NEW TEAM Advance programme MACBA 2016-2017

Index

Team

Assessing Committee

New academic staff – Independent Study Programme

Exhibitions

Publications

General Information

NEW ASSESSING COMMITTEE

Cuautémoc Medina

Mexico City, 5 December 1965

Holds a PhD in History and Theory of Art from the University of Essex in

Britain and a BA in History from the Universidad Autónoma de México

(UNAM). He is a full-time researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones

Estéticas at the UNAM. He has been Chief Curator at the Museo

Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC) since 2013.

Between 2002 and 2008 he was the first Associate Curator of Latin

American Art Collections at Tate Modern, London. Among other projects he

has curated include Cuando la fe mueve montañas (When faith moves

mountains), Lima, Peru, 2001, by Francis Alÿs, and 20 Million Mexicans

Can´t Be Wrong, South London Gallery, 2002. In 2004 he was one of the

four curator-researchers who selected the International 04 exhibition for

the Liverpool Biennial.

Among his recent publications are: ‘Gerzso and the Indo-American Gothic:

From Eccentric Surrealism to Parallel Modernism’, in Diana C. Dupont,

Risking the Abstract: Mexican Modernism and the Art of Gunther Gerzso

(Santa Barbara, CA: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 2003); ‘Sobre el

abrumador deseo de poner orden’ (The Overwhelming Desire for Order) in

Iñigo Manglano, ed. J. Jeffery and Pavelka Peet (Mexico-Monterrey: Museo

Tamayo-Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Monterrey, MARCO, 2004); and

‘Architecture and Efficiency. George Maciunas and the Economy of Art’, in

Res. Anthropology and Aesthetics, vol. 45, spring 2004.

Estrella de Diego

Madrid, 1958

Professor of Contemporary Art at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid

and writer. She has held the King Juan Carlos of Spain Chair in Spanish

Culture and Civilisation at New York University (1998–99). Her research

focuses on gender theory, post-colonial studies and the origins of

modernity. Among her publications are: La mujer y la pintura en la España

del siglo XIX (Women and painting in 19th century Spain); El andrógino

sexuado. Eternos ideales, nuevas estrategias de género (The sexed

androgyne. Eternal ideals, new gender strategies); Tristísimo Warhol (Sad,

sad Warhol); and the work of fiction El filósofo y otros relatos sin personajes

(The Philosopher and other stories without characters).

Among other exhibitions she has curated: Russian Symbolism (Fundación

“la Caixa”, Madrid, Barcelona and Bordeaux, 1999–2000); and the Spanish

representation at the 49th Venice Biennale, 2001.

Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, 2010.

Catherine David

Paris, 1954

Art historian, curator and museum director. She studied Spanish and

Portuguese Literature and Linguistics. Curator at the Musée national d’art

moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, from 1981 to 1990, and Curator at the

Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, from 1990 to 1994. She was the curator

of documenta X, Kassel, 1997, the first woman and the first non-German

speaker to do so. Between 2002 and 2004 she was Director of the Witte de

With Center of Contemporary Art, Rotterdam. She was also Chief Curator

of the Musées de France and Artistic Director of the Lyon Biennale 2009.

She is currently Deputy Director of the Musée national d’art moderne, Paris.

Interested in the Middle East, in 1998 she became Director of

Contemporary Arab Representations, which was first shown at the Fundació

Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona. In 2006 she presented the exhibition The Iraqi

Equation in Barcelona and Berlin. In 2007 she curated DI/VISIONS. Culture

and Politics in the Middle East at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin,

with the aim of breaking down the Western stereotype of Arab culture.

Chris Dercon

Lier, Belgium, 1958

Art historian, curator and cultural producer. In the 1980s he was Head of

Programming at MoMA’s P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, where

he showed the work of Helio Oiticica and other pioneering artists such as

André Cadere, Franz West and David Medalla. In 1990 he became Director

of the Witte de With Center of Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, where he

organised exhibitions by Allan Sekula, Paul Thek and Eugenio Dittborn,

among others. In 1996 he stepped down to become Director of the Haus

der Kunst, Munich, known for its exhibitions of photographers such as

Robert Adams, Lee Friedlander and William Eggleston. In 2005 he produced

Svayambh with Anish Kapoor and published the essay My Body is Your Body

for the Deutsche Guggenheim. In 2011 he was appointed Director of Tate

Modern, London, a post he held until 2016 when he became Director of the

Volksbühne experimental theatre in Berlin. He has been a member of

MACBA’s Assessing Committee since 1999.

