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’

At one point in “Luces de Bohemia,” Valle-Inclán speaks through the mouth of his protagonist, Max Estrella: “Classical heroes reflected in concave mirrors give the Esperpento. The tragic sense of life can only be given with a systematically deformed aesthetic.”

David Shrigley’s drawings allude to the darkest side of everyday existence. They are direct, uncompromising, and show the most absurd aspects of our society. For him, “humor is just the sugar with which the message is decorated to make it sweeter.” With a “do-it-yourself” aesthetic, absolutely personal and “low tech,” Shrigley uses multiple formats (drawings, animations, sculptures, posters, installations, web pages, photographs, multiples, postcards, album covers, books and t-shirts) to make his work more accessible. Artist, musician and filmmaker, Shrigley uses text – including cross-outs – to add meaning to his drawings.

The Shrigley universe (which is well documented on his website: http://www.davidshrigley.com) is dominated by an almost childlike cruelty and a fascination with aspects not linked to the adult world, that is, to a world governed by rules and conventions. Thus, dirt, fluids, animals, insects, monsters or absolutely asocial characters populate his works. This is how Katrina M. Brown explained it in a text about the artist: “In Shrigley’s work we find an unavoidable humor. However, it is not a light and brilliant wit, but rather, markedly sinister and with a tendency towards what is inferior in life.” Insects, fluids, dirt, what is hidden appear in the foreground. Like the crowded beings with surprised eyes in his work “The Contents of the Gap between the Refrigerator and the Cooker”, or in other words, all the germs, little animals, rubbish, food scraps and other imaginable and unimaginable elements that accumulate over the years in spaces as invisible as the gap between the refrigerator and the kitchen. They are all the product of fantasy, or rather, of nightmare, and evoke a whole world alien to norms and conventions, alien to control and appearances.

The protagonists of his works tend to be strange, sociopathic, cruel and endearing characters at the same time, who experience situations that reveal strange logic and in which fear, phobias, love, cruelty and also tenderness make an appearance. This is the case of Pete, the unbalanced protagonist of the animation “Who I am and what I want”, made in collaboration with Chris Shepherd. Pete tells us about his life, his desires and his dreams. He tells the story of a life of excess that has led him to move away from the fierce competitiveness of the city and exile himself in the forest, where he lives with animals. The strange becomes the usual, the ordinary gives way to the extraordinary.

There is a tender and subtle David Shrigley, as when he takes a photograph of a balloon with a smiley face that appears between the sheets of an unmade bed. However, there is also a more acidic and bitter Shrigley, who presents a stuffed cat without a head, a stuffed squirrel that holds its head in its hands as if it were a nut or a tooth full of cavities in front of a mirror (“What Decay Looks Like”).

The two works that David Shrigley presents at the Santa Monica Art Center do not clearly show the artist’s language. In both the animation “Sleep” and the installation “Insects,” humor is not the most prominent element. On this occasion, Shrigley dispenses with the sugar that could sweeten the message. “Sleep” has no clear beginning or end. During the eight minutes that the animation lasts, the action is reduced to a man (not exactly physically pleasant) lying in his bed sleeping, breathing deeply, sometimes moving his hands slightly, changing the position of his head and modifying his expression depending on his dreams. Perhaps his dreams appear to be populated by a strange universe, the one we find on the second floor, populated by an army of insects and other elements, very homemade, with metal bodies and a thousand imaginable shapes. Once again, dreams and insects escape from norms, control and conventions. They move in a territory of non-consciousness, in the realm of the latent, the hidden, in an asocial space where all fears, doubts and insecurities surface. They are reflected and they reflect us in concave mirrors that do nothing but bring to light tremendously human aspects.

Montse Badia
September 2008

TIME

Los Angeles, 2019
On the roof of the Lloyd building, Roy Batty, the leader of the group of rebel replicants who have returned to Earth to learn the meaning of their existence, is about to accept his end: “I have seen things you people wouldn’t believe. I have seen ships attacking on fire off the edge of Orion. I have seen C-beams shining in the darkness near the Tanhäuser Gate. All these moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. It’s time to die.”
Police officer Rick Deckard becomes a witness and ally, even though his initial mission was quite different: “I don’t know why he saved my life. Maybe in those moments he loved life more than he had ever loved it. Not just his own life, but everyone’s. My life. All he wanted were the same answers we all seek. Where do I come from? Where am I going? How much time do I have left?”

