“Potentiality is just an openness without an end”. An interview with Pierre Bismuth

Pierre Bismuth is a very unusual artist. In 2002, in his biography for the catalogue of Manifesta 4, in Frankfurt he defined himself as “an artist considered a good cook by his friends”. His work calls attention to the construction of what we take for granted, aspects related to perception and the ways we produce and consume culture. Pierre Bismuth is also one of the few artists whose work doesn’t have close ties with film, so much as it moves elegantly between the two areas, between contemporary art and film. He was also even awarded an Oscar for the script, written with Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman, for the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

At the moment he is presenting, his first film as a director, Where is Rocky II?, in different situations and contexts, such as the Team Gallery in New York, the gallery Bugada & Cargnel in Paris, Jan Mot in Brussels as well as this years edition of the festival Loop 2015 in Barcelona. We’ve talked about this film with him, about his comings and goings between different contexts, interests and situations as well as his stance as an artist. As an artist who often endeavours to seek systems that maintain a certain distance in relation to his speciality, that is contemporary art.

Rocky2 trailer Rotterdam from Antoine Manceaux on Vimeo.

These days you are presenting your most recent film Where is Rocky II? that is about the search for the work Rocky II, a fake rock that Ed Ruscha hid in the Mojave Desert. How did your interest in this work by Ruscha start and also what made you take it as the core of your film?

It is not only my most recent film but it is actually my first feature film. I discovered the existence of this piece some 10 years ago via a beautiful BBC documentary from 1979. I didn’t think of doing anything with it until I realised that absolutely no one – not even Ed Ruscha’s experts – knew about this work. And the reason for this is most certainly because Ed Ruscha himself never intended to officialise the existence of the piece. So even if a very famous broadcast TV program was showing Ed Ruscha working on this very unusual object in his studio, this was not enough to raise any attention from the art world. This gives you an idea of how many artworks and artists might stay under the radar even with the help of a very good media coverage. So anyway the question that came immediately to my mind was, why is Ed Ruscha so private about this piece ? Why on the one hand to accept to show something publicly on TV and at the same time do everything possible to hide it ? And how come anybody being into Ed Ruscha’s work had never been interested in researching about Rocky 2? The mystery of this piece is not so much about the fact it is a fake rock hidden in the desert but much more about the fact it is an art work hidden from the art world.

I think Ed Ruscha collaborated in your film. We are not going to explain here if you ultimately found the work or not, but did Ruscha give you any clues about the location of the work? What did he think about your idea of searching for Rocky II?

Ruscha makes an appearance as I filmed him during the press conference of his London survey show at the Hayward Gallery in 2009. I pretended to be a journalist and confronted him with the question about Rocky 2. He very elegantly confirmed its existence, explained how it was done, but refused to give any information about its location. We couldn’t dream of any better collaboration from Ruscha than his refusal to talk. I was actually really worried he would say more, it could have ruined the project.

How important for the film is the way the research ends? What did you find out?

The way it ends is very important but the search goes beyond the rock itself. It is much more about how its existence is producing assumptions and how assumptions are somehow always fictional. We of course also found things we where not looking for, like for example this guy who, I realised only later on, had inspired the Coen Brothers to create the character of “The Dude”. So somehow looking for Rocky 2 we found “The Big Lebowski” and it fit right in line since my project was to show how the existence of this strange piece generates situations that produce eventually a film.

This is not the first time your work relates or dialogues with other works or artists, for example Bruce Nauman, Guy Debord or Ruscha, as we mentioned before. What do these artists have that make you do works that dialogue with them?

Most of the time I have a kind of childish, slightly irreverent attitude towards the work of historical artists I like. I try to short-circuit their work, to challenge them and road test them. It is just a way to make them less sacry so one can indeed have a dialogue with them.

Collaboration is another methodology that repeats in your work: collaboration with a detective (in Where is Rocky II?), with a typist (in The Party, 1997), I think in all the cases they come from fields far removed from art, cinema and culture but you ask them to relate to works of art or films. Do you want to destabilize pre-established codes of perception?