PEI – NEW ACADEMIC STAFF

INDEPENDENT STUDY PROGRAMME

In 2017 PEI will initiate a new cycle with new academic staff for its sixth

edition. PEI, MACBA’s Independent Study Programme, is a learning

laboratory that takes place inside and outside the museum institution, and

whose main aim is to develop critical thought from the intersection of

artistic practices, social sciences and political and institutional

interventions. PEI questions the traditional division of knowledge and the

logic imposed by cultural marketing. Began in 2006, it has since been

consolidated as a programme of experimentation on the new forms of

knowledge production and on how to configure spaces capable of resisting

the ongoing spectacularisation of culture in the context of global tourism

and cognitive capitalism.

The programme’s contents have been developed around a cross section of

areas dealing with critical discourse, feminist studies, queer theory and

decolonial critique. In the current edition, a new working area has been

added to address the energy crisis caused by the shortage of fossil fuels and

the subsequent crisis of civilisations and ecological collapse. In this way, PEI

wants to reflect on limited growth, climatic activism and possible scenarios

of post-capitalist ways of life in a world without fossil fuels.

These contents relate to the tradition of radical, feminist and experimental

education, not only as an area of study but as a practice capable of

configuring new spaces of knowledge. The changes in PEI reject all

preconceived ideas on ‘high education’ in favour of a learning programme

that goes beyond the mere acquisition of qualifications.

PEI takes place at CED, a space that will celebrate its tenth anniversary in

2017 by reactivating itself as a specific place for research. The recent

changes in MACBA’s organisational structure have allowed greater

transversality in the Museum’s public programmes, archive and library, and

will strengthen its current work of conservation and acquisition of Fonds by

giving them greater visibility and activating them through research, not only

academic, but artistic and experimental.

Practical information

From 27 March 2017 to 30 June 2018

Duration: 15 months

Teaching hours (guideline): The course is divided into four terms, with

approximately 450 teaching hours. Lectures are held Mondays to Fridays, 4

to 8 pm.

Tuition fees: 3,000 euros. This may be paid in two instalments.

Registration period: 10 October to 25 November 2016.

Notice of acceptance: 5 December (this may be extended until all places are

filled).

For registration requirements and further information see www.macba.cat

NEW ACADEMIC STAFF

Lucía Egaña

Studied art, aesthetics and documentary media and holds a PhD in

Audiovisual Communication from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

She is a writer and researcher on feminism and transfeminism,

representation, post-pornography, technology, free software and error.

She has developed educational processes in institutional and informal

contexts and her artistic work has been shown in Mexico, Uruguay, Chile,

Germany, Spain, France, Norway, Ecuador and Colombia, among others.

She organises the nomadic festival Muestra Marrana; has published the

book Enciclopedia del amor en los tiempos del porno (Cuarto propio, 2014);

and collaborates with various collectives and artists, mostly in the medium

of performance. She is a member of the research group FIC (Fractalidades

en Investigación Crítica, UAB) and has developed, together with Miriam

Solá, the research project ‘Máquinas de Guerra, políticas transfeministas de

la representación’ (2014–15).

Marcelo Expósito

His artistic work tends to focus on the fields of critical theory, editorial work,

curatorship, education and translation. He has been a member of PEI’s

academic staff since its inception in 2006 and was co-director of its fourth

edition (2012–13). He has taught in institutions such as Universitat Pompeu

Fabra (Barcelona); School of Fine Arts of the Universidad de Castilla-La

Mancha (Cuenca); Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo de la

UNAM (MUAC); Centro de Investigaciones Artísticas (Buenos Aires), and the

universities of Buenos Aires (UBA) and La Plata (Argentina).

Co-founder and editor of the magazine Brumaria (2002–6), since 2006 he

is a member of the editorial collective of the multilingual webzine

transversal, published by eipcp (European Institute for Progressive Cultural

Policies). He has written and edited, on his own or in collaboration, books

on critical theory, cultural activism and the history of the artistic avant-

gardes. Among others: Plusvalías de la imagen. Anotaciones (locales) para

una crítica de los usos (y abusos) de la imagen (1993); Chris Marker. Retorno

a la inmemoria del cineasta (2000); Modos de hacer. Arte crítico, esfera

pública y acción directa (2001); Historias sin argumento. El cine de Pere

Portabella (2001); Producción cultural y prácticas instituyentes. Líneas de

ruptura en la crítica institucional (2008); Los nuevos productivismos (2010);

Walter Benjamin, productivista (2013); Desinventario. Esquirlas de

Tucumán Arde en el archivo de Graciela Carnevale (2015); Conversación con

Manuel Borja-Villel (2015).