Time. The notion of time leads us to a great philosophical question. The certainty of its finitude leads to an existential question. Memento Mori. Do not forget that your time is not eternal and will end one day.
And of course, art can become a manifestation of ideas, “a Trojan horse,” as the artist Ceal Floyer once defined it.
Tere Recarens prepared two large containers, the contents of which can only be revealed on March 19, 2014.
Kris Martin made an edition of ten golden spheres whose interior houses an explosive device that will be activated in a hundred years, in the year 2104.
James Lee Byars collected “perfect spheres,” “perfect moments,” “perfect phrases,” everything that deserves to endure and that synthesizes the essence of things, of existence.
The paintings and videos by Muntean and Rosenblum show the nostalgia of an Arcadia that also reminds us of the ephemeral nature of life.
Felix Gonzalez-Torres lets the pile of sweets equivalent to the weight of his sick lover gradually diminish as visitors to the exhibition take them away. Mountains of sweets or piles of posters disappear, dispersing, like life.
With songs shared by everyone, sung a cappella, Susan Philipsz transforms a common space into a space that we can suddenly make our own, that we see in a different way, because the songs she sings with her fragile and naked voice are part of our own biography.
On Kawara constantly reminds us that he is still alive.
Kris Martin invites us to look into a mirror in which, as if it were the end of a film, the words “The End” are written.

Suspended Time
Suspending time. Expanding it. To eternalize it, but also to reveal its mechanisms. To reveal its meaninglessness.
In Sleeping, Andy Warhol films an eight-hour night of sleep by the poet John Giorno. The last image of the film is a frozen shot. He also records the Empire State Building for eight hours. Real time and cinematic time overlap.
Martí Anson makes a road movie that shows everything that a road movie would never show, that is, the moments in which nothing relevant happens, the dead times.
In 24 hours Psycho, Douglas Gordon slows down Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho so that its duration coincides with the 24 hours in which the film’s plot develops. Not only does he emphasize the denial of the narrative, but he turns the suspense of the intrigue into a suspended narrative.
Jeff Wall, Gregory Crewdson and other artists who work with “staged photographs” stop the action, but to make it last and so that the ordinariness of the chosen moment makes us aware of certain disturbing elements. In short, to make us suspicious of what we see.
Alicia Framis also stops time, or rather, the people who are part of various companies and institutions remain completely still for a few minutes. Her gesture has consequences but above all it serves to remind us that any individual action can have an extraordinary impact.

Economies of time
Time is money. The efficient use of work responds to a mental and economic system in which time equals money. Our daily life is completely programmed. There is no room for the unexpected or for the chance encounter. Baudelaire’s flâneur, the dandies’ walks accompanied by turtles to mark a slow rhythm; Breton’s Parisian wandering in search of Nadja and also poetry; the drifting journeys of the situationists… are no longer possible or have become acts of resistance or desocialization, attempts to reclaim our time. There are many ways of using time and also of losing it. The answer to effectiveness is a commitment to individuality and a position against standardization. It is the search for results different from those expected.
Art can create these frameworks of thought. It allows us to approach things in a different way. It allows us to approach reality from new perspectives, from the absurd, from the questioning of predetermined values, from doubt.
Francis Alÿs proposes travelling from Tijuana to San Diego, but not along the road that crosses the Mexican-American border, but by following another route, via Panama, Santiago, Sydney, Singapore and Bangkok, which will take thirty-five days to complete. He also observes some “paradoxes of praxis”. Sometimes making something leads to nothing. The artist drags a block of ice through the streets of Mexico City until it melts, leaving only a wet trail. There is no doubt that this is an absolutely subjective estimate of the economy of time.
Claude Closky revels in unproductive efforts, in futile knowledge. He makes inventories: the first thousand numbers in alphabetical order. He collects set phrases, ordering them from longest to shortest. He numbers the squares on a squared pad or makes a list from the Dôle telephone directory of 8,633 people there that he doesn’t know.
Ignasi Aballí also makes lists from newspapers: of people, artists, works, dead people… He wastes huge cans of paint. He builds useless walls or rectifies a black surface by covering it completely with tippex.
To put a bicycle wheel around a lamppost, Andreas Slominski has the lamppost raised, puts the wheel on the ground and then puts the lamppost back in place. To send a letter, he has a giraffe from the zoo lick the stamp.

