Allora & Calzadilla: KLIMA

Azkuna Zentroa—Alhóndiga Bilbao, Bilbao Society and Contemporary Culture Centre, presents the exhibition Allora & Calzadilla: KLIMA featuring recent work by the collaborative duo of visual artists Jennifer Allora (1974, USA) and Guillermo Calzadilla (1971, Cuba), leading figures in the international contemporary art scene.

Curated by Fernando Pérez, Director of Azkuna Zentroa—Alhóndiga Bilbao, the exhibition brings together, for the first time in Bilbao, some of Allora & Calzadilla’s most important works from the last decade. It follows the programming theme addressed by the Centre, which highlights climate and environmental emergency through art and prompts society to critically reflect on its actions and adopt a more sustainable approach.

Jennifer Allora and Guillermo Calzadilla have developed an experimental body of work that addresses the entanglements between history, ecology, and geopolitics using a multiplicity of artistic media that includes performance, sculpture, sound, video, photography, and painting.

The concept of KLIMA, which dates back to ancient Greece, signifies an inclination towards the sun. The works in this ambitious, open-ended chronology engage with the solar orientation taken by all life forms. Each artwork in the exhibition can be thought of as a unique climate that, when brought together as a whole, creates a cosmic entanglement—travelling as far back as 4 billion years ago, all the way to the present day. This presentation highlights the interdisciplinary and collaborative nature of Allora & Calzadilla’s practice, as well as themes that run throughout their oeuvre: geological time and the evolutionary history of life on Earth; the postcolonial condition, environmental justice, climate debt, geopolitics, and energy resources.

KLIMA highlights the importance of Allora & Calzadilla’s sculptural-performance based works to their career trajectory, a number of which will be regularly staged throughout the course of the exhibition, in collaboration with local musicians.

Allora & Calzadilla
Since the beginning of their collaborative practice in 1995, Allora & Calzadilla have presented solo exhibitions at some of the world’s most important museums—including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Serralves Museum, Porto, The Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; The Menil Collection, Houston; Serpentine Gallery, London; the Castello de Rivoli Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Turin; The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; MAXXI, Rome; Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao; The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and Dia Art Foundation among others. In 2011 they represented the United States of America at the 54th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale with an ambitious project, Glória – a performative critique of the narratives and symbols that overlap in America’s political, cultural, and economic nationalism.

Azkuna Zentroa—Alhóndiga Bilbao. Bilbao Society and Contemporary Culture Centre
Azkuna Zentroa is the Bilbao Society and Contemporary Culture Centre, with a local and international perspective open to dialogue with different community groups. Azkuna Zentroa is a place to take part in culture as a practice, process and space for experiences, through four lines of programming: Visual arts, Performing Arts, Film and Audio-visuals, and Literature. These lines dialogue among themselves generating a hybrid, multiple and expanded programming. Always with education as a way to generate critical knowledge and transform society through art and artists.