I am not sure “collaboration” is the right word here. The work I am doing with the detective and the screenwriters in Where is rocky 2?, the typist in The party and Postscript, or the psychoanalyst and the lawyer in my last Kunsthalle Wien solo show is very different from some collaborations I do with other artists friends. I think the idea here is to study how perception varies according to different fields of expertise. As far as I remember I have always been fascinated by the idea that we live in parallel worlds that are circumscribed by our specific domains of specialisations or interests. In other words that one sees things only because these things makes sense in one’s specific system of knowledge.

Your practice is a clear case of blurring the boundaries between art and the film industry. And you are pioneering in that (later, with more or less success and more or less satisfactory experiences, came Steve McQueen, Cindy Sherman and Shirin Neshat, amongst others). You won an Academy Award, and not just anybody can say that. What are the adjustments you have to make when working in one sphere or the other? What does your artistic practice bring to your work in the film industry and what does your film making practice bring to your experience as an artist?

Mind you Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind is from 2004 while Kathrin Bigelow moved to feature films already in 1982, Julian Schnabel’s first feature Basquiat is from 1996 and Cindy Sherman’s film Office Killer is from 1997. If my position is in anything singular it is only in receiving an Academy award while I am still 100% involved with contemporary art. To be totally honest it is too early for me to speak about “adjustments” as I do not have enough experience in the film business. But I am very aware that doing a film like Where is rocky 2? with that much freedom is quite exceptional and won’t probably happen so often. Thanks to Gregoire Gensollen who decided to produce the film and leave me quasi total freedom.

How has the film been financed and how will it be distributed?

The film has been financed through a French-German-Belgian-Italian coproduction bringing a mix of institutional funding, private investors, ZDF/Arte co-production and Belgian tax shelter, as well as a crowd-funding campaign led by the French production. The film is intended to be distributed in theaters worldwide after a festival premiere in 2016. After its theatrical run, it will then be released in all the traditional distribution platforms in Home Video, VOD and Television, knowing ZDF and Arte will air the film on Free Television in Germany and France respectively as they are our partners on the movie. So for the moment I didn’t really have the time to work on any art institution presentation, even thought I keep the idea of a special museum cut of the film. But this will need to be financed independently anyway.

Frequently your art projects and films deal with an investigation or point at something. What drives you to start an art project or film project?

There are two things that make me start a project. The first one is the delusional belief that it is not going to take me more than 5 min to make a work. The second one is to find people to support a project. And there is actually a third situation when people come to me and ask me to develop on a specific idea or context.

You are quite interested in issues of perception and how we produce and consume culture, and also in creating expectations. Where is Rocky II? appeared first as a trailer, then as a teaser and finally the film. Do you like playing with expectations?

Yes that’s funny because usually the trailer and the teaser are only done after a film is completed. The only reason I started with the trailer and the teaser is because it wasn’t clear I would actually do the feature. And the trailer and the teaser were done as art works, somehow not so far from other art works based on the same principle like The Diamond Lane by Barbara Bloom in 1981, or Trailer for the remake of Gore Vidal’s Caligula by Francesco Vezzoli in 2005. But since the feature is now being done, I am actually looking forward to see what the distributor of the film will produce as a real trailer, probably something very different from my art works versions. But I wouldn’t say it plays on expectation, rather on potentiality. The difference is that expectation is calling for a resolution, a closure, while potentiality is just openness without an end.

Is Rocky II a documentary, a feature film, an art project using structures of the film industry? Or, in the end, is this not important?

In reference and in opposition to the fake documentaries I call it a “fake fiction” because I use real situations and real characters to construct a narrative that tries, as much as possible, to look like a written fiction. In its principle you could say it is not so different from a reality show, but it goes exactly in the opposite direction in the sense that reality shows are very orchestrated but pretend to be totally spontaneous and most always adopt the “documentary look” with hidden cameras or hand held shaky camera. You could argue as well that writing fiction with bits of reality is nothing else than what writers do anyway, and that’s true; many writers say they do not invent anything but just recycle stuff they have experienced or heard. But what was really nice on Where is Rocky 2? was to actually write with live recorded material. So with my assistant Nicolas Jolly, who became my “creative consultant” on this project, we were going back to our desk after each day of shoot and continued to write the script according to what just happened that day. It is not an easy process because of the inertia of the film crew that requires usually to feed it with instructions as much in advance as possible, but it is on the other hand the most exciting exercise if you are capable of thinking fast and adapting to contingencies in real time.

