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The exhibition includes 19 case studies of projects committed to education that have in common Jorge Oteiza’s demand for places to meet, train and progress culturally.
The exhibition is curated by Mikel Onandia, Rocío Robles Tardío and Sergio Rubira and stems from a collaboration with the Jorge Oteiza Museum Foundation
The exhibition is part of a priority line of action of the museum aimed at the production of projects that highlight and enhance the relationships established between artistic practices and experimental pedagogical models. Programs such as the JAI Institute of Artistic Practices and the MAGNET educational project are included in this line of work.
The Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country, Artium Museum, presents the exhibition A Place to Think: Experimental Art Schools and Educational Practices in the Basque Country, 1957-1979, (A3 Gallery, until 5 June 2022). The exhibition is divided into 19 case studies that analyse 19 projects developed during this period characterised by their educational commitment and desire to create places to conduct research and meet within the context of art. A Place to Think is linked to other projects developed by Artium Museoa that connect art and learning, such as the exhibition by Antonio Ballester Moreno held in 2021 or the JAI study programme. Artium Museum has published a catalogue and guidebook to accompany the exhibition. The research and curatorship of A Place to Think was carried out by Mikel Onandia, Rocío Robles Tardío and Sergio Rubira. The exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Jorge Oteiza Museum Foundation in Alzuza, where a new case study, A Transitive Eye: Irun Film Club Project, will be on display from Wednesday 26 January.
Stemming from a statement by Jorge Oteiza published in Quousque Tandem…! (1963): “We, who have neither a place of convergence nor a simple place to meet and think, cannot speak of research”, the exhibition addresses this call to action to create meeting places that can enable the socio-political, cultural and intellectual training and growth of boys and girls, men and women in the Basque Country. The exhibition recalls and brings together a series of projects with an educational vocation, whether collective or individual in nature, developed between 1957 and 1979 and sharing the same argument of necessity indicated by Oteiza.
By adding names and places to the map that outlines these experiences, existing connections between artists and geographies are revealed that shared an interest in key aspects of the Basque and Spanish art scenes at the time: the debates between abstraction and figuration, the defence of integrating the arts, the urgent need to renew art teaching or consider the social function of art, in which boys and girls as subjects and recipients received special attention. An approach to the foundational episodes of contemporary Basque art is therefore proposed by this, now based on the processes of configuring the artist as educator and artistic education, without losing sight of studying both focal points from the social and historical context of the time.
The time span begins in a year that saw the convergence of various initiatives and programmes in and outside the Basque Country, and it coincides with the moment when Jorge Oteiza abandoned his process of sculptural experimentation to focus on considering the social and political role of the artist (1957-1959). It extends to the year in which the School of Fine Arts of the Basque Country entered a new stage as a Faculty, a conversion in which the factor of its name contained the promise of a substantial transformation of its structure, programme, facilities and teaching renewal.
Between the two years, a set of cases, names and places is presented according to a diachronic order affected by a synchronic narrative, thereby demonstrating the simultaneity of experiences and development of various educational initiatives of an experimental nature from the visual arts. A number of diverse proposals in terms of their statements and modes of articulation, developed in the Basque Country over several years marked by processes of renewing and reconstructing Basque society, and whose common denominator was not to follow a formal or official education, thereby indicating that each activated “place to think” became a space of possibilities.
Press release (pdf) Exhibition guidebook (pdf) About the exhibition
Parallel activities
Conversation between Mikel Onandia, Rocío Robles Tardío and Sergio Rubira
Friday 21 January, 6 pm. Artium Museoa Auditorium. Streaming also available
Roundtable: Educational Practices and Audiovisual Media: José Antonio Sistiaga and His Context, 1957-1979. With Mikel Onandia, Rocío Robles Tardío and Sergio Rubira
Thursday 10 March, 6 pm. Plaza Kutxa Kultur (Tabakalera, San Sebastian)
Activity carried out jointly with Kubo Kutxa. Kutxa Fundazioa
Online encounter on the context of experimental schools and practices in the 1960s and 1970s and their possible application to contemporary educational structure and practice
Wednesday 16 March at 6 pm. Organised by the Jorge Oteiza Museum Foundation and Artium Museoa
Upcoming guided tours for A Place to Think: Sunday 23 January, 12.30 pm; Wednesday 26 January, 6 pm; Saturday 29 January, 5.30 pm; Sunday 6 February, 5.30 pm; Wednesday 16 February, 6 pm; Saturday 26 February, 12.30 pm
A Place to Think. Experimental Art Schools and Educational Practices in the Basque Country, 1957-1979
A3 Gallery, from 21 January to 5 June 2022
Curators: Mikel Onandia, Rocío Robles Tardío and Sergio Rubira
Catalogue, including essays by David Fuente, Juan Pablo Huércanos, Irene López Goñi, Mikel Onandia, Rocío Robles Tardío, Sergio Rubira, Fátima Sarasola and Miren Vadillo (soon to be published)
Guidebook publication of the exhibition
The exhibition stems from a collaboration between Artium Museoa and the Jorge Oteiza Museum Foundation, where one its case studies will be on display, A Transitive Eye: Irun Film Club Project (from Thursday 27 January to 30 April 2022).
