Mireia Sentís, who divides her time between Barcelona, Madrid and New York, has produced a significant body of work as a photographer, print and television journalist, exhibition curator, art critic and essayist over the last three decades. This project comprises an exhibition of a selection of her photographs and a series of lectures in which she will present her creative process in photography, her work for television and the current state of her essay projects on Chicano and African-American cultures.

The series featured are:
Corners
Black Suite
Claustrofobia
Joyas
Máxima Audiencia
Felicion

Mireia Sentís, who divides her time between Barcelona, Madrid and New York, has produced a significant body of work as a photographer, print and television journalist, exhibition curator, art critic and essayist over the last three decades. This project comprises an exhibition of a selection of her photographs and a series of lectures in which she will present her creative process in photography, her work for television and the current state of her essay projects on Chicano and African-American cultures.

The series featured are:
Corners
Black Suite
Claustrofobia
Joyas
Máxima Audiencia
Felicion

Related links:
www.youtube.com/artssantamonica | www.flickr.com/photos/artssantamonica

After the fall of Barcelona, in the last months of the Spanish Civil War the photojournalist Agustí Centelles was interned together with other refugees in French territory in the concentration camp at Bram, Languedoc, where he was held from the 1st of March to the 13th of September, 1939. During the flight from Barcelona and his subsequent internment and release from the concentration camp, Centelles wrote a diary, which has now been published. He also took more than 600 photographs documenting life in the concentration camp, of the most striking expressive power. These extraordinary images are a unique testimony to life in a concentration camp in 20th-century Europe. The exhibition will present a selection of the more than 600 photographs that Centelles took in Bram, together with entries from his diary and documentation about the concentration camp at Bram in 1939.

After the fall of Barcelona, in the last months of the Spanish Civil War the photojournalist Agustí Centelles was interned together with other refugees in French territory in the concentration camp at Bram, Languedoc, where he was held from the 1st of March to the 13th of September, 1939. During the flight from Barcelona and his subsequent internment and release from the concentration camp, Centelles wrote a diary, which has now been published. He also took more than 600 photographs documenting life in the concentration camp, of the most striking expressive power. These extraordinary images are a unique testimony to life in a concentration camp in 20th-century Europe. The exhibition will present a selection of the more than 600 photographs that Centelles took in Bram, together with entries from his diary and documentation about the concentration camp at Bram in 1939.

Related links:
www.youtube.com/artssantamonica1 | www.youtube.com/artssantamonica2 | www.youtube.com/artssantamonica3 | www.flickr.com/photos/artssantamonica

Usman Haque / Bestiario, Santiago Ortiz / Laurent Mignonneau, ChristaSommerer / José Manuel Berenguer / Sony Lab: Luc Steels, MichaelSpranger, Martin Loetzsch / Raquel Paricio, Juan Manuel MorenoAróstegui / Interaction Research Studio-Goldsmiths-University of London/ Prospect and Innovation Studio-Goldsmiths-University of London: MikeWaller, Terry Rosenberg, Pete Rogers, Andrew Weatherhead, DuncanFairfax / Digital Methods Initiative: Richard Rogers, EstherWeltevrede, Erik Borra, Marieke van Dijk / Govcom.org Foundation:Alexander Galloway, Erik Borra, Michael Stevenson, Marieke van Dijk

CULTURES OF CHANGE. SOCIAL ATOMS AND ELECTRONIC LIVES looks at social and cultural dynamics from a multidisciplinary set of perspectives that range from the sciences of complexity to digital technologies. This exhibition project in the form of an installation presents an international selection of works of warm technology that breathe with human breath, some from academic institutions and research centres, some created by artists with extensive experience in this field.

The exhibition marks with the celebration of the International Congress on Changing Cultures | Cultures of Change in Barcelona, funded by the European Commission (www.atacd.net), in which sociologists, philosophers, mathematicians, biologists, physicists, technologists and artists will air and share their views on cultural dynamics in the contemporary world.

The project includes a series of workshops and a variety of activities related to the works on show.

Usman Haque / Bestiario, Santiago Ortiz / Laurent Mignonneau, ChristaSommerer / José Manuel Berenguer / Sony Lab: Luc Steels, MichaelSpranger, Martin Loetzsch / Raquel Paricio, Juan Manuel MorenoAróstegui / Interaction Research Studio-Goldsmiths-University of London/ Prospect and Innovation Studio-Goldsmiths-University of London: MikeWaller, Terry Rosenberg, Pete Rogers, Andrew Weatherhead, DuncanFairfax / Digital Methods Initiative: Richard Rogers, EstherWeltevrede, Erik Borra, Marieke van Dijk / Govcom.org Foundation:Alexander Galloway, Erik Borra, Michael Stevenson, Marieke van Dijk

CULTURES OF CHANGE. SOCIAL ATOMS AND ELECTRONIC LIVES looks at social and cultural dynamics from a multidisciplinary set of perspectives that range from the sciences of complexity to digital technologies. This exhibition project in the form of an installation presents an international selection of works of warm technology that breathe with human breath, some from academic institutions and research centres, some created by artists with extensive experience in this field.

The exhibition marks with the celebration of the International Congress on Changing Cultures | Cultures of Change in Barcelona, funded by the European Commission (www.atacd.net), in which sociologists, philosophers, mathematicians, biologists, physicists, technologists and artists will air and share their views on cultural dynamics in the contemporary world.

The project includes a series of workshops and a variety of activities related to the works on show.

In conjuction with:
A Topological Approach to Cultural Dynamics (NEST PathFinder, as part of the European Commission 6th Framework Programme), Goldsmiths - University of London, Media Studies - Universiteit van Amsterdam, Universitat de Barcelona, Advanced Hardware Architectures - Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Neàpolis, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, BEEP.