David Hammons decided long ago. “The less I do, the more of an artist I am. Most of the time I spend on the street and walking.” In 1983, in Cooper Square in New York, David Hammons put snowballs on sale, arranged according to size on a coloured carpet.
We are left with the image of Hammons in a coat, hat and gloves, on a snowy street corner in front of fifty perfectly grouped snowballs, holding one in his hand and waiting. Looking to the side with an expression somewhere between taciturn, mocking and resigned. Selling snowballs and waiting. Waiting for a reaction, a response, a meaning. Simply waiting. Time.

Montse Badia
Spring 2008

(Pensa/Piensa/Think is an exhibition co-curated at the Santa Mònica Art Center in Barcelona, ​​by Frederic Montornés, Jacob Fabricius, Ferran Barenblit and Montse Badia)

Alicia Framis takes conflicts or contradictions she sees around her as the starting point for the new ideas, models or prototypes that make up her series. Violence, security, coexistence, communication and loneliness are among the key themes that have articulated her work. Framis gets involved in specific issues and projects for a certain period of time —which can range from a few days to a few years— during which her authentic ‘works in progress’ are defined, transformed and evolve, often in relation to the places where they are presented.

The artist once defined the aim of her work as being essentially ‘to create a good concept for life’: a positioning as direct as it is complex, and one that in the last analysis is simply an affirmation of the need for art as a catalyst for other ways of looking, seeing and questioning things. These premises are present in all of Framis’s projects to date, a few of which it may be pertinent to recall here, as an introduction to Guantanamo Museum, her most recent work. In Dreamkeeper (1997), for example, she placed an advert in the papers offering to watch over the dreams of lonely people; in Remix Buildings (1999-2000) she put forward a new approach to architecture, bringing together unlikely combinations of functions —a cinema and a hospital, an underground railway and a cemetery, a motorway and a memorial, and so on— in order to demonstrate the extent to which our society strives to render invisible all those aspects of existence related to disease, old age, suffering and death. Anti-Dog (2002-2003), a reflection on violence against women, consisted of a collection of dresses made of special fabrics: bullet-proof, flame-retardant and resistant to attack by dogs. Secret Strike (2003-…) is a series of collective performances staged with the support of various institutions —Tate Modern in London, Inditex in Santiago de Compostela, Rabobank in Utrecht…— in which the workers interrupt whatever they happen to be doing for a few moments and bring the activity of these major employers to a complete standstill.

Collaboration, then, is another key aspect of Framis’s work. Not only on the part of the architects, designers, musicians or writers whom she often enlists as her travelling companions, but also of the people she directly involves in her projects, and of the spectator, who cannot help but be implicated into her works.

Guantanamo Museum is the latest project by Alicia Framis, and the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica is the second stop on what looks set to be lengthy expected itinerary which started at the Galería Helga de Alvear in Madrid with a ‘sketchbook’ in which the artist presented her concerns in relation to a highly topical issue: the prison at Guantánamo. Since 2002, the U.S. military has used its base in Guantánamo Bay (Cuba) as a maximum security detention centre. The prisoners in Guantánamo, seized and imprisoned without trial, are classified as ‘enemy combatants’ and suspected of terrorist activities, deprived of the most basic rights and systematically tortured… Numerous initiatives in various parts of the world continue to condemn the existence of Guantánamo. A few weeks ago, the press announced that ‘the U.S. Supreme Court gives the coup de grace to the limbo at Guantánamo’, citing the judges’ decision that the detainees have a constitutional right to defend themselves in the civil courts. This may be the definitive end of Guantánamo.

Alicia Framis’s project starts from the observation that in all likelihood the Guantánamo prison will be closed soon, at which point it will inevitably be turned into a museum, because we live in a society that has an insatiable need to museify everything. Auschwitz and Alcatraz are good examples of how from the memory of horror can create souvenirs for the tourist trade. Framis does not try to be categorical or to provide solutions, but aims instead at a more in-depth take on whether it is legitimate to turn horror into a consumer product. After all, perhaps museums of this kind are a lesser evil, a way of ensuring that certain atrocities are not forgotten?

