and everyday environment to take us to another chain reaction, in this case, full of artistic references.

[Program of screenings based on works from the Cal Cego Collection, for Loop Barcelona, ​​2010]

El 2 de agosto del año 1914, Franz Kafka escribe en su diario “Alemania ha declarado la guerra a Rusia. Por la tarde, fui a nadar”. Hay una gran desproporción entre los dos hechos que Kafka contrapone: uno de gran impacto histórico, la primera Guerra Mundial, y otro nimio, de la vida privada de un desconocido a quien la posteridad otorgaría la identidad del genio. No es casualidad que Enrique Vila-Matas inicie su libro Hijos sin hijos con esta cita de Kafka. Hijos sin hijos es un singular repaso por algunos episodios de la historia de España en la que sus protagonistas son “hijos sin hijos”. En otras palabras, o mejor dicho, en palabras de Vila-Matas, “cuando se produce una noticia de primera plana, los fantasmas ambulantes que protagonizan mis episodios nacionales la ven como una injerencia en sus vidas y se dedican a esperar -como ya hiciera Kafka- a que llegue la tarde, y entonces se van a nadar. Ellos también sitúan al mismo nivel el plano histórico y el personal”.

Pero ¿cómo se construye la memoria colectiva sino es a partir de las historias particulares? ¿No son acaso memoria colectiva, memoria individual y memoria histórica diferentes caras de un mismo prisma? ¿No se puede considerar a la ciencia como el resultado de la concatenación de numerosos experimentos y observaciones, de la suma, en definitiva, de multitud de pequeños ensayos, de pequeñas historias que permiten confirmar intuiciones iniciales? En ocasiones también, el punto de partida personal se convierte en el detonante de un corpus teórico de gran trascendencia. “Todo esto debe ser considerado como si fuera dicho por un personaje de novela”, escribe Roland Barthes en Roland Barthes par lui même, 1975 (Roland Barthes por Roland Barthes) y a partir de dicha aseveración, el “yo” enamorado apela a sus propias experiencias y sentimientos y elabora un discurso plagado de referentes filosóficos y literarios que titula Fragments d’un discours amoureux, 1977 (Fragmentos de un discurso amoroso. Poco tiempo después, un “yo” compungido que acababa de perder a su madre, explora en las fotografías familiares para encontrar la fotografía que recoja el verdadero espíritu de su progenitora, al tiempo que elabora una emocionante y rigurosa reflexión sobre la fotografía como medio de representación, La chambre claire. Note sur la photographie, 1980 (La cámara lúcida. Nota sobre la fotografía).

La voluntad de narrar, de compartir los testimonios personales y los hechos del mundo, su convivencia y contraposición a distintos niveles constituye el eje articulador de Historias Mínimas, un programa de vídeos que comparten la necesidad de contar como una forma de revelación de la existencia y de creación de la historia como una actividad contínua, participativa y permeable. Para definir en conjunto los nueve trayectos imaginarios que componen Historias Mínimas, podemos hacer nuestras las palabras de Vila-Matas al referirse a sus propias historias: “Me parece que de esa combinación ha surgido una realidad rigurosa -esa gran verdad que cuentan las mentiras-, distinta de la oficial y posiblemente única. Depués de todo, qué somos, qué es cada uno de nosotros sino una combinatoria, distinta y única, de experiencias, de lecturas, de imaginaciones”. Como afirma el historiador Marc Ferro, “el film, imagen o no de la realidad, documento o ficción, intriga auténtica o mera invención, es historia. ¿El postulado? Que aquello que no ha sucedido, las creencias, las intenciones, lo imaginario del hombre, tiene tanto valor de Historia como la misma Historia”.

