Right Now

Mercedes Azpilicueta, Blanca Casas Brullet, Fito Conesa, Patricia Dauder, Bernat Daviu, Regina Giménez, Núria Güell, Anna Malagrida, Javier Peñafiel, Gema Polanco, Tere Recarens, Eulàlia Rovira and Adrian Schindler, Irene Solà, Pedro Torres

Curated by Chus Martínez and Rosa Lleó.

With an exhibition design by Olga Subirós Studio and graphic design by Ana Domínguez.

A project by LOOP Barcelona, the platform for artists’ films & videos, and ICEC, the Catalan Ministry of Culture’s Catalan Institute for Cultural Companies.

Right Now—the title of this collective exhibition, comes from a poem by Catalan writer Miquel Martí i Pol, written in 1981:

Ara mateix tot està per fer i tot és possible / Right now all is to be done and everything is possible

This exhibition embodies reunion—the possibility of meeting and exhibiting in spite of the current reality of strict restrictions in Barcelona. Through talking online and exchanging ideas about the work, to analyzing the space to the detail to see if, with some effort, a friendly environment could be created, a graphic design accommodating current circumstances. Each step in the making of an exhibition became more conscious, and also more precious.

Coming closer to artists where one is—this is what this exhibition is about. To be near to artists requires understanding their language, their inspirations, but also the context of their practice, their values, and their lives. This is by far a much more important exercise than “reviewing” a scene, “surveying” a generation or “rendering visibility” to a group. Coming closer, is the very practice of deep listening, and then discussing, and then sharing the experience. Only in this way we will fight the blindness we have of our artists and the works around us, the lack of carefully listening to the words that may explain how new connections and networks are possible, the laziness of changing our judgemental habits… Only then can we get excited again, curious, open minded, ready to exhibit with care.

Exhibiting as forming reunion is the means for a community to break through the gates of its own history and begin to perceive itself in another way. A way, that no longer represents an aspect of an epoch or stage of world-history, but rather, allows for other voices, other values, other histories, and for a new form of comprehension, and thereby, of the organization of our community.

Staying close to the artists around us, who are near us, is the best rehearsal and the most lucid way of becoming aware of what we feel. What do we repeat incessantly? What do we always dramatize? Pain? Love? What do we continually intellectualize? Who do we victimize? What are we moved to describe? Living in harmony with our artistic life is the only exercise that generates a dynamic capable of moving the system, of transforming itself through observation, able to discern the external alliances that can contribute to creating strong bonds and true mutuality. An organism that is not understood is blind. This is the reason for the images. Political invention melds communities in which the sense of militancy coexists with a certain indifference to the “now” and to being “up to the minute” because they know that staying grounded, as if politics with a capital “P” were actually written in lower case, is the greatest gesture of generosity towards us.

Chus Martínez and Rosa Lleó