BLOG - Archivo NOVIEMBRE de 2009
Heineken Greenspace: Variety Show
Looking at the eclectic menu offered by this festival’s organisers for the first day, the Circo Price was undoubtedly the ideal setting –and not because of its acoustic conditions. This was a variety show in the true sense of the word, where the only guiding thread joining the bands was a return to the American songbook.
Read more...Response by the EACC to the text on Weiner
The ARTECONTEXTO office has received the following letter in response to Armando Montesinos’s article:
Read more...Farewell to Nancy Spero
A couple of days ago, a friend mentioned the fact that the passing of Nancy Spero (Cleveland, 1926) last October was not reported in the Spanish media. He was completely right. It is hard to understand this oversight, particularly if we take into account the fact that the MACBA recently held an exhibition of her work, as did the MNCARS. We were fortunate enough to meet her and to have a chance to express our gratitude for the effort she made to attend the opening of her show in Madrid. The degenerative illness which had ravaged her body for decades had not undermined her capacity for work, her desire to continue creating and her extraordinary intelligence and determination with regard to the ideas she had always defended. Spero was highly committed to political causes, and feminism was one of the mainstays of her work, which led her, in the early 1970s, to become one of the supporters of the first gallery in New York to show art produced by women, which at that point enjoyed very little exposure. Her opposition to the Vietnam War was the focus of her work in the 1970s, while her final works centred on the invasion of Iraq. The extensive retrospective shows held in Spain compensated for the lack of attention paid to this artist here. Although the MACBA and the MNCARS have some of her pieces on display, not many people realise that the drawings she made on the columns of the coffee shop in the Círculo de Bellas Artes, in Madrid, on the occasion of a collective show in which she took part in 1992, are still there, ready to speak to us about the joy we can find in life, in spite of everything.
Read more...Nacho Criado, winner of the National Visual Arts Award.
We are pleased that the National Visual Arts Award was given to the artist Nacho Criado, and would like to congratulate him effusively. The fact that he is the recipient of this award, following in the footsteps of Esther Ferrer (2008) and Isidoro Valcárcel Medina (2007), confirms the importance of conceptual art in the last four decades in our country. This recognition should make amends for the way in which the so-called “canonical” art history sees these artists as “strange” or as outsiders, leading to their exclusion from the art market, as well as their extremely small representation in our country’s private and public collections, which should end now. Sometimes, just sometimes, time puts things in their place.
The Case of the Fake Lawrence Weiner
Lawrence Weiner's statement is well known, as it marks a turning point in the feared “dematerialisation” of the art object. His declaration first appeared in the catalogue-exhibition January, 1969, organised by the mysterious and increasingly influential Seth Siegelaub:
2. The piece may be fabricated.
3. The piece need not be built.
Each being equal and consistent with the intent of the artist, the decision as to condition rests with the receiver upon the occasion of receivership.”