El título Historias Mínimas alude a la película del mismo nombre dirigida por Carlos Sorín en el año 2002, y con ella comparte la voluntad de centrarse en hechos contados, al margen de su alcance, desde una escala humana. Si en la película Historias Mínimas se contraponía la magnitud de las pequeñas historias individuales en oposición al inmenso paisaje de la Patagonia, en el programa de vídeo Historias Mínimas los referentes individuales contrastan con la historia como telón de fondo de manera que las narraciones individuales se contraponen, contrastan, establecen relaciones irónicas o simplemente transcurren en paralelo a algunas referencias a la historia de España: de Felipe II a Inditex, del NO a la Guerra a Julio Iglesias, de Las Lanzas de Velázquez a Faemino y Cansado…

En Cada día paso por aquí (2003), Raul Arroyo nos acerca a un recorrido urbano y cotidiano, narrado en primera persona y visualizado a partir de placas, carteles y otros signos de señalización. Pero en este paseo subjetivo se cruzan otros elementos (frases como “odio engendra odio” o “vota idiota”, en forma de graffittis y pintadas) que nos sitúan en otras esferas políticas y sociales.

Luis Cerveró también parte del individuo y las referencias al imaginario colectivo para elaborar su propia realidad. Love /Rock & Roll (2005), una de las obras que configuran la trilogía Love, Death and Rock & Roll, elabora su propio mapa sentimental a partir de fragmentos musicales y de imágenes emblemáticas de la cultura pop (que van de Bob Dylan a modelos fotografiadas por Richardson) que, recortadas y recombinadas, parecen cobrar vida.

La voz en off nos acerca las experiencias de El Hombre Invisible (2004) de Daniel Cuberta, una metáfora del individuo que observa pero que no es visto, que es testigo tan excepcional como impotente de los hechos, de la historia, de la cultura y de su propia biografía.

Contando con los dedos de una mano (1996) de Josu Rekalde se basa en la potencialidad de una historia en permanente construcción. Enfatiza el poder de la palabra por encima de la imagen y parte del plano fijo y de las propias manos del artista para narrar sin mostrar imágenes concretas algunos hechos relacionados con la historia más reciente de España.

Patricia Esquivias también se refiere explícitamente a la historia de España y lo hace desde una narrativa muy personal que relaciona de una manera absolutamente subjetiva hechos y personajes distantes en el tiempo, entre los cuales la artista establece una serie de conexiones más que evidentes. Si en Folklore (2006) Esquivias traza una línea que une a Franco, Jesús Gil y se completa con la cultura rave y sus fiestas en Valencia con todas sus consecuencias, en Folklore II (2007), la artista dibuja las similitudes entre el Rey Felipe II (1527-1598) y el cantante Julio Iglesias, como representates de imperios globales distantes en el tiempo pero con asombrosos paralelismos.

Determinación de personaje (2000) de Antonio Ortega también hace una referencia explícita a un hecho histórico, la creación del cuadro La Rendición de Breda por Velázquez, pero lo hace desde una perspectiva inédita, para centrar la atención en otros aspectos. Antonio Ortega toma un monólogo del dúo de humoristas Faemino y Cansado para explorar las teorías de determinismo biológico que relacionan ciertas características físicas con una personalidad concreta. En este caso, un crítico de arte, David G. Torres, y un artista, Oscar Abril Ascaso, representan los papeles de Faemino y Cansado, que no son más que una versión contemporánea de los tradicionales payasos Cara Blanca y Augusto. El monólogo que representan alude a la creación, a su dependencia del poder e incluye otras referencias a la cultura española.

Social Sculptures (2005) comparte con Determinación de personaje una peculiar manera de acercarse a la realidad. En Social Sculptures, Manuel Saiz toma la célebre frase de Joseph Beuys “Todo el mundo puede ser artista” como punto de partida para su reformulación en múltiples direcciones. Tres actores repiten y versionan esta declaración de principios en diferentes situaciones y con distintas intenciones. De esta manera, el “Todo el mundo puede ser artista” con el que Beuys aludía a la necesidad de que todas las personas pudieran desarrollar su propia creatividad, se convierte en “Ojala pudiera ser artista” o “No todo el mundo puede ser artista”.