Thanks to:
Ramon Balagué, Vicente Matallana, Michele Catanzaro, EventLab UB, Pere Monràs, Carles Tardío, Oriol Vallès, YProductions, Gennaro Ascione, Jasmina Bolfek-Radovani, Alex Adriaansens, Matthew Fuller, Celia Lury, Sergi Valverde, Albert Díaz-Guilera, Alex Arenas, Esteban Moro, Fabian Muniesa, Jaume Masoliver, Eugene Stanley, Maxi Sanmiguel, Dirk Helbing, Philip Ball, Maximilian Schich, Albert-László Barabási, Mike Michael, James Crutchfield, Tiziana Terranova.

Related links:
www.culturesdelcanvi.com | www.youtube.com/artssantamonica1 | www.youtube.com/artssantamonica2 |www.youtube.com/artssantamonica3 | www.youtube.com/artssantamonica4 | www.youtube.com/artssantamonica5 | www.youtube.com/artssantamonica6 | www.youtube.com/artssantamonica7 | www.flickr.com/photos/artssantamonica

Links: http://www.atacd.net


GUIDED VISITS, until 28 February 2010
Guided visits led by the participants to the exhibition | Advance booking essential: tel. 93 567 11 10

General public
Thursdays at 7.00 p.m.
Saturdays at 6.00 p.m. 
small groups
Length of visit: approx. 60 mins.
 
School Sessions
Tuesday to Friday at 10.00 a.m.
Groups of 25-30 students
Length of visit: approx. 60 mins.

Quim Monzó (Barcelona, 1952) is one of the most widely acclaimed Catalan writers. The author of novels and short stories, newspaper columns, topical articles dealing with major international conflicts and a regular guest on television and radio, his work has been published in translation all over the world.

The exhibition MONZÓ is based on research that has brought to light little-known aspects of his career, from his family background to his coverage of the Vietnam War in 1973, his work as a graphic designer and cartoonist, his stay in New York in the early eighties or the influence of Tourette’s syndrome on his creative work. Monzó comes across as an exceptional chronicler, a meticulous observer of the contemporary condition.

With this project the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes and Arts Santa Mònica resume the series of literary exhibitions initiated by KRTU with shows devoted to J.V. Foix, Josep Pla and Joan Perucho, Josep Palau i Fabre and Joan Brossa.

Quim Monzó (Barcelona, 1952) is one of the most widely acclaimed Catalan writers. The author of novels and short stories, newspaper columns, topical articles dealing with major international conflicts and a regular guest on television and radio, his work has been published in translation all over the world.

The exhibition MONZÓ is based on research that has brought to light little-known aspects of his career, from his family background to his coverage of the Vietnam War in 1973, his work as a graphic designer and cartoonist, his stay in New York in the early eighties or the influence of Tourette’s syndrome on his creative work. Monzó comes across as an exceptional chronicler, a meticulous observer of the contemporary condition.

With this project the Institució de les Lletres Catalanes and Arts Santa Mònica resume the series of literary exhibitions initiated by KRTU with shows devoted to J.V. Foix, Josep Pla and Joan Perucho, Josep Palau i Fabre and Joan Brossa.

Related links:
www.youtube.com/artssantamonica | www.youtube.com/artssantamonica1 | www.flickr.com/photos/artssantamonica | http://issuu.com/artssantamonica

Links:  http://www.monzo.info | http://cultura.gencat.cat/ilc |

Virtual Societies. Gamer’s Edition is a reflexive journey on the borders between reality and virtuality, play and social interaction, creativity and communication. It has its roots in the wargaming invented in Prussia in the first third of the nineteenth century, and envisages the evolution of its mechanisms to the point of establishing itself as a massive online role-playing game, by way of the conception of the game as a demiurgic tool, the role of the avatar as a divine incarnation and/or narrative intrusion, the part played by multiverses and the return to the physical world from virtual creations.
 
The exhibition is a kind of traversable film archive, with a series of points of light projecting scenes from video games such as SimCity, The Sims, Spore, Populous, Black & White, Fable, World of Warcraft, Ultima Online, EverQuest, EyePet and Wheelman as well as cinematic worlds such as Second Life or Habbo Hotel, testimonial documentaries and tactile and olfactory objects. The balconies on the first floor have been screened over, and from outside we can see the players’ faces in real-time video.
 
The subject is the simulacrum, the mirage, games whose object — like that of aesthetics, communication and science — is knowledge and not rules and limitations in themselves. These are not screens but faces lit up with frenzy.

Virtual Societies. Gamer’s Edition is a reflexive journey on the borders between reality and virtuality, play and social interaction, creativity and communication. It has its roots in the wargaming invented in Prussia in the first third of the nineteenth century, and envisages the evolution of its mechanisms to the point of establishing itself as a massive online role-playing game, by way of the conception of the game as a demiurgic tool, the role of the avatar as a divine incarnation and/or narrative intrusion, the part played by multiverses and the return to the physical world from virtual creations.
 
The exhibition is a kind of traversable film archive, with a series of points of light projecting scenes from video games such as SimCity, The Sims, Spore, Populous, Black & White, Fable, World of Warcraft, Ultima Online, EverQuest, EyePet and Wheelman as well as cinematic worlds such as Second Life or Habbo Hotel, testimonial documentaries and tactile and olfactory objects. The balconies on the first floor have been screened over, and from outside we can see the players’ faces in real-time video.
 
The subject is the simulacrum, the mirage, games whose object — like that of aesthetics, communication and science — is knowledge and not rules and limitations in themselves. These are not screens but faces lit up with frenzy.

Related links:
www.youtube.com/artssantamonica | www.youtube.com/artssantamonica1 | www.flickr.com/photos/artssantamonica

The Archive space at Arts Santa Mònica presents an exhibition whose basis is the generous donation by Philippe and Dorothée Selz to the Museu del Joguet de Catalunya of the collection of a series of collections that their parents, Françoise and Guy Selz, put together over half a century (1925-1976) — a collection they themselves completed, and one that led the artist Dorothée Selz and, by extension, the group of Catalan artists in 1970s Paris to fashion from it an innovative art form rooted in popular culture.
Dorothée and Philippe Selz are the heirs to the work done by their parents throughout a large part of the twentieth century. Now that inventive universe, that ‘Collection of collections’ — scraps, crepe paper, reliquaries, crosses, votive offerings, birds, dolls, animals, masks, lead soldiers, popular prints, albums of stickers, toy boats and the rest — will be presented in a new context. As François Mathey, curator of the first exhibition, wrote in the catalogue: ‘collectors, more than others, experience the nostalgia of a world that is disintegrating and the need, each in their own way and as far as possible, to save pieces of it that they may serve as testimony.’