Alicia Framis’s Guantanamo Museum pinpoints this paradox with its proposal of a possible a museum for Guantánamo — a museum that the artist will undoubtedly define further in the course of successive presentations of her project. In this exhibition at the CASM, the artist focuses on the essential human factor by remembering all the people who have been or are still caged in the camps at Guantánamo. Guantanamo Museum: The List is a memorial in which 274 sawn-through motorcycle helmets evoke the prisoners’ vulnerability and the abuse of their integrity, while the voice of the musician Blixa Bargeld reads out a list, compiled by the writer Enrique Vila-Matas, of all the men’s names, reminds us of their presence and, at the same time, their absence.

In parallel, Guantanamo Museum: Sketches is a reinterpretation of different parts of the prison camps, showing how they could be converted into the proposed museum, whose motto is ‘Things to Forget.’ In defining the objects to be displayed in the museum, the artist has been working with various collaborators, including architects, designers and design students, and running a series of workshops at the Felicitat Duce School of Fashion (Barcelona), the IED European Design Institute (Madrid and Barcelona) and Can Xalant (Mataró). One result of these workshops is the exhibition Guantanamo Museum: Workshops, a selection of ideas, sketches and prototypes that Alicia Framis has incorporated into her proposal for the Museum of Guantánamo, the latest —and the last?— museum to emerge from horror.

Montse Badia
June 2008

In the year 1996, Dora García carried out an installation entitled Perplexity, which consisted of cordoning off a space of an art gallery with a tape on which the word “perplexity” could be read. In this so simple manner (and in the case of the works of Dora there is an inversely proportional relationship between the ease with which her works may be described and their conceptual complexity), the artist was indicating the limits within which her work is situated: to present reality as multiple and questionable and to explore the relationship between the artist, the work, and the public. In other words, Dora indicates, she acts like a cinema director who tells stories (or simply selects them), unchains a situation, situates us in a scenario or makes us participants in a game the rules of which are very similar to reality and for this very fact allow us to question it.

Contes choisis is the title of this exhibition, which may be defined as miniretrospective, as it gathers together a selection of works that include the lapse of time between the years 1991 and 2007. Due to the marked procesual character of the works of Dora García, the presentation of these works is made in a format that the artist herself defines as “in off mode”, that is to say, showing those elements that form a part of the works but in an “uninstalled” manner.

Contes choisis presents a passage over seven works: Contes Choisis (1991) is an installation presented in the De Appel Foundation in Amsterdam in which the portrait of Guy de Maupassant set off against two enigmatic sculptures define a narrative and fictional substratum. Todas las Historias (All the Stories) (2001- ) is a piece of work in process the ambition of which is to reunite “all of the stories of the world. The reader who may decide to read them out load becomes a performer of Todas Las Historias (All the Stories) and, whenever s/he may have finished, all men and women, all time and all places, will have passed over his/her lips. The difficulty lies in the fact that new stories are added to this list almost every day”. La Habitación cerrada (The Closed Room) consists of a room that must remain closed. Whenever anyone enters into the said room, it disappears and the work vanishes. The Crowd is a performance that is based on the need to create expectations and in which the public plays an essential role. The Prophets is described in this manner by the artist “[Prophets]… every day they enter into the museum and pick up the photocopies with the prophecies that there are for that day and which I had sent previously. For the next hour, they hand them out among the visitors of the museum and carry out the prophesized tasks which I wrote specifically for them on the papers that they are distributing. They never know beforehand which those tasks may be, nor in which form they will be presented to the visitors on the following day. The tension that these “prêt-a-porter” prophecies generate (…), the suspicion that the events that take place are part of a representation, and the constant threat of an uncontrollable reality…”. The Beggar’s Opera is the project that García presented in the Skulptur Projekte Münster’07 and which consisted of a series of performances carried out by an actor who interprets a beggar, Filch, inspired on the beggar apprentice of the opera of John Gay, which in turn inspired Bertolt Brecht in The Threepenny Opera. Filch is a character who moves freely around the streets of Münster, sufficiently marginal in order to be able to say what he thinks at all times. His adventures, encounters and observations were noted down in the log book www.thebeggarsopera.org as well as a series of monologues that were represented in the Metropolis Kino of Münster and which now appear together in a publication. Finally, C (Film contado dos veces – told twice), a proposal created specifically for the CASM, is a commented projection from Film (1964) by Beckett which is based on the notion of a subjective camera. The commented projection will take place every Wednesday at 19:00 PM in the Auditorium of the CASM.