No todo el mundo es un artista, pero sí puede tener una parte activa en un proyecto artístico. En Secret Strike. Inditex (2006), la artista Alicia Framis explora las relaciones interpersonales en los ámbitos laborales, para ello cuenta con la colaboración de las empresas e instituciones en las que filma sus vídeos, en este caso, Inditex, el emporio gallego de la moda. Alicia Framis propone la realización de una acción mínima (la congelación, durante unos minutos, de toda actividad) que hipotéticamente puede tener un impacto enorme (la reducción de los índices de producción de las empresas). De esta manera, Alicia Framis nos recuerda el gran impacto que pueden tener las pequeñas acciones personales.

El círculo de historias se completa y se expande con All the Stories (2001), de Dora García, un vídeo que documenta una performance que lleva a cabo un narrador dispuesto a recitar… “todas las historias del mundo”. Para la grabación seleccionó cuarenta de las tres mil que hasta ahora ha recogido y que continúan creciendo en Internet (http://www.doragarcia.net/insertos/ todaslashistorias). El vídeo, lejos de ser una obra cerrada, es la resonancia de un proyecto de esencia inacabada, abierta: “Un hombre, una mujer, recita en voz alta todas las historias del mundo. Cuando haya terminado, todas las historias, todos los hombres y todas las mujeres, todo el tiempo y todos los lugares habrán pasado por sus labios”.

Transgeneracions 2 is the response to an invitation: to work from the idea of ​​”generation”. This has been the starting point for initiating a research process, to open spaces for dialogue, for exchange and joint and cross-reflection. Voices, visions and experiences of more than a hundred agents have been incorporated, including artists, critics, curators, people related to museums and institutions and cultural managers.

Transgeneracions 2 has proposed the compilation of information and testimonies from conversations, statements, questionnaires, documents and works. Three artists, Daniel Jacoby, Efrén Álvarez and Xavier Gavín will give form (digital, analogue and audiovisual, respectively) to all the information collected, contributing to its interpretation.

Transgeneracions 2 is a project curated by Montse Badia and Alex Brahim

www.transgeneracions.net

“Six Degrees of Separation” presents a selection of videos from Cal Cego (www.calcego.com), a private collection focused on the present and characterised by the significant presence of photography and video as means of artistic expression. “Six Degrees of Separation”, the core idea behind this program of videos, is a theory based on the idea that any person in the world could be connected to any other person through a chain of acquaintances with a maximum of five intermediate steps. This theory, initially proposed by the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy in 1929, in a short story called Chains,
depends on the idea that there is an exponential increase in the number of acquaintances according to the number of links in the chain, and only a small number of links are necessary for the total number of acquaintances to encompass all of the world’s population.

Program:
Six degrees of separation is the starting point for a program that doesn’t simply set out to find a link (which may just be anecdotal) between the artists and videos that are presented. Instead, it emphasises the set of links shared by the selected videos, which can go from the individual self to the social self, starting from the individual’s need for self-definition and self-knowledge and for relating to his or her surroundings, and goes on to offer the individual’s own vision of the world, often including elements that form part of the collective imaginary.

David Shrigley. Who I am and what I want, 2005. 7’23”
Story of the excesses that have led Pete, the main character, to leave the fiercely competitive world behind and find refuge in the forest, where he lives in exile with the animals.

Pipilotti Rist. I want to see how you see, 2003. 4’48”
Lyriical story of a witch’s coven played over images of a person where each body part symbolically represents an area of the world.

David Bestué / Marc Vives. Acciones en casa. 2005. 33′
Continuation of an earlier work, Acciones en Mataró. tTis time set inside a flat in Barcelona’s Eixample.

José Álvaro Perdices. 47 names. 2004. 12’37”
Exploration of the importance of the way individuality is formed through an intervention in which forty seven children from South Central Los Angeles are asked to shout out their names

Javier Codesal. La Biblia en 25 frases. 3’29”
La Biblia en 25 frases brings together 25 sentences from the Bible in a totally subjective and random way and uses them to structure a new narrative.