What is the city but the people? Jaremy Deller at CA2M

Solely for having made The Battle of Orgreave (An Injury to One is an injury to All) (2001), Jeremy Deller merits a prominent position amongst the artists of the 21st century. Fortunately for him, Orgreave is just one amongst many other brilliant pieces. Deller’s career is defined by remarkable milestones, such as the reconstruction of the hard confrontation between the police and miners that took place in Orgreave (South Yorkshire) in 1981, that signified the end of an era of industrialisation and at the hand of the highly savage neoliberalism of the Thatcher era paved the way for an economy based on entertainment and services. Another key work is The History of the World (1997) a diagram drawn on the wall that traces connections between the music scene and the social and political context of Great Britain. This mental map establishes a network of influences and relations linking two musical styles -acid house and brass bands- with facts such as deindustrialisation or the miner’s strike, while underlining the component of dissidence –in relation to the social and political order of the moment- they both share.

More examples: So Many Ways to Hurt you (The Life and Times of Adrian Street), (2010) is the biography, recounted by him, the son of a Welsh miner, who was ridiculed by his father and community and who, fascinated by body building, ended up making a career in the sixties and seventies as a professional fighter, making star appearances in television programmes. Adrian Street narrates his own experiences and defines himself in a poem as «a sweet transvestite with a broken nose». His extravagance led him to the United States where he made a career as a renowned figure of American, free-for-all wrestling, and continued to live in Florida, managing a workshop for clothing, that he himself designed, related to the industry of free style wrestling. Another personality, as idiosyncratic as Adrian Street himself, and also an example of reinvention is that of The Bruce Lacey Experience (2012), with a quite peculiar artistic style, that more than emphasising its extravagance places on the table the standardisation of the artistic and cultural scene. Or finally, English Magic, his proposal for the British pavilion of the 2013 Venice Biennale, in which he elaborates a critical portrait of Great Britain, where there is no lack of allusions to corruption or international interventionism, and which, in short, shows everything he loves and everything he hates about his country.

If we are looking back over Jeremy Deller’s career in this way it is because these days one can revise these and other works in an exhibition intelligently curated by Cuauhtémoc Medina, Amanda de la Garza and undoubtedly the artist himself, in the Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo in Mostoles, Madrid. It is a show that fits perfectly within the discursive line of the centre, directed by Ferran Barenblit, that in certain moments has focussed its attention on aspects related to music or popular culture as elements that define our present.

Jeremy Deller.The infinitely variable ideal of the popular is an exhibition that takes its title from Baudelaire, taking its name from the “infinitely ideal variable of beauty”. Baudelaire’s appearance here is not by chance for he in fact always defended the freedom of the artist in relation to the media he chose to use, a parallelism that in the case of Deller is patently clear. The show begins chronologically with Open Bedroom (1993-2012), an installation that recreates the exhibition the artist made in what was his “studio” while he was at college, in his bedroom of his parents’ house, taking advantage of their absence. One they only became aware of ten years later when they saw the images in a book. The installation recreates not just the works presented but also the surroundings and links directly to a whole list of independent initiatives of artists and curators in private and personal spaces, such as Hans-Ulrich Obrist in the kitchen of his house, Hou Hanru in the corridor of his apartment in Paris or Martí Manen in his bedroom, amongst many others.

Jeremy Deller. The infinitely variable ideal of the popular pauses, as mentioned at the beginning, at the milestones of his career. What it evidences is how in this journey his work has become an investigation of the popular, of the aesthetics of participation. Often the artist is the initiator or catalyst for processes for which he counts on quite different forms of collaboration, ceding prominence to diverse groups, be they miners, fans of music groups or craftsmen who make the most incredible pennants. However, above all he reconstructs stories from the past, be they collective or individual. These reconstructions evidence different things, for example, the deindustrialization of a country and how it treats people (The Battle of Orgreave), while at the same time constituting a wake-up call in the face of the effects of the implacable advance of the most savage neoliberalism, a reference we shouldn’t overlook, for if Great Britain was the first, the rest of Europe now finds itself at the doors of this type of disastrous process. It also shows the passing from a model of industrialised country to another based on entertainment (So Many Ways to Hurt You (The Life and Times of Adrian Street)) or the place left for independent and idiosyncratic attitudes (The Bruce Lacey Experience). But above all it places values on people who are at the centre of everything (What is the City but the People? (2009) an installation in the London underground, in which a series of quotes from Shakespeare, Pascal and Ionesco appear).