The exhibition, as the catalogue makes clear, reflects the spirit of the collector who, unlike the museologist, seeks not to preserve a record of the past but to capture its energy, and does so by means of groupings of objects which create a set of transverse systems of knowing with a recurring figuration that constitutes the ecology of the authentic against the barbarism of technology.

The Archive space at Arts Santa Mònica presents an exhibition whose basis is the generous donation by Philippe and Dorothée Selz to the Museu del Joguet de Catalunya of the collection of a series of collections that their parents, Françoise and Guy Selz, put together over half a century (1925-1976) — a collection they themselves completed, and one that led the artist Dorothée Selz and, by extension, the group of Catalan artists in 1970s Paris to fashion from it an innovative art form rooted in popular culture.
Dorothée and Philippe Selz are the heirs to the work done by their parents throughout a large part of the twentieth century. Now that inventive universe, that ‘Collection of collections’ — scraps, crepe paper, reliquaries, crosses, votive offerings, birds, dolls, animals, masks, lead soldiers, popular prints, albums of stickers, toy boats and the rest — will be presented in a new context. As François Mathey, curator of the first exhibition, wrote in the catalogue: ‘collectors, more than others, experience the nostalgia of a world that is disintegrating and the need, each in their own way and as far as possible, to save pieces of it that they may serve as testimony.’

The exhibition, as the catalogue makes clear, reflects the spirit of the collector who, unlike the museologist, seeks not to preserve a record of the past but to capture its energy, and does so by means of groupings of objects which create a set of transverse systems of knowing with a recurring figuration that constitutes the ecology of the authentic against the barbarism of technology.

Related links:
www.youtube.com/artssantamonica1 | www.youtube.com/artssantamonica2 | www.flickr.com/photos/artssantamonica

Links: www.mjc.cat

until 14 March| EL POLVORÍ (La Poudrière). François Rebelais street. Perpinyà

Agustí Centelles. The concentration camp at Bram, 1939

until 14 March| EL POLVORÍ (La Poudrière). François Rebelais street. Perpinyà

Agustí Centelles. The concentration camp at Bram, 1939

Opening | Patio de La Casa Encendida, Madrid | 11 de february, 2010 | 18.00h | www.lacasaencendida.es

FRROM I TO J. A tribute to John Berger by Isabel Coixet

Opening | Patio de La Casa Encendida, Madrid | 11 de february, 2010 | 18.00h | www.lacasaencendida.es

FRROM I TO J. A tribute to John Berger by Isabel Coixet

«Antarctica is the visible presence of change. Measured time is embodied in a never-ending sequence of sun and fog, of calm, of snowfall and stone fields exposed by wind, of tides, of the advances and retreats of ice floes and pack ice on the bay. It’s a landscape in motion, nothing lasts beyond this moment. Here in Antarctica every second has the value of the present. It appears and disappears before it can be remembered.» Mireya Masó

Mireya Masó mostly works in video and photography, and in recent years she has essentially concerned herself with the study of human beings through their action on the landscape. In her project ANTARCTICA. TIME OF CHANGE, however, she engages with a natural landscape barely touched by man, and focuses her investigations on the mechanisms of perception of the human being in an environment in continual transformation.

The exhibition, which sets up a dialogue with scientific research from the perspective of art, is the outcome of fieldwork carried out during the austral summer of 2006 at Argentine bases in Antarctica in collaboration with the marine ecologist Mercedes Masó.

The conversations between the artist and scientists from different disciplines provide the basis for an informal discussion session in parallel with the exhibition which will consider questions such as Perception in the Antarctic environment in terms of glaciology, biology, psychology, neurology and other disciplines, and The interpretation of Antarctic microorganisms from the perspective of bionanotechnology and architecture. These talks will thus trace two thresholds of perception — the macroscopic, in the expanses of ice and snow that make up the Antarctic landscape, and the microscopic, through the experimentation with diatoms, an abundant form of Antarctic phytoplankton.

With this show, marking the completion of a three-year cycle in which the artist’s work has centred on Antarctica, Arts Santa Mònica is presenting for the first time a body of new material produced especially for this occasion.

The exhibition will be complemented by a series of activities for a wide range of publics (including school groups) designed to enhance our understanding of Antarctica and stimulate reflection on the environment in general.

The project has benefitted from the support of the Dirección Nacional del Antártico in Argentina (DNA), the Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC) in Barcelona and the Institut d’Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya (IaaC). The exhibition will be part of the ‘I Do’ programme, an EU project involving museums and cultural centres in collective action to prevent climate change during 2010 within the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme.

«Antarctica is the visible presence of change. Measured time is embodied in a never-ending sequence of sun and fog, of calm, of snowfall and stone fields exposed by wind, of tides, of the advances and retreats of ice floes and pack ice on the bay. It’s a landscape in motion, nothing lasts beyond this moment. Here in Antarctica every second has the value of the present. It appears and disappears before it can be remembered.» Mireya Masó

Mireya Masó mostly works in video and photography, and in recent years she has essentially concerned herself with the study of human beings through their action on the landscape. In her project ANTARCTICA. TIME OF CHANGE, however, she engages with a natural landscape barely touched by man, and focuses her investigations on the mechanisms of perception of the human being in an environment in continual transformation.

The exhibition, which sets up a dialogue with scientific research from the perspective of art, is the outcome of fieldwork carried out during the austral summer of 2006 at Argentine bases in Antarctica in collaboration with the marine ecologist Mercedes Masó.

