Asier Mendizabal at MACBA

The first artist under the age of 40 to have exhibited at MACBA (link in English and Catalan) if we are not wrong...? And Happy Birthday for today Asier! Curated by Peio Aguirre, likewise the youngest curator to have produced a project at MACBA? The Times They Are a-Changin'.

Art&Co Nº1, 'El arte después de la ecología' por Max Andrews

En primer número de la revista Art&Co., publicada por la Asociación Amigos de ARCO, se incluye un texto de Max Andrews donde se discute la obra de los artistas Amy Balkin, Cyprien Gaillard, The Bruce High Quality Foundation y Allora & Calzadilla - cuyas obras estaran presentes en la exposición 'Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities', que inaugura el 28 Febrero en la Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino (exposición abierta del 29 Febrero al 11 Mayo).

pdf aquí (3.7MB)

Max Andrews, 'El arte después de la ecología' / 'Art after Environmentalism', Art&Co, Número 1, Invierno 2008 / Number 1, Winter 2008, pp.28-32 & 116-118 (English translation)

Latitudes joins APT Intelligence curatorial advisors

Latitudes has recently accepted an invitation to join APT Intelligence, as one of its curatorial advisors (see a full list here).

An arm of the Artist Pension Trust, APT Intelligence is an advisory service which consists of a global network of curators, critics., etc.

'Greenwashing...' preview in January's Artforum

A few comments:

• Curated by ... Mariana Cánepa Luna, NOT Cánapa

• The exhibition has now been extended until 11 May

Interview with Lara Favaretto UOVO/16

In the first 2008 issue of UOVO, issue 16, Mariana Cánepa Luna from Latitudes interviewed Turin-based artist Lara Favaretto. The issue focuses on the relationship between art and architecture, man and environment and includes interviews with: Raimundas Malasauskas with Adam Carr, Tobias Putrih with Silvia Sgualdini, Michael Sailstorfer with Francesca Pagliuca, Dahn Vo with Adam Carr, Vincent Lamouroux with Céline Kopp, Daniel Arsham with Merce Cunningham, Tatiana Trouvé by Lillian Davies; texts by Michael Rakowitz, Liam Gillick, Marjetica Potrc and Hans Op De Beeck and many more...

Here is a peek at that interview (you can download the full text from Latitudes' website, here or buy the issue!):

MCL: In your recent Frieze Commission you sent out a letter inviting the Queen of England to visit the Frieze Art Fair (Project for Some Hallucinations, 2007). The letter in which she declines the invitation was pinned to a tree inside the fair. What kind of arrangements would you have made if the Queen had accepted?

LF: Very Few! After an official inspection by the Royal Staff everything would have followed the Royal Protocol. My work stopped before that, with the very possibility to project an apparition, a ‘platonic’ intervention, a Goliardic visualisation, or a confrontation with the appearance of a movie star from early cinema. It was an objectless hallucination, a kind of sentimental investigation that was projected to appear yet be autonomous in denying itself. The failure was long-awaited and foreseeable, and was highlighted at the fair by the sound of applause, that put an end to the great daily spectacle as everyone was heading for the exit.

MCL: In the context of that commission you said that ‘when one listens to the narration of an idea that is so powerful it ultimately does not matter if it's ever realised’. Can you tell me another such idea or story?

LF: Don't you think it's like that? I think that if very few words can describe a work, just enough to capture the work's physiognomy, it could end up being even stronger than the work itself. The border is really subtle. Telling a story also means suspecting deception and trying to improve it, waiting for it to suddenly unravel, and having fun as much as I have. A story I haven't understood is: ‘I've been studying disguises for a long time now. I am hired to shadow one of the most important people on the American political scene. I am currently based high in the Tora Bora caves.’

Lara Favaretto lives and works in Turin, Italy. In 2008 she will be artist in residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; the Hayward Gallery, London, and at the Proa Foundation, Buenos Aires, where she will subsequently have solo shows. She will also present work at The British School at Rome and participate in the 16th Sydney Biennial. She is represented by Franco Noero, Turin and Klosterfelde, Berlin.

[Above: Lara Favaretto, Plotone, 2005. 20 air compressed tanks, 20 pressure regulators, 20 distributings,20 timers, 20 electrovalves, 20 whistles, plastic cables, 165 x 10 each tank. Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Franco Noero, Torino]