Deller’s work talks of freedom, the capacity for redefinition and reinvention and shows conflicts and their consequences, but above all it offers the possibility of room for thought. And, last but not least, it appeals to us directly, not just because he uses all sorts of materials and artistic media from very diverse origins, but above all because it breathes honesty, enthusiasm and emotion.

In 2009, Maria Acaso published the book “Art education is not crafts. New practices in teaching arts and visual culture”, the content of which is as relevant today as it was six years ago. While the role that art education plays in compulsory education is increasingly secondary, Acaso claims the need to reinforce art education, to create critical visual thinking. If we take into account that we are subjected to a constant avalanche of images, it seems sensible to think that, as critical and responsible citizens, we need to know how to read images and their mechanisms. Otherwise, we become illiterate in the face of images and, therefore, slaves to messages. Although perhaps that is precisely what is expected of us in this world that increasingly resembles the one George Orwell described in “1984”.

Surely these critical and catastrophic arguments do not convince everyone. Furthermore, the lack of concrete and reliable evaluation data is usually one of the most characteristic tics of the contemporary art world, which always resists being reduced to figures and statistics. To correct this defect, a study was carried out in the United States, randomly selecting 11,000 students from various schools who were given access to a series of artistic activities (exhibitions, workshops, plays, etc.) that their schoolmates did not have. To evaluate the results of this experiment, improvements in not only academic aspects were taken into account, but also other creative skills necessary to live in the global economy of the 21st century. The study also concluded that being exposed to art from a young age contributes to better personal development and higher self-esteem, has a positive impact on values ​​such as tolerance and empathy, and contributes to the development of critical thinking, a greater capacity for observation and analysis.

While society governed by the laws of the economy or, worse, debt, prefers to ignore these options, the art world has long been experiencing an approach to educational issues. There is a shift towards education that became very visible in 2006, when the curators of Manifesta 6 in Cyprus decided to replace the exhibition format of the biennial with the creation of an art school. Although the event was finally cancelled for various reasons, since then there have been numerous curatorial proposals based on educational formats, long or short-term pedagogical projects or free and participatory schools.

Since last year, in Espai 13 of the Fundació Miró in Barcelona and under the curatorship of the Azotea collective (Ane Agirre and Juan Canela), work has been done in this direction from hybrid and transversal formats. The Lesson 0 cycle focuses on proposals related to pedagogy that investigate renewed forms of knowledge creation. Seminars, artist residencies in secondary schools, work sessions with teachers or research into educational models are some of the focuses of a proposal whose results will certainly not be visible in the short term, but will be of great relevance for the future.

[Article published in Bonart, 2015]

The challenge is great: proposals to improve the context of the arts in Catalonia. The temptation to fall into discouraging diagnoses is there. But the guideline is clear: we are going to be proactive. So what is the context? What and who make up the artistic fabric? Obviously it is not only the institutions, large and small, but also the proliferation of independent initiatives – precarious too – that arise from the need to do things, to believe in what is done and that is often identified with the dynamics of DIY (do it yourself). Fragility also has a positive side, which is agility and the capacity to react and adapt.

Another aspect to consider: who are artistic practices aimed at? Who is their audience? We often think of a general audience when the reality is that a large percentage of the audience of the most avant-garde visual arts are the producers themselves. We find ourselves in an area of ​​very high self-consumption. This is why the criteria for measuring profitability never quite add up, either in terms of visitor numbers or sales figures.

Political circles often forget that art, by definition, cannot be identified with a cultural industry. Because artistic work cannot respond to standard parameters, but on the contrary, it is based on idiosyncrasies, personal obsessions and a critical relationship with its forms. Therefore, the knowledge it generates goes beyond fixed patterns and insists on diversity and difference.