Christian Jankowski. Flock. 2002. 12’15”
A group of visitors to an exhibition are transformed into a flock of sheep. This closes the “magic circle” through which Jankowski explores the relationship between artists, institutions and viewers.

Martí Anson. Walt & Travis. Cinema version 2003. 22′
Filmed in the United States, this video remains totally faithful to the codes and form of road movies. There’s a difference, however, because in his film Anson emphasises and recreates all those moments and situations that never appear in road movies.

“Six Degrees of Separation” presents a selection of videos from Cal Cego (www.calcego.com), a private collection focused on the present and characterised by the significant presence of photography and video as means of artistic expression. “Six Degrees of Separation”, the core idea behind this program of videos, is a theory based on the idea that any person in the world could be connected to any other person through a chain of acquaintances with a maximum of five intermediate steps. This theory, initially proposed by the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy in 1929, in a short story called Chains,
depends on the idea that there is an exponential increase in the number of acquaintances according to the number of links in the chain, and only a small number of links are necessary for the total number of acquaintances to encompass all of the world’s population.

Program:
Six degrees of separation is the starting point for a program that doesn’t simply set out to find a link (which may just be anecdotal) between the artists and videos that are presented. Instead, it emphasises the set of links shared by the selected videos, which can go from the individual self to the social self, starting from the individual’s need for self-definition and self-knowledge and for relating to his or her surroundings, and goes on to offer the individual’s own vision of the world, often including elements that form part of the collective imaginary.

David Shrigley. Who I am and what I want, 2005. 7’23”
Story of the excesses that have led Pete, the main character, to leave the fiercely competitive world behind and find refuge in the forest, where he lives in exile with the animals.

Pipilotti Rist. I want to see how you see, 2003. 4’48”
Lyriical story of a witch’s coven played over images of a person where each body part symbolically represents an area of the world.

David Bestué / Marc Vives. Acciones en casa. 2005. 33′
Continuation of an earlier work, Acciones en Mataró, this time set inside a flat in Barcelona’s Eixample.

José Álvaro Perdices. 47 names. 2004. 12’37”
Exploration of the importance of the way individuality is formed through an intervention in which forty seven children from South Central Los Angeles are asked to shout out their names

Javier Codesal. La Biblia en 25 frases. 3’29”
La Biblia en 25 frases brings together 25 sentences from the Bible in a totally subjective and random way and uses them to structure a new narrative.

Christian Jankowski. Flock. 2002. 12’15”
A group of visitors to an exhibition are transformed into a flock of sheep. This closes the “magic circle” through which Jankowski explores the relationship between artists, institutions and viewers.

Martí Anson. Walt & Travis. Cinema version 2003. 22′
Filmed in the United States, this video remains totally faithful to the codes and form of road movies. There’s a difference, however, because in his film Anson emphasises and recreates all those moments and situations that never appear in road movies.

ABOUT DEPICTING LOVE

Love is rather a relative notion. Rarely is it the object of serious study, although it is omnipresent in music, film, literature, drama and, of course, life. The word calls to mind a very mixed range of associations, from the most irredeemably kitsch marketing strategies to the most intimate facets of our existence or the icons that make up our collective memory. Translated into images: the hearts and Cupids in the window-displays on Saint Valentine’s Day, the attractive young couples used to promote the sale of all kinds of products (holidays, cars, cosmetics, perfumes, tobacco, drinks, etc.), memories of our own personal experiences, the kiss of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in Casablanca…

The concept of love is bound up with essential notions such as identity, social and personal relationships and politics. From the scientific point of view, it is seen as a relative notion. The researches and explanations of psychologists, sociologists, economists, biologists and anthropologists serve to create the small individual pieces of a puzzle that makes sense when it is observed in its entirety. Thus, psychoanalysts interpret amorous behaviour as the product of our early experiences as children, biologists reduce it to a series of chemical reactions, sociologists explain new forms of personal relations as a reaction to the appearance of new diseases, and even economists observe a link between the frequency of affairs in the work environment and the company’s end-of-year balance sheets.