Moving constantly between the frontiers that separate fiction from reality, the performances of Dora García (performances with actors who follow a series of instructions) explore their limits, which are none other than the limits between what is real and the representation of the same. By means of the investigation of the construction of fictions, the work of Dora García offers an autoreflexive vision of the individual and of his/her environment, in which recognition plays an essential role.

“Art is for everyone but only a select few know it”, preys one of her ”golden phrases”, true statements or declarations of principles with which she makes her position public and with which it proves to be easy to identify oneself. “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary lies in that little something extra”. It is precisely there where that extraordinary about her work lies.

Montse Badia

In 1996, Dora García created an installation called Perplexity, which consisted of delimiting a space in an art gallery with a ribbon on which the word “perplexity” could be read. In this simple way (and in the case of Dora’s works there is an inversely proportional relationship between the ease with which her works can be described and their conceptual complexity), the artist pointed out the limits within which her work is situated: presenting reality as multiple and questionable and exploring the relationship between artist, work and public. In other words, Dora points out, acts like a film director who tells stories (or simply selects them), triggers a situation, places us in a scenario or makes us participate in a game whose rules are very similar to reality and for that very reason allow us to question it.

Selected Stories is the title of this exhibition, which could be defined as a mini-retrospective, as it brings together a selection of works spanning the period between 1991 and 2007. Due to the markedly procedural nature of Dora García’s works, the presentation of these works is done in a format that the artist herself defines as “off mode”, that is, showing the elements that form part of the works but in an “uninstalled” way.

Selected Stories presents a tour of seven works: Contes Choisis (1991) is an installation presented at the De Appel Foundation in Amsterdam in which the portrait of Guy de Maupassant contrasted with two enigmatic sculptures define a narrative and fictional substratum. All the Stories (2001- ) is a work in progress whose ambition is to bring together “all the stories of the world. The reader who decides to read them aloud becomes a performer of All the Stories and, when he or she has finished, all men and women, all time and all places, will have passed through his or her lips. The difficulty lies in that almost every day new stories are added to this list.” The Closed Room consists of a room that must remain closed. When someone enters this room it disappears and the work fades away. The Crowd is a performance that starts from the need to create expectations and in which the public plays an essential role. The Prophets is described in this way by the artist, “[The prophets]… every day they come into the museum and pick up the photocopies with the prophecies that there are for that day and that I had sent in advance. During the next hour, they hand them out to the museum visitors and carry out the prophesied tasks that I wrote specifically for them on the papers they are distributing. They never know in advance what these tasks may be, nor in the way in which they will be presented to the visitors the next day. The tension generated by these “ready-to-wear” prophecies (…), the suspicion that the events that take place are partly staged, and the constant threat of an uncontrollable reality…”. The Beggar’s Opera is the project that García presented at the Skulptur Projekte Münster’07 and consisted of a series of performances by an actor who plays a beggar, Filch, inspired by the beggar’s apprentice in John Gay’s opera, which in turn inspired Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera. Filch is a character who moves freely through the streets of Münster, sufficiently marginal to be able to say what he thinks at all times. His adventures, encounters and observations were noted in the logbook www.thebeggarsopera.org as well as a series of monologues that were performed at the Metropolis Kino in Münster and which are now compiled in a publication. Finally, C (Film Told twice), a proposal created specifically for the CASM, is a commented screening of Beckett’s film Film (1964) based on the notion of subjective camera. The commented screening will take place every Wednesday at 7 pm in the CASM Auditorium.

Constantly moving between the borders that separate fiction and reality, Dora García’s performances (performances with actors who follow a series of instructions) explore their limits, which are none other than the limits between reality and its representation. By investigating the construction of fictions, Dora García’s work offers a self-reflective vision of the individual and their environment, in which recognition plays an essential role.