The visual arts are not a sector with guaranteed profitability. They move on very slippery ground and, depending on the moment, society is more or less receptive to these types of issues. The present confirms to us every day that we are at the lower end of the acceptance level. Contemporary art is seen as cryptic, unnecessary and elitist, not to mention stigmatized by the need for funding and subsidies. It is curious that other, more powerful industries receive aid and injections of money and are freed from this accusation (the automobile industry is one and banking, another).

But we are going to be proactive rather than critical, so here are 6 proposals to improve the arts sector in Catalonia.

Influence education, so that art forms part of the normal experience from childhood to recover its real connection with society. Art can provide a new way of seeing things, a form of differentiated and more critical knowledge. For artists, having real contact with an audience that approaches their practices with curiosity and without fear of asking direct questions can be a very healthy exercise.

Improve the presence of art in the media, so that it does not only have a public appearance through news related to figures, records or scandalous and/or ridiculous situations. Inform about art, artists and exhibitions focusing on their content that, however complex it may be, can always be communicated in a clear and direct way. Working on forms of financing that combine public and private initiatives, without depending solely on one of them. On the one hand, administrative circuits could be simplified. On the other, technology companies could play an important role in exchange for an extra knowledge, refinement and intellectual consumption that can complement the very profitable leisure consumption.

Bet on hybrid cultural models for the production, distribution and enjoyment of culture. Encourage dialogue and exchange. Reinvent oneself. In fact, artists produce work, but they also curate it, and their work can be an object, a workshop, a conference, a guided tour, a play or a dinner; galleries sell, but they can also produce, promote, manage and promote research projects; curators are producers, mediators and can look for more creative ways of doing and communicating; collections can influence production.

Try to cover the main needs of creators in terms of mobility, exchanges, specific resources and, above all, time.

6. Guarantee the independence of the art sector and block political interference.

… and 1 intuition:
Encourage in-depth work, resistance, the creation of a solid base. Perhaps it is not negative that the art sector is not in the foreground, but in a more discreet but respected position in order to have more autonomy, less pressure, less debt (economic and moral) and less risk of domestication.

Sis propostes i un pressentiment

[Article published in Bonart, 2014]

Patrizia Sandretto is an outstanding collector. She began her collection in the 90s and soon her interests focused on photography and media art. President of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, in the following interview she speaks about her interest in media art, her relationship with artists and her active and committed role in the art world not only as a collector but also a promoter of projects.

Montse Badia: You are one of the most active persons in the art world nowadays, would you define yourself as a collector or do you think your role in the arts is much broader than this?

Patrizia Sandretto: From the start of my activity as a collector, I felt the need to reach a wider audience and to be more actively involved in processes in the contemporary art world—not only to make my collection accessible to the public but to create a platform for the creation and development of contemporary art—a place, or better still, an institution that could be of service to both the artists and the general public.

MB: The mission of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo is to become “an observatory for research and production of the most exciting avant-garde art”. How do you think this is possible in our global world? What are the guidelines of the Foundation to do its research and to identify and highlight the artistic discourses that are shown in their venues?

PS: Since the Foundation was established, which is now going on 20 years, the art world has changed a great deal. It has expanded to include many different and new geographical and cultural contexts. We have aimed to address this with our exhibition program, with exhibitions such as Alllooksame. Contemporary art from China, Korea and Japan and with Modernikon, which showcased contemporary art from Russia. In cases like this, it is important for us to work with local art institutions like ours, who help and lead us in our research for the shows.

MB: You have been collecting since the 90s, and at an early stage your interests went in the direction of photography and media art. How do you think these media are related to and defining our present?

PS: My collection was born at a time when photography, video and installation were big and I spontaneously became very interested in all three media in relation to art production. Compared to more traditional methods such as painting and sculpture, video and photography are not only means of expression that exist in art but also most definitely the means of communication used on a daily basis by the masses. In this sense, they are more connected, more in touch with the contemporary world and in some cases more able to analyze and understand it.

MB: You not only collect but also commission and produce art works and projects as well, most of them using video and new media. What does it mean for you to produce a new work?

