Six new exhibitions
One Sixth of the Earth. Ecologies of Image
Miki Kratsman
28 January–3 June 2012
Félix Curto
Azucena Vieites
28 January–9 September 2012
Hiwa K at the Laboratorio 987, and Rafael Sánchez-Mateos Paniagua with the Straubinger Columns at the Showcase Project
28 January–10 June 2012
MUSAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León
Avda. Reyes Leoneses, 24
24008 León, Spain
SIX NEW EXHIBITIONS AT MUSAC, MUSEO DE ARTE CONTEMPORÁNEO DE CASTILLA Y LEÓN (LEÓN, SPAIN)
MUSAC presents One Sixth of the Earth. Ecologies of Image, a group show that focuses on the art of the moving image from the last decade from countries that were part of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc. AS IT IS is the first solo show in Spain of Israeli photographer Miki Kratsman. Under the title American Junk, MUSAC presents an exhibition by the artist Félix Curto that surveys the artist’s production in Mexico and Spain in recent years. Gallery 1 hosts Azucena Vieites’ Cross Dissolve – Break You Nice, an exhibition project in which the issue of representation is addressed, both from the recreational and the fantasy, as well as from the experience and expectations present in the processes of daily life. The Laboratorio 987 introduces the exhibition series Form and Meaning with a show by Kurdish artist and musician Hiwa K, titled For a Few Socks of Marbles. Last but not least, MUSAC Showcases display In our Gardens Forests are Getting Ready, a project by Rafael Sánchez Mateos Paniagua with the Starubinger Columns.
One Sixth of the Earth. Ecologies of Image
Artists: Dan Acostioaei, Victor Alimpiev, Matei Bejenaru, Yevgenia Belorusets, Irina Botea, Pavel Braila, Mircea Cantor, Community Art – Aleksandar Battista Ilic, Ivana Keser, Tomislav Gotovac/, Stefan Constantinescu, Factory of Found Clothes, Dimitry Gutov, Flaka Haliti, IRWIN, Gulnara Kasmalieva and Muratbek Dzumaliev, Zbigniew Libera, Little Warsaw, David Maljkovic, Almagul Menlibayeva, Anna Molska, Deimantas Narkevičius, Mircea Nicolae, Kristina Norman, Adrian Paci, Alexander Ponomarev, Ghenadie Popescu, Tobias Putrih, Anri Sala, Lukasz Skapski, Société Réaliste, Milica Tomic, Mona Vatamanu & Florin Tudor, Andrej Zdravic, Driant Zeneli, Artur Zmijewski
Curator: Mark Nash
Co-produced with ZKM Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe
One Sixth of the Earth: Ecologies of Image is a group exhibition featuring the work of 34 of the most exciting voices from former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries in the period following the disintegration of the Soviet Bloc. Curated by the art historian and professor at the Royal College of Arts Mark Nash, the show is the result of a process of research focused on the conceptual framework of “ecology” understood as the totality of human, societal and environmental ecologies, as Felix Guattari developed in his essay The Three Ecologies (1989). A project conceived specifically for MUSAC, the exhibition pays special attention to work that does not immediately embrace the promises of a post-perestroika global, but struggles with the various tensions and paradoxes of the local.
One Sixth of the Earth (1926) is also the title of a 1926 film by Dziga Vertov, the Soviet Union’s most experimental exponent of documentary cinema, which intended to present a utopian vision of the multiracial and multicultural potential of Soviet society. The exhibition at MUSAC makes emblematic reference to this title film as an indication of the potential and the aspiration of artists and curators from this major region of the world. The moving image was the major art of the Communist period, but it has also emerged as a major force for artistic critique. That’s why, in his process of selection, Nash centred on the use of the image as a language of expression, selecting artists who work primarily with the moving image, though also including other media such as photography and installation. Read more about the project.
Miki Kratsman. AS IT IS. On Miki Kratsman’s Photography
Curator: Octavio Zaya
Co-produced with Virreina Centre de la Imatge
AS IT IS. On Miki Kratsman’s Photography is the first monographic show in a Spanish museum by this photographer, who was born in Argentina and is a naturalized Israeli citizen. The exhibition brings together nearly 70 photographic images focusing on the conflict between the Israeli State and the Palestinian people, which are contrasted and complemented by three large format projections of the almost 4,000 photographs in Kratsman’s archive. These photographs, depicting the daily reality of the Palestinian struggle against the occupation, were taken by Kratsman during his more than twenty year long career as a photojournalist. Read more about the project.
With the collaboration of:
Artis – Contemporary Israeli Art Fund
Embajada de Israel en España
Félix Curto. American Junk
Curator: Agustín Pérez Rubio
American Junk is a monographic exhibition by the Spanish artist Felix Curto. Under this symptomatic title, the show surveys the artist’s production in Mexico and Spain in recent years, consisting in a selection of more than 60 works including installations, paintings, sculptures and drawings that introduce us to his poetic maturity. Curto’s outlook demonstrates the ambivalence of Western dogmas such as progress, efficiency and development, through an overview that conveys notions of border and territory, waste and merchandise, present and past. Curto’s thematic universe is further represented in American Junk by his personal genealogy of musical and literary counterculture that is featured in the show. Read more about the project.
Azucena Vieites. Cross Dissolve – Break You Nice
Curator: Agustín Pérez Rubio
Cross dissolve – Break You Nice is the title of the exhibition project that the artist Azucena Vieites will be presenting in MUSAC’s Sala 1. The show is the result of a long process initiated in previous works, in which, from a feminist perspective, she embraces the use, repetition and fragmentation of images as recurrent methods, in addition to the categorization of the sex-gender dichotomy during childhood and the relation between the consumption and production of images from popular culture. Read more about the project.
Laboratorio 987. Hiwa K. For a Few Socks of Marbles. Form and Meaning exhibition series.
Curator: Leire Vergara
On January 28th MUSAC’s Laboratorio 987 initiates its exhibition series Form and Meaning curated by Leire Vergara and structured around three monographic exhibitions by the artists Hiwa K, Carme Nogueira and Alejandra Riera, and a collective project by the artists from León Nilo Gallego, Silvia Zayas, and Chus Domínguez.
The series is launched with the first solo show in Spain by the Kurdish artist and musician Hiwa K, titled For a Few Socks of Marbles. The exhibition comprises a selection of recent works, on-going projects and a performance that reflect the particular interests of the artist with respect to the circulation of culture, means of informal knowledge, and contacts between migratory and vernacular forms. Read more about the project.
Showcase Project. Rafael Sánchez-Mateos Paniaugua with the Straubinger Columns. In Our Gardens Forests Are Getting Ready
Curator: Eneas Bernal
With the collaboration of OCA. Office for Contemporary Art Norway
A passionate work, a poetic artifact that attempts to present, display, transmit, make objective, set into motion, through art’s devices, the sensitive explosions that have taken place and that continue to take place, from North to South, today. Movements and interruptions in life styles that the new struggles and the new forces of popular resistance are already making possible everywhere. Read more about the project.
