El catálogo de la exposición 'Estratos', PAC Murcia 2008 está ya disponible. La publicación contiene una selección de textos nuevos, 'rescatados' y reimpresos, entrevistas, textos de los propios artistas, etc. acompañados de fotografías del montaje, vistas de la exposición y de los proyectos que tuvieron lugar durante la exposición y actividades paralelas (Enero–Marzo 2008).

Arriba: detalle del texto que Mariana Cánepa Luna de Latitudes escribió sobre 'La Montaña de Escombros' (2008) de Lara Almarcegui y que podéis descargar desde este archivo (pdf, 5.6 MB).

Para completarlo, en el blog del 3 Febrero podréis escuchar una entrevista con la artista sobre esta pieza, así como ver imágenes de todo el proyecto en este blog (4 Febrero 2008).

Título: 'Estratos', Proyecto Arte Contemporáneo Murcia 2008
Formato: 33,5cm x 21 cm, Color, 324 pp.
Edita: Comunidad Autónoma de la Región de Murcia. Consejería de Cultura, Juventud y Deportes - Dirección General de Bellas Artes y Bienes Culturales.
Diseño: Germinal Comunicación
ISBN 978-847564-400-4
Distribución: Cataclismo S.L., circulación@exitmedia.net

8 June update:
See Latitudes' Max Andrews Frieze review of Estratos here (Frieze, Issue 116, June-August 2008, 180 KB jpg)

[Imágenes: Latitudes | www.lttds.org]

Last week Latitudes visited the port and industrial zone of Rotterdam (seen in the images). On the west of the existing port, construction is undergoing to build Maasvlakte 2, a new port area arising from the sea in front of the Maas estuary, which will be constructed between 2008 and 2013. The reclaimed land will add 20% of port area and triple the container capacity. Following such land reclamation or polder mega-projects such as the Flevopolder, Ijburg and Neeltje Jans, the second Maasvlakte will be the latest chapter of the Netherlands’ ongoing relationship between the sea and the land.

As stated in the Maasvlakte website: "The land reclamation will measure around 2,000 hectares in total. Half of this will consist of infrastructure, such as sea defences, fairways, railways, roads and port basins. The other 1,000 hectares will provide the space for industrial sites."

The Maasvlakte 2 project organisation of the Rotterdam Port Authority wants to involve artists in this 5 year development stage, and for that they have involved SKOR. The Port Authority and SKOR invited Latitudes to visit the area and to generate ideas for the forthcoming 5 year period, from planning to realisation of what will be one of the biggest trade zones in the world.

All images: Latitudes | www.lttds.org

The Cartier Award 2008 has been awarded to Cuban artist Wilfredo Prieto (b. 1978). The award enables artists to realise a major project as part of Frieze Projects at the Frieze Art Fair, curated by Neville Wakefield, as well as to enjoy a 3-month residency at Gasworks, London, to produce the piece.

According to Frieze Art Fair 2008, "Prieto will present Pond, a site-specific installation of more than 100 oil drums. The mirrored pond-like effect created by water in the lids of the drums will be punctured by the presence and movement of a frog. The work will be a beautiful and poetic reflection on the current international obsession with accumulation and growth."

A version of the work is currently on view in the group show Latitudes curated with Ilaria Bonacossa at the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Turin as part of the exhibition “Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities” (until 18 May).

To know more about Prieto's work, read the profile that appeared in Frieze Magazine (October 2007, Issue 110) and the images of 'Grasa, Jabón y Plátano' (2006) in 'Extraordinary Rendition', the exhibition we curated in NoguerasBlanchard (March 2007).

Following is an excerpt of the artist entry in the 'Greenwashing...' catalogue:

The artist’s most visible contribution to Greenwashing is Estanque (Pond) (2007), a new sculpture in which a congregation of crude oil barrels have seemingly been transformed into an idyllic, ‘eco-friendly’ lily pond habitat with the addition of water puddles and a live frog. Though the oil barrel is not commonly part of our everyday surroundings as a physical object, it has a familiar significance as the standard unit of volume for the production and consumption of petroleum, and as such, it is often cast as a symbol of all of the ills of fossil-fuel dependency. Furthermore, the price of a barrel is a global index of macroeconomic conditions, geopolitical stability, and the fundamentals of energy supply-and-demand. [1] The environment that Prieto has created by converting the petroleum containers is no more ‘natural’ than the oil itself – which is, after all, an organic substance. Yet the sculpture inevitably suggests the prospect of eco-advertising, as if its graphic visual summary of apparent amphibian-petroleum harmony could perfectly lend itself to an audacious company marketing department in a bid to demonstrate their ‘green’ industrial principles. [2] – Max Andrews

1. According to the 2007 CIA World Factbook, in Italy the equivalent of 32.1 barrels of oil are used each day for every 1000 people – or 11.7 barrels per person per year. The figure for the US is roughly double this estimate, and for Cuba, roughly half.
2. The connection to a recent Ford Motor Company campaign is irresistible: the well-known character Kermit the Frog appears pedalling on a bicycle singing his 1970 song ‘Bein’ Green’, before he spots a Ford Escape Hybrid in a verdant wood, ‘I guess it is easy being green’, Kermit declares. See www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKotANcNVyo

[Image: Wilfredo Prieto 'Estanque (Pond)', 2008. Oil barrels, water, frog. Courtesy the artist and Galería NoguerasBlanchard, Barcelona. Photo: Courtesy Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino]

CICLO DE VÍDEO. Panorámica
Una estaca en el lodo, un hoyo en la cinta
El campo expandido del Land Art, 1968-2008
SALÓN DE ACTOS

FECHAS
jueves 8 y viernes 9 de mayo de 2008
jueves 15 y viernes 16 de mayo de 2008 [repetición]

COMISARIADO POR
Latitudes | www.LTTDS.org

ENTRADA LIBRE Y GRATUITA hasta completar aforo

MARCO, Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo.
C/ Príncipe 54. 36202 Vigo.
Tel: 986 113900. Fax 986 11 39 01
info@marcovigo.com www.marcovigo.com

Durante cuatro días del mes de mayo, el salón de actos del MARCO acoge el ciclo de vídeo “Una estaca en el lodo, un hoyo en la cinta. El campo expandido del Land Art, 1968-2008”, comisariado por Latitudes, después de su presentación en el Museo Tamayo de Arte Contemporáneo de México, y antes de continuar su itinerancia a Basilea, Sevilla, Barcelona y Holanda.

Tomando prestado su título de los escritos de Robert Smithson, este programa presenta una selección de imágenes en movimiento que forman parte de la memoria histórica del Land Art, acompañadas de producciones de artistas contemporáneos.

Our shots of the 55th installment of the Carnegie International, curated by Douglas Fogle, which was unveiled last Thursday 1st May and runs until January 11th 2009. Latitudes's Max Andrews contributed to the catalogue, designed by COMA, with texts on 20 of the 40 participating artists, including Carnegie prize winners Vija Celmins and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. There's more about the opening on Artforum Diary...

Update 27 August: Jorg Heiser's review on Frieze (Issue 117, September 2008)