The conversations between the artist and scientists from different disciplines provide the basis for an informal discussion session in parallel with the exhibition which will consider questions such as Perception in the Antarctic environment in terms of glaciology, biology, psychology, neurology and other disciplines, and The interpretation of Antarctic microorganisms from the perspective of bionanotechnology and architecture. These talks will thus trace two thresholds of perception — the macroscopic, in the expanses of ice and snow that make up the Antarctic landscape, and the microscopic, through the experimentation with diatoms, an abundant form of Antarctic phytoplankton.

With this show, marking the completion of a three-year cycle in which the artist’s work has centred on Antarctica, Arts Santa Mònica is presenting for the first time a body of new material produced especially for this occasion.

The exhibition will be complemented by a series of activities for a wide range of publics (including school groups) designed to enhance our understanding of Antarctica and stimulate reflection on the environment in general.

The project has benefitted from the support of the Dirección Nacional del Antártico in Argentina (DNA), the Institut de Ciències del Mar (CSIC) in Barcelona and the Institut d’Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya (IaaC). The exhibition will be part of the ‘I Do’ programme, an EU project involving museums and cultural centres in collective action to prevent climate change during 2010 within the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme.

All sorts of people and languages go up and down the Rambla in Barcelona, with the sea as its terminal boundary. RAMBLAPARAULES welcomes one and all to take a reader’s stroll between two of the city’s great cultural institutions — the Ateneu Barcelonès and Arts Santa Mònica. Here is an open invitation to fill the Rambla with words through the reading aloud of all kinds of creative writing, from poetry to history and from philosophy to science by way of prose fiction and essays: the text of your choice in the language your choice.

The event will start in the Pati de Carruatges courtyard of the Ateneu, where the first 26 readers will be well-known figures from the Catalan cultural scene, who will then be relieved by 26 other readers nominated by the artists who will continue the process. The urban action will commence outside of the Ateneu with the participation of everyone who wishes to join in.

Finally, Arts Santa Mònica will host a concert action with the spotlight on the voice, with the authors Concha Jérez and Pepe Iges and musicians Merran Laginestra, Magda Guillén, Pilar Subirá and Pedro López, among others.

All sorts of people and languages go up and down the Rambla in Barcelona, with the sea as its terminal boundary. RAMBLAPARAULES welcomes one and all to take a reader’s stroll between two of the city’s great cultural institutions — the Ateneu Barcelonès and Arts Santa Mònica. Here is an open invitation to fill the Rambla with words through the reading aloud of all kinds of creative writing, from poetry to history and from philosophy to science by way of prose fiction and essays: the text of your choice in the language your choice.

The event will start in the Pati de Carruatges courtyard of the Ateneu, where the first 26 readers will be well-known figures from the Catalan cultural scene, who will then be relieved by 26 other readers nominated by the artists who will continue the process. The urban action will commence outside of the Ateneu with the participation of everyone who wishes to join in.

Finally, Arts Santa Mònica will host a concert action with the spotlight on the voice, with the authors Concha Jérez and Pepe Iges and musicians Merran Laginestra, Magda Guillén, Pilar Subirá and Pedro López, among others.

LA RAMBLA, a joint project that has emerged from the shared concerns of two highly acclaimed contemporary photographers, the Catalan Jordi Bernadó (Lleida, 1966) and the Italian Massimo Vitali (Como, 1944), sets out to portray present-day Barcelona by way of one of its most emblematic public spaces, La Rambla.

Each photographer, faithful to his own visual poetics, presents his personal vision of La Rambla: taken together, the photos show us two faces, two profiles, which are no less than two ways of looking and seeing.

Bernadó probes the interiors of buildings on La Rambla in contained, pared-down images of hidden or little-known spaces and other, more familiar spaces that strike us here as strange, ambiguous, almost grotesque. For his part, Vitali captures the more cosmopolitan, public face of La Rambla, the popular international thoroughfare, in panoramas of crowds in the urban space as a scenario of mass tourism.

By way of the specificity of the Barcelona Rambla, this photographic chronicle proposes a critical reflection on architecture, urbanism and the transformation of the contemporary city in the new global era.

LA RAMBLA, a joint project that has emerged from the shared concerns of two highly acclaimed contemporary photographers, the Catalan Jordi Bernadó (Lleida, 1966) and the Italian Massimo Vitali (Como, 1944), sets out to portray present-day Barcelona by way of one of its most emblematic public spaces, La Rambla.

Each photographer, faithful to his own visual poetics, presents his personal vision of La Rambla: taken together, the photos show us two faces, two profiles, which are no less than two ways of looking and seeing.

Bernadó probes the interiors of buildings on La Rambla in contained, pared-down images of hidden or little-known spaces and other, more familiar spaces that strike us here as strange, ambiguous, almost grotesque. For his part, Vitali captures the more cosmopolitan, public face of La Rambla, the popular international thoroughfare, in panoramas of crowds in the urban space as a scenario of mass tourism.

By way of the specificity of the Barcelona Rambla, this photographic chronicle proposes a critical reflection on architecture, urbanism and the transformation of the contemporary city in the new global era.

On 5 July 1983, in the great round hall of the Saint Nicolas tower overlooking the port of La Rochelle, during 24 hours without a break Valère Novarina made 2,587 drawings in Indian ink and red pencil depicting the characters of his play The Drama of Life, which was premiered at the Avignon festival in 1986. ‘Why 2587? It’s a number like any other. But I tested it and it works: it’s a multiple of 13, like all the numbers in the Bible, it’s divisible by 4, which is Adam’s number, the number of matter, of the creation of the world. With 3 you get a surface and with 4 a volume. It’s a staging of the generic. It’s very simple: Adam is asked to say who went before him. He enumerates them.’

The exhibition THE THEATRE OF DRAWING will present all of these drawings, first shown in the Hall of Theology in the Palace of the Popes in Avignon in 1986. The complete series of drawings, a sound recording of 427 names of God (an extract from Novarina’s book La chair de l’homme) and the profiles of the characters from the play provide an introduction to one of the foremost creative talents in contemporary French and European art and theatre in his multi-faceted work as a writer, playwright, stage designer, painter and draughtsman.

