La Movida

This pioneering, contemporary group exhibition, takes the artistic and socio-cultural movement La Movida (literally “the movement”) of post-Franco Spain as its thematic heart. It is not an exhibition about the early 1980s in Madrid, it is an exhibition inspired by it. Using a historical movement as the curatorial basis of a contemporary group art show produces an effect much like a movement itself, contradictory, confusing, eclectic, invigorating and hopefully a little bit out of control.

Suddenly, or so it must have felt, the forbidden arenas of politics and sexuality were open season for public debate and creative communities. Excess, clubbing, drugs, artistic freedom, women’s rights, gay rights, pornography and more, all collided in an outpouring of freedom from suppression. An irrepressible desire for making up on lost time subsequently played out across the population through television such as La Edad de Oro (The Golden Age, 1983–85), and the films of Pedro Almodóvar.

The exhibition sets new commissions reacting to the movement alongside existing international works that explore major conceits of La Movida. 40 years since the transition to democracy, the exhibition and its related films, performance and literature present a re-imagining of a movement with a strong contemporary artistic and socio-political resonance today.

Artists featured are Oreet Ashery, Bruce LaBruce, Luis López Carrasco, Clara Casian, Alejandría Cinque, Jesse Darling, Patricia Esquivias, Paul Heyer, Derek Jarman, La JohnJoseph, Raisa Maudit, Chim↑Pom, Puppies Puppies, Linder Sterling, Esther Teichmann and Stefanos Tsivopoulos.

A major new creative fiction publication, Dark Habits, is also published alongside this exhibition. The seventh publication from HOME Publishing since its inception in 2015 to challenge and re-position the traditional exhibition catalogue as an artwork and commission in its own right, Dark Habits takes its inspiration from the classic Pedro Almodovar film of the same name.

19 contributors explore freedom and indulgence, hedonism, transgression, sex and moral conventions through short stories, poetry, essay, experimental writing and flash-fiction in this alternative to a rigid exhibition catalogue. Featuring Oreet Ashery, Shumon Baser, Marissa Burgess, Mercedes Cebrián (translated by William Gregory), Chantal Faust, La JohnJoseph, Jonathon Kemp, Anne Louise Kershaw, Omar Kholeif, James King, Patricia MacCormack, Adam O’Riordan, Sarah Perks, Heather Phillipson, Natasha Stallard, Esther Teichmann, Greg Thorpe and Jason Wood.

Curated by Sarah Perks, Artistic Director: Visual Art HOME and Professor of Visual Art at Manchester School of Art. Sarah Perks is a writer, curator and film producer interested in cross art form curation and practice, politically engaged contemporary visual art and counteracting the toxic narratives of our time.

Curatorial advisers: Omar Kholeif, Nuria Lopez, Anna Manubens and Bren O’Callaghan. Commissioning support from Matadero, Madrid and AC/E. With thanks to ECAM (Escuela de Cinematografía y del Audiovisual de la Comunidad de Madrid); The Estate of Derek Jarman and Wilkinson Gallery, London; Tamares Real Estate Holdings, Inc. in collaboration with Zabludowicz Collection.