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ARCOMadrid 2021: Art as a Regeneration Tool

August 06, 2021

Anxiety, hope and other conditions resulting from recent lockdowns are wonderfully explored at Madrid ARCO art fair, an unusual edition taking place in July rather than in February with fewer exhibitors - 130 down from 209 last year - but more diversity with a new section for women artists. In an unrelated and discreet way, this 40th edition also brings an example of how art can accelerate rural transformation (picture above).

Visitors get a feel of lockdown anxiety with Desvelo y Horizonte (Wakefulness and Horizon), a project by Juan Uslé (b. 1954) commissioned by El País. The project includes three large-scale monochrome paintings made in his NYC apartment during lockdown and inspired by the idea of the horizon, and three oversized photographs of the Cantabrian Sea: his inspiration and recurring vision during lockdown. The photographs are dramatically placed in the wall adjacent to the paintings. A mix of images of boarded-up shops during lockdown and sketches of the sea (below) fill the rest of the space. They show drama and hope.  

Juan Uslé, Desvelo y horizonte, 2020
 

Opening, ARCO's section for young galleries, was particularly interesting with ten galleries and twenty one artist's projects exploring the theme of the sensual vernacular, meant as the capacity of art to incite specific feelings.  

This section showed some outstanding works like Sandra Poulson's (b. 1995) Hope as a Praxis at the Luandan gallery Jahmek Contemporary Art, recipient of the 2021 Opening Best Booth Award. The installation (below) shows different iterations of chairs in the process of breaking. They are made in hardened fabric and replicate Africa's most common plastic garden chair, commonly used as "temporary" home furniture in the belief that living conditions will improve. The chair - whose use continues even when it breaks - represents a symbol of hope for Poulson.

 

Another superb exhibit at the Opening section was at the Eugster Belgrade Gallery with works by Šejla Kamerić and Vladimir Miladinović.  

Kamerić (b. 1976) shows two pieces exploring the collateral consequences of conflict: Saponified Jacket of Melania Trump and Keep Away from Fire, a piece with several clothing labels sewn together. According to the artist, Keep Away from Fire introduces violence in all forms by revealing the absurdity of the instructions in the labels: "there are moments - such as war and aggression - when it is not possible to keep away from fire." 

Vladimir Miladinović (b. 1981) presents a series of paintings featuring news headlines during the pandemic (below) that, according to the gallerist, convey a brutality similar to the one experienced by the artist during the Balkan war. Miladinović is an archive artist who works with war and post-war trauma in former Yugoslavia, and explores how media creates public space, thus shaping the collective memory.


More exploration of public space comes with the aforementioned rural transformation - and repopulation - project where art is used as an engine for growth. It is somehow unusual to feature a repopulation project in an art fair but the Genalguacil Pueblo Museo Foundation responsible for the project very much excels in outreach. 

The project has been running since 1994 when the village of Genalguacil in Málaga, Spain, first organised a residence programme for artisans and artists. Today, various art programmes, including residence, commissioning and lighting programmes, take place yearly in Genalguacil's streets and museum thus adding new works to the public art collection (see pictures below). 

Recently, the project has reached its goals of increasing Genalguacil's population and opportunities. One of these opportunities is the offer to join the exclusive Most Beautiful Villages in Spain Club, which translates into more visitors and revenues. The Genalguacil example shows that art can indeed be used as a driver of growth.  


Genalguacil public artworks. Photos by Genalguacil / Isidro López-Aparicio, Arco de Viento, 2016. Photo El Mundo En Mi Camara

  

General Programme Selection

Keyezua (b. 1986), Fortia 11, 2017 | Movart Luanda, Angola

 

Isaac Julien (b. 1960), What is a Museum? (Lina Bo Bardi - A Marvellous Entanglement), 2019 | Helga de Alvear Madrid


Jessica Rankin (b. 1971), Switch of Love Black Grass and Apple, 2021 (recto: left and verso: right) | Carlier Gebauer Berlin & Madrid

Rankin's embroidered artworks are also featured in the post ARCOMadrid 2017


Left: Clara Montoya (b. 1974), Llorona, 2021 | Galería F2 Madrid 

Right: Irma Álvarez-Laviada (b. 1978), El espacio entre las cosas V, 2020 | Luis Adelantado Gallery Valencia

Álvarez-Laviada has contributed to the aforementioned Genalguacil's lighting programme with an installation.