“Art is for everyone but only an elite knows it,” says one of her “golden phrases,” true statements or declarations of principles with which she makes her position public and with which it is easy to identify. “The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is in that little extra thing.” That is precisely what makes her work extraordinary.

Montse Badia

Peter Liversidge (Lincoln, UK, 1973) makes proposals. For the last ten years, the artist has been making proposals, which he has presented, amongst other places, at the Edinburgh Art Festival, at the Europalia Festival in Brussels or in the Unlimited section at the Art Basel Fair.

All his projects begin at the same starting point: a proposal consisting of the idea to write proposals. “I propose to write proposals for Montse Badia at the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, Barcelona, during October 2007. Starting no sooner than the first of October and finishing no later than the thirty-first of October 2007”. This was the beginning of the exhibition “Proposals for Barcelona” by Peter Liversidge in the Centre d’Art Santa Mònica.

Some of the eighty-eight proposals submitted by Peter Liversidge are utopical, others are impossible, others are poetical, others are of a practical nature and others are pure entertainment. From the absolute banal to transcendent, Liversidge’s proposals are more prescriptive than descriptive. Some of them have been performed and can be found materialised or documented at the exhibition iteself, others, on the other hand, open a space so that the spectator can interpret them as he may. Thus, in the Exhibition Hall we can find objects related to one of the proposals previously sent by Liversidge (“I propose to place on the floor of Gallery 2 at Centre d’Art Santa Monica a bronze cast of the two elastic bands I found outside my front door this morning. The elastic bands were the red type often dropped by postmen. They were laying on top of each other, and this is how they will appear in the gallery space”), graphic documentation of actions performed by the artist himself (“I propose to scatter Brittish wild-flower seeds in any broken ground in the city of Barcelona”), documentation of actions we’d all like to carry out (“I propose to use the telephones at Centre d’Art Santa Monica to phone everyone I know”) or proposals that the spectator can be endowed with more significant connotations (“I propose to escape to the beach”).

Peter Liversidge sent by normal post 88 proposals, which had been typed previously and of which only one original exists. But his debt to conceptual art does not only fulfill purely formal aspects. Liversidge’s proposals are not a revivial of conceptual art. His closeness to historic conceptual practices lies in his starting point, in his attitude. Liversidge carries out an institutional criticism, which isn’t always obvious, as more than actually denouncing or demonstrating certain mechanisms or specific mannerisms, the artist makes us ponder on a series of processes or assumed roles. Liversidge does not respond to the organiser’s invitation with one or two proposals for the exhibition, but with many proposals (sometimes twenty, sometimes eighty and sometimes almost two hundred), in such a way that he begins a process of discussion, of exchange of view-points, of decisions and also of shared responsibilities which convert the preparation of the work into a climax of intensity which hardly leaves any trace once the exhibition “materialises”.

However, institutional criticism is means not an end for Liversidge. With his proposals, the artist invites us to rethink the roles but also he makes us rethink nature and our immediate surroundings, at the same time whilst opening a world of possibilities. And he does all this not as much from grandiose gestures but from small, concise actions, on a very human scale but that can make our perception of things change radically.

Liversidge confronts us with different conceptions of nature using his representations (he makes molds of a stone he found using different materials, he exhibits a dissected bird, shows films taped at the Zoo, shows winter drawings or presents a floral tribute of a place idealised by the artist); he confronts us with the perception of surroundings (via light, smoke, songs or noises); he sets himself personal challenges (learn Spanish, correct mistakes, make plans…); he offers services (manage a restaurant in the city centre, be a wedding-photographer…) or he proposes difficult ways to change our environment (put spotlights on the bottom of cable-cars to project light-beams over the city).

With some proposals more or less concrete, others more or less ambitious, more or less visionary, Peter Liversidge invites us to think that it’s possible to have a bearing on our surroundings. Starting from the most daily aspects that define our biographies, the artist proofs that it’s possible to appeal to the imagination and to other possible worlds, he chooses sense of humour as a trigger to raise essential questions on the human being. Peter Liversidge’s proposals are not written scripts, but unlimited possibilities.

Montse Badia

Montse Badia