PS: Producing new works is always challenging, surprising and an exciting way of being actively involved in artistic processes. This can come about in different ways. Sometimes, we produce works for artists who are taking part in our exhibitions. At other times, artists will come to us with their ideas and proposals for new ambitious projects. In cases like this, I work with my curators to decide which projects are worth supporting.

MB: These productions sometimes take part in international events, such as the Venice Biennale or Documenta, do you think this is the natural evolution of the role of the patron?

PS: I believe that as patrons of the arts we have a duty to do as much as we can for artists and also for the major art shows. Often, in fact, internationally acclaimed exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale have small production budgets, but it is important that new work is introduced into these major events. For the latest documenta, for example, Carolyn Christov Bakargiev asked me to support the production of a new film by the artist Wael Shawky, so he could produce his second film in the Cabaret Crusades series, a proposal that I accepted with great enthusiasm!

MB: Fondazione Sandretto also supports young international curators. I would like you to explain this program a little bit as well as its relation to Italian art.

PS: Every year three young foreign curators are invited to Italy in order to organize an exhibition. Participants are selected by an international jury from the best international schools for curators. The three curators spend four months travelling in Italy; they meet with artists and visit galleries, museums and private collections in Milan, Venice, Rome, Bologna, Naples and Palermo. The program culminates in an exhibition of Italian artists at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin. The residency aims to favour research into the Italian artistic scene.

MB: You are also a partner of the Torino Film Festival. How do you see the two-way relation between art and film, the interest and influence of cinema o n contemporary artists or even the special case of Steve McQueen, with whom you have been working, who is developing a double career as an artist and a film-maker?

PS: Artists who use video have always seen film as a font of inspiration, an expressive example of different ways of looking at the world. The thing that is interesting today is the fact that artists have decided to make films themselves, investigating the language of cinema. Steve McQueen’s case is special, as he, unlike other artists, seems to have found his own cinematographic aesthetic, which still has ties with his work as an artist but which also stands alone as a great example of contemporary film.

MB: You also organize exhibitions for other venues outside Torino, as you did recently in Barcelona, at the Foundation Godia, where you presented a total of eight videos and video installations under the title La mirada comprometida (the compromised gaze). From this exhibition, your collection could be defined as engaged, media-based and related to social and political issues. Do you think these three aspects are at the core of your collection?

PS: Yes, there are certain aspects which are central to the policies behind our acquisition, production and presentation of works and artists. The aforementioned Steve McQueen and Wael Shawky are examples of the kind of artistic practice that we are interested in following and promoting, an experimental and innovative visual point of view that raises important issues about the social and political aspects of today’s world.

MB: What do you think is the role of art and culture in society nowadays?

PS: Today, as in the past, arts and culture make our experience of the world more complex. Art does not offer any answers or easy ways to interpret, but it does highlight and discuss serious issues affecting out world today, offering alternative ways of looking at the world and the ways we live.

[Interview published in Eikon Magazine, Wien, 2014]

Revisiting the past from a contemporary perspective is a premise as necessary as it is delicate and, too often, boring. Depending on the motivations, you can generate tendentious rereadings or associations free of academicisms that can become the key to understanding some facts of the present. Apart from the Tricentenary theme, three interesting examples in this sense are coming together in Barcelona these days. These are three proposals that do not recreate battles or epic feats, but rather, based on the work with archives and documents, reveal unpublished materials or develop unusual associations.

The first of these is the new arrangement of part of the MNAC (National Art Museum of Catalonia), which rehouses the museum’s modern art collection. And he does it not based on chronological or stylistic criteria, but on the changes in the idea of ​​the “modern artist”, his status, the conception of workshop and work, which not only brings new light to the way in which the pieces that follow can be seen, but refers to a direct dialogue with the current notions of artist, workshop and production. And as it could not be otherwise, the same watertight classification of discipline disintegrates and forces to exhibit painting, sculpture and architecture together with what was previously known as applied arts, and other new media such as photography, cinema and advertising. It is only from the coexistence of these manifestations, which contextualize the different elements of study, that a kind of Zeitgeist or spirit of the moment can be communicated.