 

Left: Rebecca Horn (b. 1944), Der Blutbaum, 2011 | Galerie Thomas Schulte Berlin

Right: Sheila Hicks (b. 1934), Captured Rose (front) and Cosmic Wisdom (back), 2021 | Galerie Nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder Vienna

 


João Tabarra (b. 1966), Hot Mountain and Standing Man, Karlsruhe, 2017 | Galeria Filomena Soares Lisbon

 

Left: Caio Reisewitz (b. 1967), Mamangua XXII, 2013 | Galería Joan Prats Barcelona

Right: Nahum Tevet (b. 1946), All of these (with yellow mirror), 2018 | Maab Gallery Milan

 



Felipe Pantone (b. 1986), Chromadyna Micap, 2021 | Polígrafa Obra Gráfica Barcelona



Left: Isidro Blasco (b. 1962), Brooklyn Cafe, 2021 | Galería Ponce + Robles Madrid

Right: Alexandre Farto aka Vhils (b. 1987), Residue Series #22, 2017-21 | Galeria Vera Cortes

 


Eugenio Ampudia (b. 1958), Concierto para el Bioceno 7, 2020 | Max Estrella Madrid

 

Agustín Ibarrola (b. 1930), Guernica Gernikara, 1977 | Galería José de la Mano Madrid


About
ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair | Madrid, 7 - 11 July 2021

Previous Articles 
 
Featured Artists
Víctor Ara
 
Photos
by PS unless otherwise stated. Cover picture by Víctor Ara, Echando una Escansá aka Los Pinchos, 2000, Genalguacil by García-Santos for El País 

Joanie Lemercier: Art for Climate Action

July 15, 2021


At his solo exhibition at the Telefónica Foundation, Madrid, the French artist shows seven audiovisual installations that reflect on the relationship between nature and technology, and that pose a beautiful example of how art can serve climate action.  

Lemercier's earlier works at the exhibition explore the use of technology to represent nature with video mapping and projected light to capture the grandeur - the Sublime - in landscapes, while his more recent works shift to the grandeur in the technology itself and how it can act as a destructive force to nature. 

 

Joanie Lemercier, Fuji, 2014
  Bagger 293 / Slow Violence, The Hambach Project & the Technological Sublime, 2019-21

The Hambach Project and the Technological Sublime (2019-21) is one of Lemercier's recent works. It is structured in four audiovisual installations each showing a different aspect of Europe's largest coal mine: its exploitation; the destruction of the community; the activism supporting its closure; and the beauty of the remaining forest.

Slow Violence, the most striking of the Hambach installations, features the mine exploitation. It shows a giant bucket-wheel excavator scooping up earth from a plateau - pictured above. The machine is impressive and we read that it is a Bagger 293, the world's largest machine able to scoop 240,000 m3 of soil per day. The scene is at the Hambach open-pit coal mine close to Cologne, Germany, and the excavator is destroying the last remains of the 12,000-year-old Hambach forest to access the lignite deposits beneath. Operated by energy giant RWE, the 85 km2 mine extracts 40 million tonnes of lignite yearly for electricity generation in North Rhine-Westphalia, and emits 100 million tonnes of CO2 per year.



 

In addition to destroying a forest and polluting the environment, the Hambach mine has inflicted damage to the local communities and cultural heritage with the demolition of buildings and towns as the mine was expanding.  

 

Immerath's St. Lambertus church demolition / Slow Violence, The Hambach Project & the Technological Sublime, 2019-21

The installation Here Once Stood a Forest celebrates the ancient Hambach forest - its beauty and rich biodiversity - with a projection of the forest during daytime and a night view where a laser lights up the smallest details.  

Over the past 40 years, 90% of the forest has been destroyed for coal extraction. Since 2012 the forest has been a symbol of Germany's fight against climate change.

 

Laser lighting / Here Once Stood a Forest, The Hambach Project & the Technological Sublime, 2019-21

 

Hambach Forest / Here Once Stood a Forest, The Hambach Project & the Technological Sublime, 2019-21



With Action, Comes Hope is the last installation of The Hambach Project and the Technological Sublime. It shows impressive environmental activism opposing the mine and how climate action can look like. 

The artist tells how The Hambach Project has shifted his perspective on climate action and how he wants to do something and support activists through his work. This might come in addition to Lemercier's efforts to audit and minimize his carbon footprint as a digital artist. In March 2021 Lemercier notoriously teamed up with other digital artists to raise awareness on the huge CO2 footprint of CryptoArt.