On 5 July 1983, in the great round hall of the Saint Nicolas tower overlooking the port of La Rochelle, during 24 hours without a break Valère Novarina made 2,587 drawings in Indian ink and red pencil depicting the characters of his play The Drama of Life, which was premiered at the Avignon festival in 1986. ‘Why 2587? It’s a number like any other. But I tested it and it works: it’s a multiple of 13, like all the numbers in the Bible, it’s divisible by 4, which is Adam’s number, the number of matter, of the creation of the world. With 3 you get a surface and with 4 a volume. It’s a staging of the generic. It’s very simple: Adam is asked to say who went before him. He enumerates them.’

The exhibition THE THEATRE OF DRAWING will present all of these drawings, first shown in the Hall of Theology in the Palace of the Popes in Avignon in 1986. The complete series of drawings, a sound recording of 427 names of God (an extract from Novarina’s book La chair de l’homme) and the profiles of the characters from the play provide an introduction to one of the foremost creative talents in contemporary French and European art and theatre in his multi-faceted work as a writer, playwright, stage designer, painter and draughtsman.

Interesting links: www.espaibrossa.com | www.novarina.com

REMOTE VISION aims to offer a sample of the most innovative work being done in the field of video art today together with a broad yet singular overview of the most representative areas of activity in video since 2000. The works have been selected from those presented by a variety of contemporary art galleries from around the world at the seven annual LOOP Barcelona video art fairs (2003-2009). The total of almost 50 pieces, including single-channel projections and videos shown on screens throughout the exhibition, explore different forms and formats — including methodologies derived from the world of film and other contemporary techniques — and themes such as the body, the idea of landscape, the social nature of art or humour as a medium for criticism.

Paul Young, curator of the exhibition, is a journalist and director of a dozen international award-winning shorts; his most recent book is Art Cinema (Taschen, 2009) and he is a regular contributor to newspapers such as The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times and magazines such as Rolling Stone and ARTnews, among others.

The exhibition REMOTE VISION. THE BEST OF LOOP: NEW VIDEO ART FROM EUROPE AND THE AMERICAS was presented at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles from October to December 2009.

REMOTE VISION aims to offer a sample of the most innovative work being done in the field of video art today together with a broad yet singular overview of the most representative areas of activity in video since 2000. The works have been selected from those presented by a variety of contemporary art galleries from around the world at the seven annual LOOP Barcelona video art fairs (2003-2009). The total of almost 50 pieces, including single-channel projections and videos shown on screens throughout the exhibition, explore different forms and formats — including methodologies derived from the world of film and other contemporary techniques — and themes such as the body, the idea of landscape, the social nature of art or humour as a medium for criticism.

Paul Young, curator of the exhibition, is a journalist and director of a dozen international award-winning shorts; his most recent book is Art Cinema (Taschen, 2009) and he is a regular contributor to newspapers such as The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times and magazines such as Rolling Stone and ARTnews, among others.

The exhibition REMOTE VISION. THE BEST OF LOOP: NEW VIDEO ART FROM EUROPE AND THE AMERICAS was presented at the Pacific Design Center in Los Angeles from October to December 2009.

Interesting links: www.loop-barcelona.com

Lara Almarcegui, Ibon Aranberri, Sergio Belinchón, David Bestué & Marc Vives, Bleda y Rosa, Santiago Cirugeda, Pedro G. Romero, Dora García, Federico Guzmán, Cristina Lucas, Fernando Renes

The central theme of the exhibition, which brings together works by contemporary Spanish artists with a strong international presence, is space — physical space — addressed in a series of reflections on man’s age-old desire to dominate it.

The connections a number of these projects make between space and time and memory relate them to the historical perception of the places they engage with. The linking of past and present bears witness to the passage of time and reflects the concern with leaving a mark that will unite the past with the future.

Other artists associate space with nature in ways that are close to Land Art in their attempts to bring to light the changes produced by human actions and the disturbances that lead to a continual transformation of the environment.

The show also offers a reappraisal of space from different perspectives, shifting it from a mere container to a presence in its own right.

These works have been produced by La Casa Encendida, Caja Madrid’s platform for contemporary art, and selected by a committee composed of Estrella de Diego, Rafael Doctor, Aurora García, Carmen Jiménez, Oliva María Rubio and Vicente Todolí.
 
The exhibition will be presented in Paris in April at the Cent Quatre arts factory (production centre and artists’ residencies) and after its stint at Arts Santa Mònica will move on to La Casa Encendida in Madrid and Valencia.

Lara Almarcegui, Ibon Aranberri, Sergio Belinchón, David Bestué & Marc Vives, Bleda y Rosa, Santiago Cirugeda, Pedro G. Romero, Dora García, Federico Guzmán, Cristina Lucas, Fernando Renes

The central theme of the exhibition, which brings together works by contemporary Spanish artists with a strong international presence, is space — physical space — addressed in a series of reflections on man’s age-old desire to dominate it.

The connections a number of these projects make between space and time and memory relate them to the historical perception of the places they engage with. The linking of past and present bears witness to the passage of time and reflects the concern with leaving a mark that will unite the past with the future.

Other artists associate space with nature in ways that are close to Land Art in their attempts to bring to light the changes produced by human actions and the disturbances that lead to a continual transformation of the environment.

The show also offers a reappraisal of space from different perspectives, shifting it from a mere container to a presence in its own right.

These works have been produced by La Casa Encendida, Caja Madrid’s platform for contemporary art, and selected by a committee composed of Estrella de Diego, Rafael Doctor, Aurora García, Carmen Jiménez, Oliva María Rubio and Vicente Todolí.
 
The exhibition will be presented in Paris in April at the Cent Quatre arts factory (production centre and artists’ residencies) and after its stint at Arts Santa Mònica will move on to La Casa Encendida in Madrid and Valencia.

Pat Andrea’s paintings inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are being presented by Arts Santa Mònica in the first major institutional show in Catalonia by this Dutch artist, considered to be one of today’s most important Figurative painters.

