Lara Almarcegui.
Madrid Underneath
Until 28 October 2012
Curator: Manuel Segade
Telling Everything, Not Knowing How
Until 11 November 2012
Curator: Marti Manen
CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo
Av. Constitución, 23
28931 Móstoles
Madrid, Spain
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday, 11–21
Closed on Monday
CA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo presents two new projects: Lara Almarcegui. Madrid Underneath, a show that relies on the investigation on the subsoil of Madrid, released in a book, and Telling everything, Not Knowing How, an exhibition about narrativity and contemporary art.
The exhibition Lara Almarcegui. Madrid Underneath is based on a project specifically developed by the artist for CA2M, consisting of a publication of a book that reveals what lies beneath the ground of Madrid, which hardly ever is shown to citizens: its historic, archaeological, and utility layers; transportation; communication; and energy circulation and water pipes. The show also displays alongside some of her earlier projects, consisting of a total of 21 photographs, slides, projections, or posters to help contextualise her work and understand the scope of her professional career.
The narrative which gives shape to the exhibition is based on a repetition with certain variations—each one of the three galleries of the exhibition is organized as follows: a guidebook of city wastelands, the construction materials of a city or of its historical center, an action of removing the ground from the exhibition galleries to put it back in place once observed, and the photographic documentation from the wastelands with temporal and permanent protection achieved by the artist. This approach makes more readable the variation within Almarcegui’s methods as well as the reasons that make her intervene in a site rather than in another become explicit: her projects are tools which allows representing those sites in moments of transformation or of imminent change, critical moments that translate into the museum galleries through devices, which at once are developed in time.
Telling Everything, Not Knowing How is a double format project. On the one side, an exhibition within the CA2M galleries, displaying works that incorporate narrative possibilities, which questions the fact of how to explain; on the other side, the publication of a novel written by Marti Manen, curator of the exhibition, that works as a second version of the exhibition. The show presents the work from 10 artists: Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Rosana Antolí, Rosa Barba, Keren Cytter, Kajsa Dahlberg, Lilli Hartmann, Rosalind Nashashibi / Lucy Skaer, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Job Ramos, and Alex Reynolds.
Telling Everything, Not Knowing How reflects about what can be done and what can be told from the art side, which role-plays the emotion within the narrative and also which fiction, reality, political, and social contents appear within the contemporary creation. The physical exhibition at CA2M presents a series of key works that talk about the narrative and contemporary art. Including different installations, video and film projects, photography, and text-based works which coexist in a permanent dialogue where there is a distinguished need of interaction with the visitor.
*Image above:
Eija-Liisa Ahtila, The House, 2002. Copyright Crystal Eye Ltd, Helsinki Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris. Photo: Jaime Villanueva.