An activist in movements of civil disobedience, against neoliberalism and in

favour of social rights and democracy since the 1990s, he is currently a

member of the Executive Committee of Barcelona En Comú, as well as a

member of parliament for Barcelona en Comú and Third Secretary in the

Congress.

Marina Garcés

Philosopher and lecturer at the Universidad de Zaragoza. Her work focuses

on the fields of politics and critical thought, and on the need to articulate a

challenging and committed voice. To this aim, her philosophy has

developed as a wide experimentation of ideas, ways of learning and forms

of intervention in today’s world. She is the author of books such as En las

prisiones de lo posible (2002); Un mundo común (2013); El compromiso /

Commitment (Colección Breus, CCCB, 2013); Filosofía inacabada (2015);

and Fuera de clase. Textos de filosofía de guerrilla (2016). Since 2002 she

has coordinated ‘Espai en Blanc’, a collective project in favour of a

committed, practical and experimental relationship with philosophical

thought.

Dora García

An artist and researcher on the parameters and conventions of the

presentation of art, questions of time – real or fictional – and the limits

between representation and reality. She uses various supports to generate

contexts in which the traditional system of communication – transmitter,

message, recipient – is altered, thus modifying the traditional relationship

between artist, work and public.

In 2011 she represented Spain at the Venice Biennale with The Inadequate,

and in the 56th edition of 2015 she presented the performance and

installation project The Sinthome Score, based on a transcription of Jacques

Lacan’s 23rd seminar Le Sinthome. A reference in her recent work, she

discovered Jacques Lacan thanks to James Joyce, on whom she has

reflected deeply in works such as her film The Joycean Society. She is

currently working on Óscar Masotta and the notion of repetition and her

ongoing project El café de las voces, which began in Hamburg in 2014 and

is still taking place in different cities.

She has had solo exhibition at CGAC (Santiago de Compostela, 2009); Index

Stockholm (2009); Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, (2010); Kunsthaus Bregenz

(2013); Universidad Torcuato di Tella (Buenos Aires, 2014); and Toronto

Power Plant (Toronto, 2015). Her work is represented by ProjecteSD

(Barcelona), Galería Juana de Aizpuru (Madrid), Ellen de Bruijne Projects

(Amsterdam) and Galerie Michel Rein (Paris and Brussels).

Emilio Santiago Muíño

Holds a PhD in Social Anthropology with a doctoral thesis on the systemic

transition in Cuba since the fall of the USSR. He was a researcher and

lecturer at the Department of Social Anthropology and Spanish

Philosophical Thought of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. He is a

member of the Transdisciplinary Investigation Group on Socio-Ecological

Transitions (part of the project HUAMECO: Humanidades ambientales.

Estrategias para la empatía ecológica y la transición hacia sociedades

sostenibles), and of the Consejo del Instituto Universitario DEMOS-PAZ

(Universidad Autónoma de Madrid). He was an active member of the group

behind the manifesto Última Llamada (2013). Besides his scientific

publications, he has written the books No es una estafa, es una crisis (de

civilización), (Enclave, 2015), and Rutas sin mapa (2nd Catarata Essay Prize,

2015). Founder of the social transformation project Rompe el Círculo

(Móstoles) and an activist of the Instituto de Transición Rompe el Círculo.

He is currently Head of the Department of the Environment at the Móstoles

City Council.

Jaime Vindel

European doctorate in Art History and Masters in Philosophy and Social

Sciences. He is an art critic and the author of essays and other publications.

In recent years he has worked in universities in Argentina, Chile and Spain,

focusing his research on the crossroads between art, activism and politics

in those contexts since the 1960s to the present. He is a member of the

Southern Conceptualisms Network and took part in the curatorial team of

the exhibition Losing the Human Form. A Seismic Image of the 1980s in Latin

America (MNCARS, 2012).

