A digital publication
Bombas Gens Centre d’Art launches a digital publication conceptualized and designed by the artist Thomas Hirschhorn. “Energy = Yes! Quality = No!” (Critical Workshop) documents the different phases, methodology, process and development of the eponymous critical workshop that Hirschhorn carried out at Bombas Gens in 2021. During that time, the encouraging result for four weeks comprised 1991 “judgments,” 37 sessions with a total of 217 participants.
The publication, which is already available free of charge on the museum’s website—both in Spanish and English—includes documentary material of the preparatory phases, Fieldworks and sessions through which the workshop took place. Text contributions to the publication include a forward by Sandra Guimarães (artistic director and curator of the project), texts by the artist and participant responses. This chronological document captures the complexity, energy and dynamic unfolding of Hirschhorn’s first “Presence and Production” work in Spain.
In Thomas Hirschhorn’s words: “It is difficult to document an art experience such as the critical workshop: “Energy = Yes! Quality = No!” The difficulty comes from the rare, graceful, precarious moments of sharing judgments. To capture these moments of honesty, clarity, and emotions is difficult—and maybe even not necessary. Nevertheless, with this eBook, we want to try to give an appropriate form to the precious testimonies of the implicated participants in their diversity and richness. This publication is used as a tool to allow the simplest, the largest possible diffusion and to give an extensive form for an unlimited time—thanks to the eBook medium. This eBook is dedicated to those who are interested and curious to know and learn more about the experience: “Energy = Yes! Quality = No!” (Critical Workshop).”
“Energy = Yes! Quality = No!” (Critical Workshop)
Publication date: June 8, 2023
Published by Bombas Gens Centre d’Art
ISBN: 978-84-09-51610-0
Future programme:
Somebodies: Cunningham, Iveković, Woodman
July 12–October 1st, 2023
Curated by: Sandra Guimarães and Alba Raja
Venue: Museo Cerralbo (Madrid)
Bombas Gens Centre d’Art participates in the 26th edition of the International Festival of Photography and Visual Arts PHotoESPAÑA with Somebodies, an exhibition featuring the work of Imogen Cunningham, Sanja Iveković and Francesca Woodman. These three central artists in the José Luis Soler Vila Collection (formerly the Per Amor a l’Art Collection) use the body in their artistic work—in the case of Woodman and Iveković, their own body, and in that of Cunningham, the body of others— as a thematic, aesthetic and experimental resource in their artistic research.
Timm Rautert and the Lives of Photography
October 27, 2023–April 10, 2024
Curated by: Thomas Seelig and Sandra Guimarães
The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue published by Steidl Verlag. Exhibition in cooperation with Folkwang Museum (Essen, Germany).
Ongoing programme:
Miralda: Honeymoon—Unclassified
April 27–November 26, 2023
Curated by: Sandra Guimarães
Honeymoon: Unclassified is an ambitious project that unfolded in three moments: an exhibition, a passeig [promenade] through the city of Valencia called “La Sabateta de la Liberty” and a tasting conceived by Miralda together with the Valencian Chef Ricard Camarena. This universal and inclusive artwork involved various local communities and institutions.
The exhibition at Bombas Gens reveals the unpublished projects that the artist conceived as part of the Honeymoon Project (1986-1992) and which were never realised. The show includes the Gondola Shoe (1990-2023), a large sculpture in the shape of a shoe, designed on the scale of the foot of the Statue of Liberty and converted into a gondola. It was first presented at the 1990 Venice Biennale as a “gift” from the city to “Liberty” as part of the Honeymoon Project’s wedding gift list.
Presentation of the Gondola Shoe in collaboration with Fundación Museo Reina Sofía (Madrid, Spain).
Carlos Bunga: Performing Nature
Until October 15, 2023
Earth: A Retrospective: El Ultimo Grito and the Per Amor a l’Art Collection
Until January, 2024