 

Activists / With Action Comes Hope, The Hambach Project & the Technological Sublime, 2019-21


The show closes with Desirable Futures, a space packed with a mix of photography and projections with the artist's version of the future, a rather green and hopeful one. The space is possibly an invitation to visitors to think creatively about the future, while the previous installations provide encouragement to question our own use of technology and to take action.

 

Artist and Desirable Futures, 2020-21 / Photo courtesy of Fundación Telefónica

 

About
Joanie Lemercier. Lightscapes | Espacio Fundación Telefónica, Fuencarral 3, Madrid | 11 February - 25 July 2021

Featured Artist
Joanie Lemercier (Rennes, 1982)

Further Reading
The End of the World's Capital of Brown Coal | BBC Future Planet, 20 April 2021
 
Photos by PS
Cover picture, Desirable Futures (2020-21) by Joanie Lemercier

#PaisajesDeLuz

HYBRID 2020, Madrid's Coolest Emerging Art Fair

March 06, 2020

HYBRID, an emerging art fair set in the rooms of a Madrid hotel, comes as a breath of fresh air amid an Art Week predominantly defined by the same old.

The experience of going through rooms-turned-galleries is fun and intimate, mainly because the event is nicely curated but also because the artists are there. Artworks are good and affordable, and the show is gender balanced, sharply contrasting with ARCO, the main Art Week event, where only 32% of artists were women.
 
There are 35 young galleries, collectives and art/artist-run spaces from 10 countries exhibiting in the hotel rooms, while the communal areas are allocated to independent artists for site-specific installations.  
 
I loved the new media art by Brianna Lowe and Jenn E. Norton at two Canadian artist-run spaces: Ed Video from Guelph, Ontario, and V tape from Toronto.
 
Brianna Lowe's exhibit includes videos with exciting 3D representations and video game sceneries, while Jenn E Norton presents at the V Tape room an augmented reality and 3D-animated project that has been selected as Hybrid 2020 Best Exhibition. Norton's animated project features plant compositions when symbols displayed on the wall are viewed through an electronic device. The theme itself is as interesting as the medium. It is about the communication methods of plants and fungi that operate outside human perception. 
 
Left Brianna Lowe, Compressing Balls (2020), Ed Video Guelph Canada | Jenn E Norton, Not Present on the Year (2020), V tape Toronto

 

Some artworks nicely interact with the setting, such as Exodus in a Sink a site-specific work around a handbasin by Perfettipietro from artist-run Spazio Display Parma. Or the collage on a bed with works by Lucia VeronesiMarco Salvetti and Lorenzo di Lucido from Yellow, another artist-run space and invited by Hybrid as Special Project.

 Left Exodus in a Sink (2020), Perfettipietro, Spazio Display Parma | Works by Lucia Veronesi, Marco Salvetti, Lorenzo di Lucido, Yellow Milan
 
There is a performance on the visual paradox of masculinity by Ricardo Mena at the Cobertura Photo room, a Seville-based photography school/gallery, being recorded by artist María Pla. 
 
Ricardo Mena, Acullá Performance & María Pla, Doble Expo (2019),  Cobertura Photo Sevilla
 
The Susana Pardo gallery displays photography by Manuel Granados on the subject of waste pollution. In his series Árbol para un paisaje Granados explores the exchange between humans and nature with unusual waste bouquets. 
 

Árbol para un paisaje (2020), Manuel Granados, Galería Susana Pardo Barcelona


Aguas del gran sol (2005-20), Raúl Hidalgo, Galería Lamosa Cuenca | Paletas, Paco Vallejo, Raum E116 Berlin

Very interesting the work presented by Fotolateras, a collective of two, Lola Barcia and Marinela Forcadell, who travels the world with unusual pinhole cameras (light-proof boxes with a hole). They make their own cameras with coffee and biscuit cans, and use the different can shapes as specific lens types. When they travel, they carry up to 40 cans and improvise a darkroom in their hotel bathroom. The outcome are unique, slightly-distorted black and white pictures.