His post-doctoral research project focuses on aspects of the relations that

were established at the end of the Cold War between the philosophy of

praxis, materialist aesthetics and historical sociology, as in the irradiations

in Spanish art criticism of the ideas of the Hispano-Mexican philosopher

Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, or the activities of the Unión Popular de Artistas

(UPA), a forgotten milestone from the last years of Francoism, yet essential

for understanding the links between radical politics, urban activism and the

artistic avant-garde.

He is the author of Transparente opacidad. Arte conceptual en los límites

del lenguaje y la política (Madrid, Brumaria, 2015); La vida por asalto: arte,

política e historia en Argentina entre 1965 y 2001 (Madrid, Brumaria, 2014);

‘La imagen de las cosas: cuerpo y objeto ante la crisis de consume’, in A.

Fernández Polanco (ed.), Pensar la imagen/pensar con las imágenes,

(Salamanca, Delirio, 2014); and the editor, together with J. Carrillo, of

Desacuerdos. Crítica, 8 (Barcelona, MACBA, 2014).

Pablo Martínez

Head of Programming, MACBA

EXHIBITIONS

AKRAM ZAATARI

AGAINST PHOTOGRAPHY. AN ANNOTATED HISTORY OF THE ARAB

IMAGE FOUNDATION

Curators: Bartomeu Marí and Hiuwai Chu

Organised by: the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and

co-produced with the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary

Art, Korea (MMCA).

Press conference and opening: 6 April 2016

Dates: 6 April 2016 – 24 September 2017

Akram Zaatari, imatge d’On People, Photography and Modern Times, 2010. Cortesia de l’artista i Thomas Dane

Gallery.

The exhibition will look at the dual status of the AIF itself, as an archive of

photographic and collecting practices and as The archives of the Arab

Image Foundation (AIF) in Beirut, Lebanon, encompass a plethora of

photographic material from the Middle East, North Africa and the Arab

Diaspora. Initiated and developed by artists interested in photographic

preservation, the AIF emerged as a place dedicated to the understanding

of photography and the practices of collecting, preserving and sharing

images. The AIF’s initial collection was a result of research generated by

artists’ projects, leading to a new type of institution and a different

approach to photographic heritage. The archive has since grown to include

a vast array of other collections, ranging from vernacular snapshots to

formalised studio compositions.

Beyond showcasing a wide spectrum of visual representations of the Arab

world, artists who constituted or used AIF’s collection addressed radical

questions about photographic documents and their function in our times.

Projects engaged the writing of histories concerning the practice of

ordinary people, small events and a society in general, resulting in new

discourses related to the medium.

Far from presenting a historical account of the AIF, this exhibition presents

an artist’s perspective, which is critical for understanding the

organisation’s practice. Through Akram Zaatari, one of AIF’s founding

members who played a key role in its development, the exhibition reflects

on AIF’s 20-year history and the multiple statuses of the photograph, as

descriptive document, as object, as material value, as aesthetics and as

memory. Zaatari’s expansive work on photography and the practice of

collecting, takes an archaeological approach to the medium, digging into

the past, resurfacing with new narratives and resituating them in the

contemporary.

an artist-led initiative that left a visible mark on the artistic landscape of its

times, signalling significant moments in its history and the critical debates

generated throughout its evolution. Past projects and new artist

productions related to the collection will be presented.

An illustrated catalogue with texts by Mark Westmoreland, Kaelen Wilson-

Goldie and Akram Zaatari and Chad Elias will be published for the occasion

Akram Zaatari, vista de la instal·lació On People, Photography and Modern Times, 2010. Foto: Thierry Bal. Cortesia

de l’artista i Thomas Dane Gallery

FORENSIC ARCHITECTURE

Press conference: 26 April, 11.30 am

Opening: 27 April, 7.30 pm

Exhibition organised by the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) and the group of museums: L’Internationale

Curated by: Anselm Franke, Eyal Weizman and Rosario Güiraldes

IMAGE: The Architectural­Image­Complex, Rafah: Black Friday, Forensic

Architecture, 2015. The story of Rafah, on 1 August 2014, lies in the

hundreds of images and video clips that exist in the smart­phones of

activists, press clippings and social media posts. Three-dimensional models

provide a means of composing the relation between multiple images and

videos in space and time. This assemblage of evidence has allowed for the

emergence of a narrative of events. © Forensic Architecture, 2015.

