A place where artists have the right to fail. Stories of Espai 10 and Espai 13 at the Fundació Joan Miró
14 March–25 May 2014
Fundació Joan Miró
Parc de Montjuïc
08038 Barcelona
info [at] fundaciomiro-bcn.org
Curated by Manuel Segade
The Fundació Joan Miró presents A place where artists have the right to fail. Stories of Espai 10 and Espai 13 at the Fundació Joan Miró, an exhibition on the continuous programming of emerging art in these two legendary Barcelona spaces since 1978. In 2013 Espai 13 celebrated its thirty-fifth anniversary. The exhibition A place where…, which is open until 25 May, and the publication on the projects presented in Espai 10 and 13 over the years mark this anniversary.
The exhibition has been curated by Manuel Segade and is organised around seven thematic chapters that point to the links between different artist generations and art practices over the past four decades.
A place where… brings together a total of sixty works, representing the more than 250 exhibitions programmed for Espai 10 and Espai 13. This is the first time that works produced for these two spaces will occupy the temporary exhibition rooms of the Joan Miró Foundation.
The exhibition reviews the artistic production derived from the ongoing programming for Espai 10 and Espai 13. The former opened in 1978 and moved to another part of the Foundation in 1989 after Josep Lluís Sert’s building was extended, whereupon it changed its name to Espai 13. Taking as its starting point a selection of the works shown throughout its history, the exhibition presents this space as a laboratory that has served as a testing ground for both artists and curators.
The exhibition opens with a timeline of the history of Espai 10 and Espai 13 from the beginnings of the Fundació Joan Miró in 1975 through to the present day. Since its start, the programming of this space has aimed at responding to the needs of the art sector and also to Joan Miró’s desire to create an experimental venue for young artists’ projects. The space has embraced both the local art scene as well as Spanish and international artists, showing the work of close to five hundred artists and thirty curators.
The task of reviewing the last four decades of emerging art has enabled the exhibition curator, Manuel Segade, to analyse art trends and movements and to identify points of contact between different generations and practices. Seven thematic chapters have been established on the basis of these relationships and occupy the exhibition spaces with the following titles: Pictorial Phenomena, Sculptured Objects, Culture and Nature, Phenomenology of the Body, Postcolonialisms, Processes and Events, and The Uses of Popular Culture.
The sixty works brought together for this show are fragments from earlier exhibitions, taking the form of a temporary collection. The exhibition design is the work of Basque artist Xabier Salaberria and consists of a series of grids by means of which the artworks are presented thus visually unifying a wide-ranging curatorial narrative. Salaberria’s displays are functional sculptures that house other pieces, somewhere between exhibition design and discrete works.
Artists shown in the exhibition
Antoni Abad / Ana Laura Aláez / Yves Belorgey / Jordi Benito / Alfons Borrell / Jackie Brookner / Joan Brossa / Jordi Cerdà / Jordi Colomer / Carles Congost / Pep Duran / Antoni Egea / Manel Esculsa / Esther Ferrer / Xavier Franquesa / General Idea / Albert Giròs / Susy Gómez / Jean-Pierre Guillemot / Jens Haaning / Pello Irazu / Salvador Juanpere / Laura Lamiel / Abigail Lazkoz / Liza Lou / Jesús Martínez Oliva / Erina Matsui / Fina Miralles / Jordi Mitjà / Vik Muniz / Elvira Navares / Pere Noguera / Antonio Ortega / Alberto Peral / Perejaume / Gabriel Pericàs / Enric Pladevall / Jaume Plensa / Josep Ponsatí / Àngels Ribé / Joan Rom / Ugo Rondinone / Benet Rosell / Carolina Saquel / Susana Solano / Luigi Stoisa / Antoni Tàpies / Paco Vacas / Xavier Veilhan
Publication
A place where artists have the right to fail. Stories of Espai 10 and Espai 13 at the Fundació Joan Miró is also the title of the publication that has been produced for this exhibition. Conceived as a textbook, it analyses how the history of Espai 10 and Espai 13 can be seen as a case study on the institutionalisation of contemporary art in Europe. The book is the result of the research carried out in preparation for the exhibition and tells the stories of the spaces with the thematic sections of the show used as chapters. In addition to the seven chapters, the study features three thematic sections titled On Ways of Making Audiences, Site-specific Interventions and From Tautological Art to Institutional Critique.
Related activities
On 17 May, coinciding with the Night of Museums, artist Pep Duran will present an evocation of his 1985 performance Tot és quincalla (It’s All Junk). His performance consisted of a fashion show with models dressed in imaginative costumes that ended with an impossible dinner.
On 22 May, artist Francesc Ruiz will offer a city tour visiting different points of distribution of a comic book of his making. A decade after his Espai 13 show, Ruiz completes his 2004 comic series “Soy Sauce,” which at the time led his audience to different parts of the city in lieu of a standard exhibition. In the 2014 version, which will be the closing act of A place where…, the tour will start at the Fatbottom bookstore and will end at the Fundació Joan Miró.