On the same mountain of Montjuïc, a little further away, at the Joan Miró Foundation, Joan M. Minguet and Fèlix Fanès have curated a historical exhibition: Barcelona neutral zone, 1914-1918, which defines with absolute precision the space-time period to be treated and, even based on a multitude of documents (for which the curators are art historians and university professors) does not hesitate, however, to avoid academicism. And in relating, contrasting and establishing very interesting and not at all topical associations, like for example the one that presents Sunyer in the sphere of influence of Cézanne and not in the “noucentista” section or the one that attributes great importance to illustrated newspapers, photography, cinema and posters.

Precisely, one of the great curatorial successes is that the works of the artists are an important part of the exhibition but not the only one. That is to say, it is not expected that isolated paintings and drawings speak for themselves, but that they are wrapped or in dialogue with all kinds of elements, which include films, posters of boxing matches, photographs of the night in Barcelona or cars from Hispano-Suiza. How can we not communicate that the 1st World War was the 1st war photographed and in which the means of mass manipulation were introduced? Illustrated newspapers, very abundant at that time, give a good account of it.

Although Barcelona stayed out of the war, the impact of the war was not insignificant. It had an influence on the economy (trade and industry grew), and consequently, on social conflicts (the bourgeoisie became rich and inequalities grew). Barcelona was politically neutral, but intellectually it did take sides. There were Francophiles and Germanophiles. And there were also comings and goings, exiles and a great exchange. Not only some salons from Paris that could not be held in the French capital, will be presented in Barcelona, ​​but also for some time creators such as Albert Gleizes and his wife Juliette Roche, Sonia and Robert Delaunay, Marie Laurencin or Arthur Cravan lived in the city, among others. The purity, order and classicism of the Noucentism coexisted well with an environment of intellectual activity, creative effervescence and nightlife, as the exhibition very well shows. The importance of the mass media is evidenced at the end of it, which closes with fragments of Charles Chaplin’s film Shoulder Arms (1918). If the exhibition began with images of the 1st World War, which was the first technological war, it concludes with the satirical vision of that same war, provided by Chaplin.

Barcelona neutral zone (1914-1918) is a historical exhibition that constantly appeals to the present and helps to understand some of its dynamics, precisely because it is not nostalgic but maintains the tension between memory and critical review. And it makes us remember other looks at Barcelona (that city that likes to look at itself so much and that is often so self-indulgent) such as Joan Ollé’s play À la ville de… Barcelona, ​​which we already mentioned, or novels such as La ciudad de los prodigios or Sin noticias de Gurb by Eduardo Mendoza.

We close the review by returning to the MNAC where Perejaume has been invited to “maneuver” in the museum and in numerous archives, disposing of materials from various sources and nature as we had never seen them before. Between the Wunderkammer and the atlas in the purest Warburg style, Perejaume presents more than a hundred pieces, among them, a work by Miró next to a hand by an anonymous author and the arm of the Olot giantess; a collection of diaries of the civil war; or an archive-inventory of types of clouds by Eduard Fontseré Riba, to mention only some of the wonders arranged and activated in this look at the past from the present.

Mirar la historia desde el presente o cómo activar el pasado

It has been around for eighteen years and is one of the most impressive accessible archives dedicated to contemporary culture. It contains concrete and sound poetry, video pieces made by artists, underground cinema, sound art and other extravaganzas that are true treasures. It is UbuWeb. It was founded by the poet Kenneth Goldsmith and defines itself as the Robin Hood of the avant-garde, with the particularity that instead of stealing from some to give to others, what UbuWeb does is openly share access to knowledge. It is not for profit and its operation does not involve economic transactions. It is on the Internet: www.ubu.com, with the bandwidth and server provided by various universities. UbuWeb works on the basis of volunteers and much of the material posted on the Internet is without permission. Its purpose is to share and its contents are the subject of consultation and study from research and the university and cultural spheres.

What do we find on UbuWeb? Everything. From films by Kenneth Anger, Omer Fast, General Idea or Jean Genet, to mention the wide range of possibilities, to complete seminars by Jacques Lacan and non-obvious material, such as the film Television Delivers People by Richard Serra, documentaries and biographies dedicated to Jorge Luis Borges or J.G. Ballard, texts by Stéphan Mallarmé, Öyvind Fahlström or William S. Burroughs and, finally, rarities that are true treasures such as the greatest musical hits by Martin Kippenberger or the television advertisement that Salvador Dalí made for a bank in 1967.