  
Pinhole photograph of London, Fotolateras Valencia


Home-made pinhole cameras, hotel room lab and biscuit can for landscape pictures showed by Lola Barcia, Fotolateras Valencia

Handmade banner by Joyce Overheul at the Lauwer Galleryand carbonized objects by Rani Sasson at the Almacén Gallery


Nevertheless She Persisted (2019), Joyce Overheul, Lauwer Gallery Den Haag | Rani Sasson, Almacén Gallery & Cultural Centre Tel Aviv





  

About
HYBRID Art Fair | Petit Palace Santa Bárbara Hotel, Plaza Santa Bárbara 10, Madrid | 28 February - 1 March 2020

Related Articles

JUSTMAD 2020

Featured Artists
Anbel
Brianna Lowe
Fotolateras
Jenn E Norton
Joyce Overheul
Lucia Veronesi, Marco Salvetti and Lorenzo di Lucido
Manuel Granados
Maria Pla
Paco Vallejo
Perfettipietro
Rani Sasson
Ricardo Mena
Raul Hidalgo

Photos 
by PS. Cover picture, Colour is Pretty by Anbel

JUSTMAD 2020

March 06, 2020

At JUSTMAD, an emerging art fair at Neptune Palace during Madrid Art Week, 50 galleries mostly from Spain and Portugal display some lovely artworks in an interesting double-height space with a galleria. 

I have loved the photographs of Filipe Branquinho brought by the Maputo-based Kulungwana Gallery. His Gurué series (above and below) shows the beautiful misty landscapes of the Gurué tea district described by the gallerist as a "unique phenomenon". Filipe, who lives and works in Maputo, was selected to exhibit at last year's Venice Biennale.

 Equally interesting was Eva Díez photography for which she has been awarded a special mention by the organisers.

 
Eva Díez, Lugar de ausenciaGalería Marisa Marimón Orense

   
Left Teresa Carneiro, Holding Dreams, 2019, Nuno Sacramento Gallery Ilhavo | Emiliano Suarez, Havana View Project, 2019


Lovely work by Lisbon-based Teresa Palma Rodrigues featured at the previously-mentioned Kulungwana Gallery: a beautiful flower series and a hand-painted table cloth with tile patterns and food marks of what could have been a last supper. 

The mix of photography and embroidery by Peruvian textile artist Ana Teresa Barboza returns to the Madrid Art Week after last year's success. Great to hear that her new work keeps the momentum and sells apparently quite well.


Left Ana Teresa Barboza, Paraiso, 2019, Galería La Gran Madrid | Teresa Palma Rodrigues, Herbario da Zona V, 2012-17 & Last Supper detail, 2019, both at Kulungwana Gallery Maputo

Filipe Branquinho, Red House (Gurué series), 2014, Kulungwana Gallery Maputo

  
Filipe Branquinho, Gurué series, Kulungwana Gallery Maputo

  
About
JUSTMAD | Palacio Neptuno, Cervantes 42, Madrid | 27 February - 1 March 2020 

Related Articles
HYBRID 2020, Madrid's Coolest Emerging Art Fair



ARCOMadrid 2019

March 02, 2019
  
ARCO Madrid Contemporary Art Fair never disappoints. At its 38th edition and with 203 exhibitors from 31 countries, half of them from Spain and Latin America, ARCO 2019 shows a simplified format with some galleries presenting works by one or two artists only. There are great artworks and an apparent shift from photography to handicraft and sculpture, paintings being in short supply.

Guest country this year is Peru, who brings the works of 24 Peruvian artists selected by the curator of the Lima Art Museum and on show at galleries from different countries. The selection of artists, many of whom have developed a good part of their career in other countries, wants to draw attention to the importance of the artist above geographical limitations. The "Peru at ARCO" programme is supported by a major deployment of Peruvian culture throughout town that includes an exhibition on the pre-Columbian Nasca culture and contemporary Amazonian art.
  

Alicia Framis, Vestido para protegerse de lo absurdo (2017), Galería Juana de Aizpuru Madrid | Richard Deacon, Band (2009)Galerie Thomas Schulte Berlin

 
Two artists known for their work on gender activism stand out: Alicia Framis (Spanish living in Amsterdam) and Teresa Margollés (Mexican living between Mexico City, Madrid and Berlin). Framis' work at ARCO, a female manikin laying under a carpet of scouring pads (left picture above), draws attention to whatever isn't right with women's kitchen work and the invisibility of it. 

Margollés presents an impressive work (pictured below) resulting from a field study in Bolivia, a country with a high rate of hate crimes. The artist has recovered from a Bolivian morgue a sheet used to wrap the corpse of a woman victim of hate crime. The blood-stained sheet was then given to a local embroider to freely work on it. The embroidered artwork lays on a backlit table in a dark room where the visitor firstly acknowledges the beauty of the embroidery, and later, on a closer look, the blood stains. This is a work that successfully combines horror, beauty and hope; it draws attention to the violence on women while presenting the beauty of local craftsmanship.
 