The exhibition, which has already been presented in France, Greece and the Netherlands, consists of 24 works based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and 24 based on Through the Looking-Glass (150 x 180 cm each).

Pat Andrea’s paintings inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are being presented by Arts Santa Mònica in the first major institutional show in Catalonia by this Dutch artist, considered to be one of today’s most important Figurative painters.

The exhibition, which has already been presented in France, Greece and the Netherlands, consists of 24 works based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and 24 based on Through the Looking-Glass (150 x 180 cm each).

Though the new Catalan cuisine has a significant component of innovation based on scientific and technological research. At the same time, the resulting creative and cultural changes have transformed the mere fact of eating into a total holistic experience. The Laboratory space promises the visitor a perfect gamut of sensory delights, appealing to the eyes, palate, nose and ears. The exhibition will also bring the culinary sphere into the realms of art and performance, with science as a prestigious intermediary.

Though the new Catalan cuisine has a significant component of innovation based on scientific and technological research. At the same time, the resulting creative and cultural changes have transformed the mere fact of eating into a total holistic experience. The Laboratory space promises the visitor a perfect gamut of sensory delights, appealing to the eyes, palate, nose and ears. The exhibition will also bring the culinary sphere into the realms of art and performance, with science as a prestigious intermediary.

The exhibition BARCELÓ BEFORE BARCELÓ, 1973-1982 presents a selection of the early and largely little-known work of Miquel Barceló (Felanitx, 1957), dating from 1973 until the year of his breakthrough on the international art scene with his participation in the Kassel Documenta in 1982.

The main purpose of the exhibition — which is articulated in six sections: Bestiary, Vanitas, Experimental Poetry, Books, Portraits and Self-portraits, and Elements of Landscape.  — is to showcase a set of over a hundred works, many never seen in public before now, which offer an early glimpse of some of the most significant and enduring traits of Barceló’s subsequent artistic development.
The pictures on show are from Barceló’s own collection, from various public and private institutions of Spain and France and from private collections.

The joint production by the three art centres reflects the significance of three cities in the initial stages of the artist’s career: Palma and Barcelona, as respectively providing the main cultural contexts, and Toulouse as the city where he had his first solo exhibition abroad.

The exhibition BARCELÓ BEFORE BARCELÓ, 1973-1982 presents a selection of the early and largely little-known work of Miquel Barceló (Felanitx, 1957), dating from 1973 until the year of his breakthrough on the international art scene with his participation in the Kassel Documenta in 1982.

The main purpose of the exhibition — which is articulated in six sections: Bestiary, Vanitas, Experimental Poetry, Books, Portraits and Self-portraits, and Elements of Landscape.  — is to showcase a set of over a hundred works, many never seen in public before now, which offer an early glimpse of some of the most significant and enduring traits of Barceló’s subsequent artistic development.
The pictures on show are from Barceló’s own collection, from various public and private institutions of Spain and France and from private collections.

The joint production by the three art centres reflects the significance of three cities in the initial stages of the artist’s career: Palma and Barcelona, as respectively providing the main cultural contexts, and Toulouse as the city where he had his first solo exhibition abroad.

Links d’interès: www.palma.miro.cat | www.lesabattoirs.org

Catalogue produced by: Cercle de Lectors / Galàxia Gutenberg

During 1976 and 1977 Jordi Valls recorded live on nine audio cassettes some of the early punk gigs in London. These tapes, featuring The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, Subway Sect, Billy Idol & Generation X, The Slits and Buzzcocks, capture the true sound of punk — raw, countercultural and subversive — as a phenomenon that had a radical impact on popular music and fashion, first in Britain and America, and then worldwide.

Arguably the most interesting aspect of punk is its vital, visceral energy, and the demonstration that the only thing that really matters is the intention, the power of the imagination, and nothing more. Sound, photographs, an audio-visual with punk iconography by Franc Aleu-Urano Films and an installation combine here to profile a rebellious attitude firmly committed to its time.

During 1976 and 1977 Jordi Valls recorded live on nine audio cassettes some of the early punk gigs in London. These tapes, featuring The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, Subway Sect, Billy Idol & Generation X, The Slits and Buzzcocks, capture the true sound of punk — raw, countercultural and subversive — as a phenomenon that had a radical impact on popular music and fashion, first in Britain and America, and then worldwide.

Arguably the most interesting aspect of punk is its vital, visceral energy, and the demonstration that the only thing that really matters is the intention, the power of the imagination, and nothing more. Sound, photographs, an audio-visual with punk iconography by Franc Aleu-Urano Films and an installation combine here to profile a rebellious attitude firmly committed to its time.

Concept:
Jordi Valls i Marc Valls - The Valls Brothers

Video director:
Franc Aleu - Urano Films
 
Photography:
Salvador Costa, Silvia Resorte
 
Recorded bands:
The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Subway Sect, The Damned, The Slits, Billy Idol & Generation X, The Buzzcocks

Pipilotti Rist, Dara Brinbaum, AntoniMuntadas , Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Frank Gillette i Ira Schneider,Ant Farm, Dan Graham, James Turrel, Vito Acconci, Studio Azzurro

The project TELEVISION DELIVERS PEOPLE. TV AND THE ARTS explores the relations between art and television from the 1960s to the present.
Among the utopias fueled by the electronics revolution, the idea of making ‘intelligent television’ in which groups of artists would directly manage TV channels and create provocative programmes conceived as a ‘critical consciousness’ of television has given rise in Europe and the United States since the 1970s to a wealth of outstanding experiences, works and reflections that are all but unknown. This project sets out to bring together works (videos and video installations), experiences (the first-hand testimony of the people involved) and reflections (in the form of original documents), bringing to light the utopias, the fascinations and the aggressions of the engagement with the televisual medium in order to make young people aware of the practices that have constructed possible worlds, looking beyond the one that exists, and establishing a dialogue between a recent past (the seventies) and the present.
The exhibition project will include multimedia and video installations (with works by Nam June Paik, Dara Birnbaum, Pipilotti Rist, Gary Hill, Vito Acconci, Antoni Muntadas, Wolf Vostell and others), an overview of videos grouped by subject (counter-information, the parody of television genres, advertising and so on) and television programmes made by artists such as Andy Warhol and Jean-Luc Godard and a Web TV channel that will be active throughout the period of the exhibition, relaying the activities taking place at Arts Santa Mònica and around the city, as well as informal talks with video artists.

