Laboratorio 987:
Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum.
Amikejo exhibition series
Curated by Latitudes [Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa]
Showcase project:
Hipatia Project. Pedagogies of Gender in Spaces of Imprisonment
9 April–12 June 2011
MUSAC
MUSAC, the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (León, Spain) presents this upcoming 9 April two new shows at the spaces Laboratorio 987 and the Showcase Project. The Laboratorio 987 will host until 12 June a specific project by artists Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum around the changing values of labour and property, examining alternative personal and political readings of common cultural heritage. The show is part of Amikejo, a series of four exhibitions curated by the independent curatorial office Latitudes [Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa], structured around relational and spatial twinning. MUSAC’s showcases present on 9 April Hipatia Project. Pedagogies of Gender in Spaces of Imprisonment, an exhibition that explores the educational project undertaken by MUSAC’s Department of Education and Cultural Action (DEAC) between 2007 and 2011 with women inmates from housing block 10 of the Mansilla de las Mulas Correctional Facility (León). This is the first exhibition at MUSAC to spring from a DEAC MUSAC educational project.Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum. Amikejo exhibition series at the Laboratorio 987
Curated by Latitudes [Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa]
Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum present a project around the changing values of labour and property, examining alternative personal and political readings of common cultural heritage. As the artists have explained, “Klaas’s grandfather belonged to a generation for whom ‘free time’ should be spent doing something productive. When he retired from work, he had his former colleagues at the factory weld together a lathe for him, so that he could take up woodturning. In old age, he was able to augment his modest pension by selling the products of his hobby to the community that formed his social network at that time. When he died, he left his son a cigar box filled with magazine clippings, sketches and blueprints of different objects made by turning wood, with the idea that it might come in handy some day.” Jaio and van Gorkum have taken the contents of this box as the point of departure for a conceptual and reflexive exploration of the notion of artistic production.
Amikejo is a series of four exhibitions at the Laboratorio 987 of MUSAC that is structured around relational and spatial twinning. This is most evident in the fact that the artists of each installment are formed by two collaborating individuals, as is Latitudes, the curatorial office formed by Max Andrews & Mariana Cánepa Luna invited to conceive the season. These artistic pairings involve various modes of binomial friendships—couples in life, dedicated duos, intermittent work partners, as well as new allies. The artist partnerships involve an overall 50-50 split of male and female practitioners, as well as Spanish-speaking and foreign origins. The series encompasses a further register of doubling prompted by a critical reflection on the conditions and expectations of a ‘project space’ such as Laboratorio 987 within today’s contemporary art museum. Such a site is typically annexed from a hosting institution, independent yet attached, with the understanding that different, more ad-hoc and agile laws apply. Nonconformist and at the same time authorized, and following spatial theories such as Michel Foucault’s ‘heterotopia’, a project space is a typology that is neither here nor there. Shadowing Robert Smithson’s concept of the ‘non-site’ (an indoor artwork physically and mentally paired with an outdoor site), the Laboratorio 987 space has been assigned a relation with a specific remote location for the 2011 season: Amikejo. More information on Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum, Amikejo
Hipatia Project. Pedagogies of Gender in Spaces of Imprisonment at the Showcase Project
Curator: Belén Sola
From 9 April, MUSAC’s showcases shall feature a comprehensive view of an extensive educational and cultural project carried out by DEAC MUSAC between 2007 and 2011. The exhibition title Proyecto Hipatia: Pedagogies of Gender in Spaces of Imprisonment, makes reference to the name of the magazine published in collaboration with women inmates from housing block 10 of the Mansilla de las Mulas correctional facility in León. It also speaks of the processes of action and reflection undergone across these four years of work, focusing on the particular context of imprisoned women. On the occasion of the exhibition, Hipatia shall release issue number five, its very last, which shall include texts written by the women participants across 2010 and others who have contributed over the course of the project; María Galindo, Eva Garrido/Yera Moreno, Sara Rosenberg, Virginia Villaplana, Silvia Zayas, and the guest colaboration of the professor Chela Sandoval.
Hipatia Project presents a chronological survey of the actions carried out at the prison between 2007 and 2011 via workshops, audio-visual screenings and discussions. The documentation and materials used in the project, as well as the four issues of the magazine published to date, shall all be on display for the public. Read more about the project
MUSAC
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León
Avda. Reyes Leoneses, 24
24008 León (Spain)
www.musac.es
musac@musac.es
t. +34 987 09 00 00