Brian Rochefort, Various Works (2018-19)Van Doren Waxter NYC | Bianca Bondi, Boom Series, Galería José de la Fuente Santander

Teresa Margollés, Tela Bolivia (2016), Galerie Mor Charpentier Paris

Joana Vasconcelos, Galeria Casa Triangulo Sao Paulo

Some artworks at ARCO could easily be a wonderful contribution to urban design and planning. Argentinian artist Pablo Reinoso displays a beautiful one-person bench (pictured below) that brings a reflection on whether urban furniture is still designed to last century's behaviour when we used to interact with strangers on the public realm, something we hardly do today. Instead, his solo bench fits beautifully to the current use of public seating, which is a place to interact undisturbed with a phone.

More inspiration for urban planning with Pedro Barateiro's beautifully coloured topographic plans and Miler Lagos' relief (pictured below), which would make a wonderful site model.

Miler Lagos, Lago almuerzo entre la hierba (2018), Galería Max Estrella Madrid

Pablo Reinoso, Solo Banc (2017), Galeria Baró São Paulo
Pedro Barateiro, Compass(2019)Galeria Filomena Soares Lisbon | Joël Andrianomearisoa, Labyrinth of Passions (2016), Galería Sabrina Amrani Madrid


The Ponce & Robles gallery presents with Renfe - the national railway company - two very interesting projects on the different use of street art. One project is called The Most Expensive Artwork (#LaObraMasCara) and shows the destructing effects of unsolicited graffiti on the example of a train door fully covered by graffiti. The overpainted door carries the price tag of 15 million euros, which is Renfe's yearly expenditure on clearing graffiti off trains. The artwork also points at the safety hazard of spraying trains, since it is generally done while the train is running. 

The other project shows the positive effects of planned street art and is by Boa Mistura, a group of Madrid urban artists who uses art to improve communities. At ARCO, Boa Mistura has recreated a piece of a project in La Habana that shows a verse of a poem by Cuban Samuel Feijoo painted on a shack wall. The project takes all 25 verses of Feijoo's poem and paints them on the walls of different locations in the same neighbourhood. The verses cannot be understood separately but in a group and "serve to connect people with invisible links", says the artist.

Boa Mistura, My Root is (2015), Galería Ponce+Robles Madrid & Renfe


There were also examples of art meeting architecture:


Marlon de Azambuja, Brutalismo (2019), Galería Revolver Lima | Lucas Simões, White Lies #23 (2018), Galería Pelaires Palma
Lucio Muñoz, Tabla 23-94 (1994), Galería Marlborough Madrid



Augusto Ballardo, Rayo de luz en concreto, Escalones 1 (2018), Espacio Valverde Madrid | Eugenio Ampudia, Galería Max Estrella Madrid


A pile of books supporting a wall is Alicia Martín's proposal at El País booth that she shares with Peruvian artist Fernando Bryce. Martín has shared in an interview her intention not to provide a theoretical reflection but rather a visual impact that would then lead to a reflection.


Alicia Martín, Contrapposto (2019), El País

Pedro Cabrita Reis, Casa Queimada (2016), Galería Juana de Aizpuru Madrid | Marko Vuokola, RGB (1996-2011), Galerie Anhava Helsinki


Yago Hortal, SP 224 (2019)Galeria Senda Barcelona | Rafa Macarrón, Untitled (2019)Galeria Marta Cervera Madrid

Among the Peruvian contributions, the woven work of Ana Teresa Barboza and the paintings of Jorge Piqueras stand out. Prolific, energetic and in his 90s, Piqueras is one of Peru's greatest artists. I had the honor to work with him nearly three decades ago in Paris when he was designing a public artwork for an architectural project I was working on. His optimism and fun approach to the creative process did utterly impress me.


Ana Teresa Barboza, Wu Galería, Lima | Allora & Calzadilla, Contract (2014)Galerie Chantal Crousel Paris


Jorge Piqueras, Untitled (1956), Henrique Faria Fine Art NYC
Sven Johne, Heroes of Labor (2018), Galerie Klemm's Berlin
 
 
There was also room for activism. Interesting the way RedCSur, an Argentinian platform, has chosen to raise awareness about the privatisation of an artist's work: some 40 people in a line reading their complain in various locations of the fair.  
 
Controversy came around a giant sculpture of the king, a bonfire papier-mâché figure that is sold with the condition that it gets burned within a year.

Against the sale of artist Juan Carlos Romero's archive, RedCSur Action
TV crews at Santiago Sierra & Eugenio Merino, Ninot (2019), Prometeo Gallery Milan

 
 
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