Pipilotti Rist, Dara Brinbaum, AntoniMuntadas , Nam June Paik, Wolf Vostell, Frank Gillette i Ira Schneider,Ant Farm, Dan Graham, James Turrel, Vito Acconci, Studio Azzurro

The project TELEVISION DELIVERS PEOPLE. TV AND THE ARTS explores the relations between art and television from the 1960s to the present.
Among the utopias fueled by the electronics revolution, the idea of making ‘intelligent television’ in which groups of artists would directly manage TV channels and create provocative programmes conceived as a ‘critical consciousness’ of television has given rise in Europe and the United States since the 1970s to a wealth of outstanding experiences, works and reflections that are all but unknown. This project sets out to bring together works (videos and video installations), experiences (the first-hand testimony of the people involved) and reflections (in the form of original documents), bringing to light the utopias, the fascinations and the aggressions of the engagement with the televisual medium in order to make young people aware of the practices that have constructed possible worlds, looking beyond the one that exists, and establishing a dialogue between a recent past (the seventies) and the present.
The exhibition project will include multimedia and video installations (with works by Nam June Paik, Dara Birnbaum, Pipilotti Rist, Gary Hill, Vito Acconci, Antoni Muntadas, Wolf Vostell and others), an overview of videos grouped by subject (counter-information, the parody of television genres, advertising and so on) and television programmes made by artists such as Andy Warhol and Jean-Luc Godard and a Web TV channel that will be active throughout the period of the exhibition, relaying the activities taking place at Arts Santa Mònica and around the city, as well as informal talks with video artists.

This exhibition devoted to the work of Josep M. Mestres Quadreny invites us to get to know and appreciate in greater depth one of the foremost contemporary composers, a leading member of the Catalan avant-garde whose achievements include artistic collaborations with other creative talents such as the painters Joan Miró and Antoni Tàpies and the poet Joan Brossa.

Josep M. Mestres Quadreny (Manresa, 1929) studied science at the University of Barcelona and music with Christòfor Taltabull. He was one of the founders of Música Oberta (1960), the Conjunt Català de Música Contemporània (1969), the Laboratori de Música Electroacústica Phonos (1973) and the Grup Instrumental Català (1976), and is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Fundació Joan Miró and the Boards of the Consortium of the Auditori and the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona-OBC and Chairperson of the Fundació Phonos. His creative range is vast: from works performed by the audience (Self-service) and computer-generated compositions (Ibèmia) to chamber pieces, symphonies (Symphony in E Flat) and so on. With Joan Brossa he wrote musical theatre (Suite Bufa, L’armari en el mar) and the opera Cap de mirar. In 2000 he was awarded the Generalitat de Catalunya’s National Prize for Music. He is the author of a number of books and essays on music, including Pensar i fer música (2000).

This exhibition devoted to the work of Josep M. Mestres Quadreny invites us to get to know and appreciate in greater depth one of the foremost contemporary composers, a leading member of the Catalan avant-garde whose achievements include artistic collaborations with other creative talents such as the painters Joan Miró and Antoni Tàpies and the poet Joan Brossa.

Josep M. Mestres Quadreny (Manresa, 1929) studied science at the University of Barcelona and music with Christòfor Taltabull. He was one of the founders of Música Oberta (1960), the Conjunt Català de Música Contemporània (1969), the Laboratori de Música Electroacústica Phonos (1973) and the Grup Instrumental Català (1976), and is currently a member of the Executive Committee of the Fundació Joan Miró and the Boards of the Consortium of the Auditori and the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona-OBC and Chairperson of the Fundació Phonos. His creative range is vast: from works performed by the audience (Self-service) and computer-generated compositions (Ibèmia) to chamber pieces, symphonies (Symphony in E Flat) and so on. With Joan Brossa he wrote musical theatre (Suite Bufa, L’armari en el mar) and the opera Cap de mirar. In 2000 he was awarded the Generalitat de Catalunya’s National Prize for Music. He is the author of a number of books and essays on music, including Pensar i fer música (2000).

The exhibition is a very special review of the career of a genuinely multifaceted artist with a deep and abiding curiosity about the world of science, its aesthetic and its words. During the months prior to his death in the autumn of 2009, Chema Alvargonzález was working intensely on a project in equal measures introspective and retrospective involving a diverse selection of his completed works. This review looks at the role of the observer and his or her strange and at times impossible relationship with the thing observed, a crucial issue in science. When he imagined this relationship, what came to the artist’s mind was a series of balcony doors through which distant stars and galaxies could be seen: a form and objects, like his almatinos and their points of lights, that are entirely — or perhaps just almost — ungraspable.

The exhibition is a very special review of the career of a genuinely multifaceted artist with a deep and abiding curiosity about the world of science, its aesthetic and its words. During the months prior to his death in the autumn of 2009, Chema Alvargonzález was working intensely on a project in equal measures introspective and retrospective involving a diverse selection of his completed works. This review looks at the role of the observer and his or her strange and at times impossible relationship with the thing observed, a crucial issue in science. When he imagined this relationship, what came to the artist’s mind was a series of balcony doors through which distant stars and galaxies could be seen: a form and objects, like his almatinos and their points of lights, that are entirely — or perhaps just almost — ungraspable.

The exhibition is conceived as a chronological journey in the form of a visual reconstruction of the life and times and the personal, intellectual and aesthetic biography of the Catalan poet Joan Salvat-Papasseit (1894-1924), highlighting his contribution to the ideological character of the first Catalonia avant-garde, both in literature and the visual arts.