Depicting Love engages the notion of love from a number of different perspectives. The project takes as its starting point an essential book by Roland Barthes A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments(1). Perhaps the most significant thing about this book is its formulation, which questions the different ways of reporting the experience of the subject as lover. The book is articulated on the basis of notions (ordered from A to Z) that the author defines in terms of both theoretical and personal approaches.

On a formal level, the project Depicting Love consists of two clearly differentiated parts: – a programme of screenings that takes seven key notions from Barthes’ book in order to present video projects by international artists in conjunction with feature films; – a DVD compilation of new productions by a dozen international artists, created specifically for this context.

In this way, the project Depicting Love takes the form of a kind of mobile —and thus versatile and dynamic— exhibition. At the same time this format reflects the present reality of our increasingly standardized societies in which the mobility and the questioning of the sense of ‘place’ have come to be seen as priority factors. In this context, too, the experience of the image is inescapably associated to the image in movement. Depicting Love, the programme of screenings being presented over seven consecutive days, is made up of a score of video projects by different artists and seven films that, from their different times and contexts, have reflected on the subject of love and are now being screened in relation to seven key notions from Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse. Thus, the programme entitled Affirmation consists of projects by Zbig Rybczynski, Pipilotti Rist, Chris Cunningham and Annika Ström. Ulay/Abramovic, Yael André and Sadie Benning, among others, have addressed the Barthesian idea of Encounter. Rivane & Sergio Neuenschwander, Valie Export and Rui Calçada Bastos are included in the programme entitled Letter, while Heman Chong and Jordi Moragues, among others, have engaged with the notion of Signs. The projects by Lutz Mommartz, Bas Jan Ader and Nuria Channel explore the idea of the Unbearable. Bjørn Melhus, A. P. Komen/Karen Murphy, Sophie Calle & Greg Shephard and Gino Rubert are featured in the programme Unknowable. Finally, Christian Jankowski, Lorna Simpson and Vito Acconci have centred on the idea of Waiting. The selection of films screened during the sessions includes Darling (1965) by John Schlesinger, Brief Encounter (1945) by David Lean, Stephen Frears’ Dangerous Liasons (1989), and A Short Film About Love (1988) by Krzysztov Kiesslowski, among others. The DVD Depicting Love brings together a series of new projects that use photography, drawing, the moving image, text, sound, Internet links and other possibilities too numerous to list here suggested by the artists invited to take part in this project: Chema Alvargonzález, Martí Anson, Maurycy Gomulicki, Leiko Ikemura, Andreas M. Kaufmann, Yves Netzhammer, Mabel Palacín, Susan Philipsz, Francesc Ruiz, Jan Rothuizen, Sam Samore and Young-Hae Chang. The variety of proposals and approaches here —ludic, ironic, poetic, critical or committed— combine to create a multifaceted definition of the notion of love and provide a release from the prejudices that trivialize or deny the political transcendence of issues that engage deeply with the individual dimension and the realm of personal subjectivity.

(1) Translation from French: R. Howard, J. Cape, London, 1975; Original edition: Roland Barthes, Fragments d’un Discours Amoureux, Paris, 1975; Editions du Soleil.

(text booklet)

LOVE LOVE LOVE: Love is in the Air. All is full of Love. All you need is Love… Love is omnipresent in music, film, literature, theatre and, of course, life. Although the notion of love is bound up with essential praxes such as identity, social and personal relationships and politics, it has rarely been the object of serious study. From the scientific point of view, it is regarded as a relative notion. The researches and explanations of psychologists, sociologists, economists, biologists and anthropologists serve to create the small individual pieces of a puzzle that makes sense when it is observed in its entirety. Psychoanalysts see amorous behaviour as the product of our early experiences as children, biologists reduce it to a series of chemical reactions, sociologists explain new forms of personal relationships as a reaction to the appearance of new diseases, and even economists note a link between the frequency of affairs in the work environment and the company’s end-of-year balance sheets.