In recent years the little-known research group Forensic Architecture began

using novel research methods to undertake a series of investigations into

human rights abuses. While providing crucial evidence for international

courts and working with a wide range of activist groups, NGOs, Amnesty

International and the UN, Forensic Architecture has not only shed new light

on human rights violations and state crimes across the globe, it has also

given rise to a new form of investigative practice, to which it has given its

name. The group uses architecture as a methodological device with which

to investigate armed conflicts and environmental destruction, and to cross-

reference multiple other evidence sources such as new media, remote

sensing, material investigation and witness testimony. This exhibition

introduces the practice, outlining its origins, history, assumptions, potential

and double binds. With these investigations and the critical texts that

accompany them, Forensic Architecture examines how public truth is

produced, technologically, architecturally and aesthetically; how it can be

used to confront state propaganda and secrets; and how to expose newer

forms of state violence.

IMAGE: Miranshah, North Waziristan Pakistan: 30 March 2012. This case

analysed video material out of North Waziristan, in Pakistan's frontier zones

with Afghanistan, in order to reconstruct and interrogate the targeting of

buildings in a secret CIA drone assassination campaign. On 30 March 2012

a drone strike hit a market area in Miranshah, Pakistan, killing four people.

A rare 43-second video, smuggled out of the besieged area, recorded the

building in which the people were killed. Reconstructing the room on a 1:1

scale, we were able to mark every trace that the blast left on the walls, thus

establishing the location of the explosion and the places where people were

killed. The above image shows how animating the shadows cast on different

days and at different times enabled us to compare our model with the

shadows visible in the satellite and video images, to corroborate its volumes

as well as determine the approximate time of 3 pm when the video was

shot. © Forensic Architecture, 2013.

IMAGE: Kite photography 2015–16 Public Lab/Zochrot/al­’Araqib Village.

The Bedouin village of al­’Araqib, next to the old al­Turi cemetery in the

northern threshold of the Naqab/Negev desert in Palestine/Israel, has been

destroyed 98 times as the Israeli State seeks to displace the inhabitants

from their ancestral lands. The authorities claimed that the village and

cemetery did not exist prior to the establishment of the State and that its

population were trespassers. We analysed British Royal Air Force aerial

photography from 1945 (more than three years before Israel was

established) and compared them with contemporary photographs taken

using kites. In this way we have sought to confirm the historical continuity

of the inhabitation of this landscape. © Forensic Architecture, 2016.

POESIA BROSSA

Exhibition: Poesia Brossa

Curated by: Teresa Grandas and Pedro G. Romero

Dates: 20 September 2017 - February 2018

MACBA presents a comprehensive survey of the work of this pioneering

artist, from his early books to his latest visual investigations, and including

his work in the theatre, cinema, music and artistic actions.

Joan Brossa (Barcelona, 1919-1998) was first and foremost a poet, but we

believe it is necessary to see this in relation to his way of working, his

poiesis. This exhibition establishes a dialogue and confronts Brossa’s work

with the poetry of artists such as Marcel Marien, Nicanor Parra and Ian

Hamilton-Finlay, as well as the poets of Lettrism, visual, concrete,

experimental and expanded poetry, and Fluxus. Brossa was a poet, but his

works stood at a crossroad of languages. Frequently collaborating with

other artists, musicians, filmmakers, dancers, comedians and even

magicians, his work constantly went against the grain and beyond the

limits between disciplines.

Brossa developed his artistic practice in the 1940s in a social-political

context marked by Franco’s dictatorship and in a cultural milieu

characterised by the absence of avant-garde and innovative proposals.

From the beginning, Brossa’s work was one of aesthetic renewal, based on

literary and artistic research. Up until his death, his extensive production

never ceased to develop new forms of expression and ways of

experimenting with different media.

In 2011, the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona was made the

depository of the Fonds of the Fundació Joan Brossa, which contains the

legacy of the artist. The Fonds consists of manuscripts, documents,

correspondence and his personal library, among other materials. It is a

unique tool for understanding Brossa’s extremely interesting work.

The exhibition that MACBA is preparing for 2017 approaches Brossa’s

work by reappraising his influence and interrelationship with the practice

of other artists. The project brings to the fore the constellations of artists

around Brossa, his interrelationship with works he may have been

unaware of, but which allow us to establish parallels and seek dialogues

and tensions. It also aims to emphasise the performative aspects of

Brossa’s poetic practice, his poiesis.