By way of a wealth of documentary materials and reading points, the exhibition takes us from the years of the poet’s ideological and political formation to the aesthetic friction of his encounter with the avant-garde and his final settling into a calmer and more intimate artistic practice and personal life. Salvat-Papasseit’s literary work, in its diversity and distinctive individuality, the political and cultural context of his time and his influence on subsequent generation are displayed in a format of documentation and selected readings that interprets the poet and his work from the perspective of the twenty-first century.

The exhibition is laid out in three basic spaces, based on the metaphor of the symbolic architectures that represent the poet’s evolution: ‘The Athenaeum’, the place of training and of communal politics, representing the period of the awakening of Salvat-Papasseit’s social conscience and his early journalistic writings; ‘The Gallery’, a space of a relation with the world of art and artists in the Galeries Laietanes, where Salvat-Papasseit worked, and a point of contact with the European avant-garde, and ‘The Sanctuary’, the poet’s last architecture, related to his convalescence and physical and aesthetic seclusion.

Five contemporary artists will contribute to this itinerary with their personal interpretations of the poet’s work, ideological thinking and cultural affinities: Francesc Abad, Isabel Banal-Jordi Canudas, Domènec and Eloi Puig have each created a specific project for the exhibition as a tribute to the continuing relevance and creativity of the poet and his ethical writings.

The exhibition is conceived as a chronological journey in the form of a visual reconstruction of the life and times and the personal, intellectual and aesthetic biography of the Catalan poet Joan Salvat-Papasseit (1894-1924), highlighting his contribution to the ideological character of the first Catalonia avant-garde, both in literature and the visual arts.

By way of a wealth of documentary materials and reading points, the exhibition takes us from the years of the poet’s ideological and political formation to the aesthetic friction of his encounter with the avant-garde and his final settling into a calmer and more intimate artistic practice and personal life. Salvat-Papasseit’s literary work, in its diversity and distinctive individuality, the political and cultural context of his time and his influence on subsequent generation are displayed in a format of documentation and selected readings that interprets the poet and his work from the perspective of the twenty-first century.

The exhibition is laid out in three basic spaces, based on the metaphor of the symbolic architectures that represent the poet’s evolution: ‘The Athenaeum’, the place of training and of communal politics, representing the period of the awakening of Salvat-Papasseit’s social conscience and his early journalistic writings; ‘The Gallery’, a space of a relation with the world of art and artists in the Galeries Laietanes, where Salvat-Papasseit worked, and a point of contact with the European avant-garde, and ‘The Sanctuary’, the poet’s last architecture, related to his convalescence and physical and aesthetic seclusion.

Five contemporary artists will contribute to this itinerary with their personal interpretations of the poet’s work, ideological thinking and cultural affinities: Francesc Abad, Isabel Banal-Jordi Canudas, Domènec and Eloi Puig have each created a specific project for the exhibition as a tribute to the continuing relevance and creativity of the poet and his ethical writings.

The exhibition will take the form of an analytical voyage through the work the Rivel family of artists, one of the greatest in the history of Catalan circus. This voyage of exploration follows two parallel courses, tracing a family of internationally acclaimed artists and the historic circus and music hall venues all over the world in which they performed.

The Rivel dynasty was founded by the Catalan trapeze artist Pere Andreu i Pausas and the tightrope walker Marie-Louise Lasserre, whose background was Provence and Madrid. The couple married in 1895 and had six children: Josep (Charlie Rivel), Maria-Lluïsa (Nena), Paul (Polo), René, Marcel (Celito) and Roger (Rogelio). Charlie, Polo and René formed the famous Andreu-Rivel clown trio, and went Charlie decided to go it alone the trio was successively recreated by the other brothers. Rogelio, based in Barcelona, was a teacher who trained new generations of acrobats and clowns. Polo, René and Marcel’s children all became circus artists. Charlie Rivel, who married the Spanish bareback rider Carmen Busto, had four children: Paulina (known as Paulina Schumann), Juanito, Charlie and Valentino (the Charlivels, acrobatic dancers and musicians). Benny, the son of Paulina and Albert Schumann, lives in Copenhagen and keeps up the family tradition as an acrobat and clown.

The exhibition will take the form of an analytical voyage through the work the Rivel family of artists, one of the greatest in the history of Catalan circus. This voyage of exploration follows two parallel courses, tracing a family of internationally acclaimed artists and the historic circus and music hall venues all over the world in which they performed.

The Rivel dynasty was founded by the Catalan trapeze artist Pere Andreu i Pausas and the tightrope walker Marie-Louise Lasserre, whose background was Provence and Madrid. The couple married in 1895 and had six children: Josep (Charlie Rivel), Maria-Lluïsa (Nena), Paul (Polo), René, Marcel (Celito) and Roger (Rogelio). Charlie, Polo and René formed the famous Andreu-Rivel clown trio, and went Charlie decided to go it alone the trio was successively recreated by the other brothers. Rogelio, based in Barcelona, was a teacher who trained new generations of acrobats and clowns. Polo, René and Marcel’s children all became circus artists. Charlie Rivel, who married the Spanish bareback rider Carmen Busto, had four children: Paulina (known as Paulina Schumann), Juanito, Charlie and Valentino (the Charlivels, acrobatic dancers and musicians). Benny, the son of Paulina and Albert Schumann, lives in Copenhagen and keeps up the family tradition as an acrobat and clown.

Amasté, Jordi Canudas, Santiago Cirugeda, Josep Maria Martin, Sinapsis

CATALYSTS is the third and last in the trilogy of exhibitions relating to the project Reversible Actions.

This project is based on experiences of working on the relationship between education, art and the territory as a social space and generating interactions between them in order to find new ways of reorienting the practice of art.

Amasté, Jordi Canudas, Santiago Cirugeda, Josep Maria Martin, Sinapsis

CATALYSTS is the third and last in the trilogy of exhibitions relating to the project Reversible Actions.

This project is based on experiences of working on the relationship between education, art and the territory as a social space and generating interactions between them in order to find new ways of reorienting the practice of art.