Depicting Love seeks to engage this notion from a number of different perspectives and at the same time sets out to raise some crucial issues. The project Depicting Love, which consists of a programme of screenings and the present DVD, takes as its starting point a seminal book by Roland Barthes, Fragments d’un Discours Amoureux (Editions du Soleil, Paris, 1975). Perhaps the most significant thing about this book is its formulation, in questioning the different ways of communicating the experience of the subject as lover. Barthes proposes a portrait (structural more than biographical) in which the subject who loves speaks to her/himself, in confrontation with the loved subject, who does not speak. The book is articulated on the basis of notions (ordered from A to Z) that the author defines in terms of both theoretical and personal approaches.

Chema Alvargonzález, Martí Anson, Maurycy Gomulicki, Oliver Held, Leiko Ikemura, Andreas M. Kaufmann, Mabel Palacín, Susan Philipsz, Francesc Ruiz, Jan Rothuizen, Sam Samore and Young-Hae Chang are the twelve international artists who have taken up the invitation to create a new work using Barthes’ book as a point of departure, inspiration or reflection. In this way, the DVD Depicting Love takes the form of a kind of mobile —and thus versatile and dynamic— exhibition in which the contributions of the artists, in a wide variety of formats, assume the status of original projects.

The affirmation of love (in spite of all), the absence of the loved one and the interminable waiting, the desire that the loved one meet our expectations, the uncertainty of the signs, the elation of the first encounter free from the difficulties that every affective relationship entails, the uncontainable desire, the enigma that the other represents and the burdens of the past that we all carry with us are among the aspects that the artists explore in their projects.

The variety of proposals and approaches here —ludic, ironic, poetic, critical or committed— combine to create a multifaceted definition of the notion of love and provide a release from the prejudices that trivialize or deny the political transcendence of issues that engage with the individual or personal dimension.

(texts screening program)

Depicting Love, the programme of screenings being presented over seven consecutive days, is made up of a score of video works by different artists and seven feature films that, from their different times and contexts, have reflected on the subject of love and are now being screened in relation to seven key notions from Roland Barthes’ A Lover’s Discourse: affirmation, encounter, letter, sings, unbearable, unknowable and waiting.

The variety of proposals and approaches here —ludic, ironic, poetic, critical or committed— combine to create a multifaceted definition of the notion of love and provide a release from the prejudices that trivialize or deny the political transcendence of issues that engage deeply with the individual dimension and the realm of personal subjectivity.

Screening Program:

Affirmation
(Against and in spite of everything, the subject affirms love as value. Bejahung – Entgegen und trotz allem bejaht das Subjekt die Liebe als Wert)

Depicting Love, 2004. DVD. 3’08” – Oliver Held
Imagine, 1986. DVD. 3’20”– Zbig Rybczynski
I am a victim of this song, 1995. DVD. 5’ – Pipilotti Rist
All is Full of Love, 1999. DVD. 4’12” – Chris Cunningham
Ten New Love Songs, 1999. DVD. 22’ – Annika Ström
Darling – John Schlesinger. GB 1965. 35 mm. 122’

Encounter
(The figure refers to the happy interval immediately following the first ravishment, before the difficulties of the amorous relationship begin. Begegnung – Die Figur bezieht sich auf die glückliche Zeit unmittelbar nach der ersten Verzückung, bevor sich noch die Komplikationen der Liebesbezeiehung bemerkbar machen)

Depicting Love, 2004. DVD. 3’08” – Oliver Held
It wasn’t love, 1992. DVD. 20’ – Sadie Benning
Relation in space, 1976. DVD. 14’52” – Ulay/Abramovic
One Night, 1997. DVD, 26’09” – Jordi Moragues
Histoires d’Amour, 1997. DVD. 60’ – Yael André
Brief Encounter – David Lean. GB 1945. 35 mm. 86’