Accompanying the exhibition there will be a publication exploring these

aspects, realised in collaboration with Roger Bernat, Isabel de Naverán

and Maria Salgado.

To secularise this great poet is not an easy task and this is the challenge

facing this project, half way between Marx and Mallarmé: to give Brossa

back his simple and popular voice, the voice of the people, whether they

wear a hat or not; the voice of a light bulb, a train ticket, a playing card, a

set of handcuffs or confetti. People speak Brossa.

MACBA IN THE WORLD:

CO-PRODUCTIONS AND TOURING EXHIBITIONS 2016 – 2017

One of the features of MACBA’s identity is that it produces the majority of its exhibitions and programmes in collaboration with a wide network of museums and art centres, universities and international research centres, mostly in Europe and North and South America.

From the beginning, MACBA’s collaborations with other museums and art centres continue to increase and, to this day, we have conducted over 100 co-productions and touring exhibitions with nearly 80 institutions in the world.

TOURING EXHIBITIONS

The Passion According to Carol Rama

GAM, Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Torino

12 October 2016 – 5 February 2017

Andrea Fraser. L’1%, c’est moi

Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Mexico City

15 October 2016 – March 2017

PUNK. Its Traces in Contemporary Art

Museo del Chopo, Mexico City

26 October 2016 – February 2017

Akram Zaatari. Arab Image Foundation

Garage, Moscow

May – September 2017

NMCA National Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul

PUBLICATIONS

At the end of the year we will publish a new volume of the MACBA

Collection with a selection of approximately 190 works that are central to

the Museum’s discourse. The publication includes a detailed and illustrated

chronology of the evolution of the Collection and related activities from

1985 to the present, with texts by Chris Dercon, Ivo Mesquita and others.

In close collaboration with the artist and his archive, the publication

MIRALDA MADEINUSA documents for the first time all the work made by

Miralda in the United States from the mid-seventies to the late nineties,

including projects that were never realised. It features an essay by the

Catalan journalist Josep M. Martí Font and the re-edition of the text ‘El

Mahamastakabhisheka de Miralda’, 1984, by Vicent Todolí, curator of the

exhibition, as well as testimonial texts written specifically for this volume

by Paul Schimmel, John Mason, James Wines, Muntadas, César Trasobares,

Suzie Aron and Néstor García Canclini, who participated one way or another

in the projects Miralda made in the United States. Their personal views add

a new dimension to the work. José Luis Gallero has composed a detailed

chronology of the artist from a mishmash of texts and quotes by different

authors and collaborators.

Quadern portàtil 33 recovers two unpublished texts by Pierre Restany, in

the French original version, on the occasion of the exhibition MIRALDA

MADEINUSA: Miralda! « Une vie d’artiste » and Dix ans sont passés. Pierre

Restany (Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, 1930 – Paris, 2003) was a curator and

writer. His role as an art critic goes back to 1955 when he met Yves Klein,

with whom he would later coin the term Nouveau Réalisme to define the

artists who became the European answer to North-American Pop: Arman,

César, Christo, Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle, Martial Raysse, Mimmo

Rotella and Jean Tinguely. In 1982 Restany published Miralda! « Une vie

d’artiste » in a book by the same name (Àmbit, Barcelona), and ten years

later he wrote the second part, Dix ans sont passés, which remained

unpublished until 2002 (Fundación ICO, Madrid). In both these texts,

translated into Spanish, Restany explains, in his characteristically humorous

style, Miralda’s trajectory from the sixties to 1991. After describing his early

anti-military works, Restany talks in depth about the period of the banquets

and the so-called public ‘ceremonials’, where food, collective participation,

colour and symbolism are the protagonists.

Hard Gelatin is a graphic portrayal of a series of historical events of a socio-

political nature that took place between 1977 and 1992. It features works

by cultural activist groups and artists who dissented from the generalised

way of thinking by adopting attitudes that, in the previous decade, had

supported refutation, irony and political questioning. The publication

includes a text by Teresa Grandas, curator of the exhibition, and another by

Servando Rocha.

Against Photography. An Annotated History of the Arab Image

Foundation will present Akram Zaatari’s artistic project on the concept of

archive. Zaatari questions issues such as the practice of archives and their

function, the authorship of images, their preservation and support, among

others. The publication includes texts by Mark Westmoreland, Kaelen

Wilson-Goldie and Zaatari himself, together with Chad Elias.