“If we had to ask permission, we would not exist,” said Kenneth Goldsmith in an open letter he wrote in 2001. But not only has he not had any problems with creators, but he has received awards and recognition for his work on the Internet. Talking about UbuWeb now makes sense because of its long history, because it is an idiosyncratic initiative that does not believe in copyrights, bureaucracy, committees or visitor numbers, because it proposes another way of distributing cultural content and also because it shows that another way of working is possible, while at the same time exposing an art system based on anachronistic forms of distribution, an academic field whose priority is no longer knowledge and, of course, a world in which culture matters less and less.

The lack of monetary exchange, the fact that it does not generate profits or is not for sale (although there has been no shortage of offers) makes UbuWeb absolutely independent. Although this independence brings with it the uncertainty that at any moment it may cease to exist, either because they stop giving it space on servers, because it does not have enough volunteers or even because human energy runs out. So let us enjoy the possibilities it offers us while it lasts and long live UbuWeb!

[Arrticle published in Bonart, 2015]

In her work, Carolina Bonfim explores the codes of gestures and body representation, as well as the overlaps and shifts between the gaze and physical presence. Through projects on a very human scale, the artist creates scenarios and situations that allow for a direct relationship between artist and spectator, as well as the questioning of both roles.

With a background in performing and visual arts at the UNESP Institute of Arts in São Paulo, Carolina Bonfim (São Paulo, Brazil, 1982) settled in Barcelona to pursue a master’s degree in Artistic Production and Research at the University of Barcelona. The observation of the differences in body movements, especially in dance, between both places led her to research, which resulted in the works Here, Please (2012) and Remake of movements in night clubs (2012). In the first of these, she accurately reproduced the movements of some choreographies related to pop culture, after a thorough and systematic study of them. In the second, after carefully observing the dance movements at the Moog club in Barcelona, ​​the artist mimetically reproduced them as a way of establishing a dialogue with other people.

Both projects are direct antecedents of Balmes 88 (2014), a performance carried out by the artist in the spaces of a venue at number 88 on Balmes street in Barcelona, ​​which had been the after-club of the same name and was being transformed into the spaces that would house the Cyan art gallery. In these spaces, still under construction, for four Fridays in the months of April and May, the artist dedicated herself to dancing alone to some of the hits that were undoubtedly heard during the previous life of the venue. The action, which could only be seen from the street, turned potential spectators into voyeurs. As an act of resistance, Bonfim recovered the past of the space and showed how changes in uses are nothing more than the result of urban transformations and the power mechanisms that dictate them and that, directly and indirectly, condition certain forms of use and behaviour.

Interpersonal relationships and the rethinking and interference between the roles of artist and audience, as well as the reformulation of the notion of performance, are constants in Carolina Bonfim’s work. A notable example is Corazón 190, a performance for a single participant that was presented in the context of the Barcelona Production 2013 competition by La Capella. The number 190 in the title refers to the frequency of heartbeats that mark the threshold of a heart attack. In Corazón 190, Bonfim alludes to the tachycardia that can be caused by tension or uncertainty. The performance is not carried out by the artist but by the participant who decides to sign up and obey the instructions that are guided by SMS through Las Ramblas in Barcelona until they end up in an apartment in the Raval district where no one is waiting for them. The willingness to assume that the role of the audience does not have to be passive or comfortable implies, as a spectator, the acceptance of a transfer of control of the work, the opening to the unexpected, the submission to follow instructions, to enter the fictional space of another or to the possibility of being another. When entering a private space that belongs to another and in the absence of this one, the spectator finds himself with some photographs that show him making the journey that he had made only a few minutes before, that is, they confront him with the evidence that he had been observed, watched and controlled. In the tension between different opposites (presence and absence, public space and private space, identification and resistance), Carolina Bonfim proposes performance as the means to rethink the self, the relationship with others, the construction of personal and interpersonal space or the mechanisms of transfer of control.

[Published in xtrart, 2014]