Letter
(This figure refers to special dialectic of the love letter, both blank (encoded) and expressive (charged with longing to signify desire). Brief – Die Figur zielt auf die besondere Dialektik des Liebesbriefes ab, der leer (codiert) und zugleich expressiv ist (von dem Bedürfnis getragen, das Verlangen mitzuteilen))

Depicting Love, 2004. DVD. 3’ 08”- Oliver Held
Quadrifoglio, 2000. DVD. 7’56” – Rui Calçada Bastos
Breath Text: Love Poem, 1970-73. DVD. 2’30” – Valie Export
Love Lettering, 2002. DVD. 6’22” – Rivane & Sergio Neuenschwander
Dangerous Liasions – Stephen Frears. USA/GB 1989. 35 mm. 120’

Signs
(Whether he seeks to prove his love, or to discover if the other loves him, the amorous subject has no system of sure signs at his disposal. Zeichen – Sei es, daß es ihm seine Liebe beweisen will, sei es, daß es sich zu enträtseln müht, ob der Andere es liebt: dem liebenden Subjekt steht keinerlei sicheres Zeichensystem zur Verfügung)

Depicting Love, 2004. DVD. 3’08” – Oliver Held
Love Story, 1998. DVD. 2’30” – Antoni Abad
Pale Testament, 1999-2000. DVD. 8’8” – Heman Chong
A Short Film about Love – Krzystov Kiesslowski. P 1988. 35 mm. 87’

Unbearable
(The sentiment of an accumulation of amorous sufferings explodes in this cry: “This can’t go on…”. Unerträglich – Das Gefühl einer Häufung von Liebeskümmernissen zerbirst in dem Aufschrei: „Es kann nicht, es kann nicht so bleiben“)

Depicting Love, 2004. DVD. 3’08” – Oliver Held
I am too sad to tell you, 1971. DVD. 1’57” – Bas Jan Ader
Basic Kit, 1994. DVD. 4’ – Nuria Canal
Als wär’s von Beckett, 1976. DVD. 20’ – Lutz Mommartz
Le Roman de Werther – Max Ophüls. F 1938. 35 mm. 85’

Unknown
(Efforts of the loving subject to understand and define the loved one “in itself”, by means of some standard of character type, psychological or neurotic personality, independent of the particular data of the loving relationship. Unbegreiflich – Versuche des liebenden Subjekts, das geliebte Wesen „an sich“ zu verstehen und im Sinne des charakterologischen, psychologischen oder neurotischen Typs zu definieren, unabhängig von den besonderen Gegebenheiten der Liebesbeziehung)

Depicting Love, 2004. DVD. 3’08” – Oliver Held
The Love Loop, 2002. DVD. 2’26” – Gino Rubert
Das Zauberglas, 1991. DVD. 6’ – Bjørn Melhus
Love Bites, 1998. DVD. 11’ – A.P.Komen / Karen Murphy
Double Blind (No sex last night), 1992. 35 mm. 76’ – Sophie Calle & Greg Shephard
Le Mariage d’Alex – Jean-Marie Teno. C/F 2002. 35 mm. 45’

Waiting
(Tumult of anxiety provoked by waiting for the loved being, subject to trivial delays (rendezvous, letters, telephone calls, returns). Erwartung – Angstaufwallung, die durch das Warten auf das geliebte Wesen ausgelöst wird, nach Maßgabe kleiner Verspätungen (Verabredungen, Telephonanrufe, Briefe, Heimkehrverzögerungen))

Depicting Love, 2004. DVD. 3’08” – Oliver Held
Let’s get Physical/Digital, 1997. DVD. 20’ – Christian Jankowski
Call Waiting, 1997. DVD. 13’11” – Lorna Simpson
Die Ehe der Maria Braun – Rainer Werner Fassbinder. D 1978. 35 mm. 120’