One of the least representative “works” of the exhibition, although perhaps one of the most intense…
This Friday, November 23rd at 8 PM, it opens at the Torre Muntadas center in El Prat de Llobregat Intensities. Nonconformity, incorrectness, and rebellion between art and the music scene . An exhibition curated by David G. Torres and which is part of the Programa d’Arts Visuals of the Oficina de Difusió Artística of the Barcelona Provincial Council. The exhibition vindicates, on the one hand, the need for a practice and, above all, a critical and nonconformist artistic attitude, and on the other, it proposes a genealogy of this type of rebellious attitude that focuses on the connections between the music scene and contemporary art circuits. This genealogy, which, in the words of the curator himself, “has its roots in Dada and passes to music through punk -in Catalonia, through the nonconformist attitude of Pau Riba- with episodes in which conceptual artists such as Dan Graham, Joseph Beuys or Yves Klein participate, and reaches our days in the work of numerous artists” can be traced in an extensive selection of sound works, video recordings and various documents.
Since we don’t usually announce the opening of exhibitions on this blog, some may wonder where the catch and/or the trick is. Well, the thing is that La
Fundició
will be in charge of the “educational service” of Intensities. This task, it must be said, has posed a considerable challenge for us: how to talk about nonconformity and rebellion from a pedagogical device whose intrinsic function is indoctrination (to put it bluntly)? How to talk about incorrectness when, during a visit to an exhibition, what is demanded and promoted is the habit of moderation? And even more so, how to address rebellion without falling into poses and stereotypes completely devoid of any subversive effectiveness? Well, our commitment has been to deactivate, as far as possible, the hierarchies that are established during a visit to an exhibition, avoiding the uses of space and language that usually occur in this context. You will find much more information
Intensities Records
(still under construction) that we have opened for the occasion. In the design of this workshop we have had the invaluable collaboration of Jokin Azpiazu Carballo (aka marmar).
Finally, and to open “lines of flight” instead of closing the discourse, we would like to return to the brief dialogue that was established in the YP blog (yes, again) with the intervention of David G. Torres himself regarding this kind of “floating concept” that is intensity. The first thing that seems to be reproached there to the curator’s discourse is his naivety, the fact that he seems to ignore the way in which rebellion and incorrect attitudes have been and are produced, managed and capitalized based on interests that have nothing to do with subversion or the annihilation of the established order, but quite the opposite. We suspect that what is a vice for some is a virtue for others, and that, even aware of the paradox, David G. Torres considers it necessary to shake, even if only on the surface, the state of things. For our part, we believe that what is necessary is to subvert the contexts and structures through which cultural value is produced; for this reason, our intention is not to do a workshop on rebellion for the occasion, but to propose a ‘rebellious’ workshop (if we are allowed the sensationalism of this play on words). Participating here in this dialogue and public critical exercise on the exhibition seems to us a good way to put into practice what has been said, moving away from the laudatory and criticism-free function demanded and tacitly assumed by a good part of the educational departments of museums and art centers.
By the way, getting to El Prat de Llobregat these days seems to be an adventurous undertaking. Here is a map for the brave ones who decide to attend the inauguration.
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