Exhibition Programme 2022. Sneak preview of first half-year
The film is the result of a four-year project by Baudelaire with a group of students from the Dora Maar school in Paris. “It is not a film about the children, it is a film by the children” that captures the moments when these teenagers begin to become aware of their surroundings and adopt critical and political stances.
Con motivo de la apertura de la exposición Un film dramatique, de Éric Baudelaire, dentro del programa Sala Z (apertura: jueves 25 de noviembre, desde las 11:00 horas).
Proyección de la película en el Auditorio del museo, con presentación a cargo de la comisaria Garbiñe Ortega.
Miércoles 24 de noviembre, 18:00 horas
Entrada gratuita. Aforo limitado. Inscripciones: 945 20 90 20
¿Qué estamos haciendo juntos? Es una pregunta recurrente para los estudiantes de la clase de cine en la escuela de secundaria Dora Maar, y para Eric Baudelaire (Salt Lake City, EEUU, 1973), que trabajó con ellos durante cuatro años. Responder a esta pregunta política —que conlleva representaciones de poder, violencia social e identidad— los llevó a buscar una forma cinematográfica que hiciera justicia a la singularidad de cada estudiante, pero también a la esencia de su grupo.
Éric Baudelaire (1973) es un artista y cineasta afincado en París. Tras cursar estudios de ciencias políticas, Baudelaire se forjó un nombre como artista visual gracias a una práctica basada en la investigación que incorpora fotografía, imágenes impresas y vídeo. El cine ha ocupado un lugar fundamental en su obra desde 2010.
Artium Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country presents the exhibition Mariana Castillo Deball. Amarantus (A2 Gallery, until 13 March 2022). The exhibition brings together an extensive selection of works produced primarily over the past decade in which we can trace Castillo Deball’s interest in the way in which knowledge and culture are produced, represented and disseminated, and specifically in the processes of appropriating and re-coding pre-colonial Mexican history. Artium Museum has produced a publication to accompany the exhibition that includes an essay by the exhibition’s curator, Catalina Lozano. Amarantus has been organised in collaboration with Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (Germany) and Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico).
Amarantus presents a selection of artworks by Mariana Castillo Deball (Mexico City, 1975) who, ever since her early works, has been interested in the way in which knowledge and culture are produced, represented and disseminated. Working diagonally between the visual arts, science and fiction, the artist has looked into how pre-colonial Mexican history has been investigated, appropriated and re-codified at various times.
Mariana Castillo Deball (Mexico City, 1975) has shaped a vast body of work that tackles the way in which knowledge and culture are produced, represented and disseminated, positioning herself in the junctions between science, fiction and the visual arts and their relation to the ways that pre-colonial Mexican history has been appropriated and investigated at various times.
Castillo Deball uses a kaleidoscopic approach to her interests to explore archaeology, science, literature and technology, and she has collaborated with museums and institutions outside the realm of contemporary art.
Ever since her early works, the artist has explored how chance – the product of time passed, erosion, fragmentation and human interventions, among other factors – largely determines the way that we learn to describe the world and the narratives we create. This interest has led her to explore the history of specific artefacts – which she calls “uncomfortable objects” – their paths, reproductions, appropriations and disappearances.
Her formal strategies are often akin to the methodologies employed by archaeologists to “trap” their discoveries. These objects, or surrogate images, are conceptually similar to the ancient Nahua notion of ixiptla, which can be interpreted as representation, image and substitute, but also skin. This concept is crucial for exploring many of Castillo Deball’s projects over the past decade.
The word amarantus, which gives the exhibition its name, comes from the Greek Αμάρανθος and designates a flower that never dies – like the amaranth, an indispensable plant in traditional Mexican diets that never withers. The amaranth flower evokes the persistence of these “uncomfortable objects”, the material remains of random historical events that fascinate Castillo Deball.
In collaboration with the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (Germany) and Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (Mexico).
The exhibition brings together a wide selection of paintings from her Social Landscapes series, which the artist began in the 1990s. Txaro Arrazola creates disturbing contemporary landscapes that show the devastating effects of human action on the planet and its people
Artium Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country presents the exhibition Txaro Arrazola. A Magnificent Exploitation (A1 Gallery, until 13 March 2022). The exhibition brings together a wide selection of paintings from her Social Landscapes series, which the artist has been developing since the 1990s and in which she paints scenes that represent the devastating effects of direct or indirect human action on the planet and its people. A Magnificent Exploitation, curated by Xabier Arakistain, also presents other pieces from this early period, including drawings, photographs and patchworks made from clothes acquired in Salvation Army shops. Artium Museum has also published a book with essays by Arakistain and Rocío de la Villa to accompany this exhibition.
It is indeed paradoxical that ‘explotar’ means three things in Spanish: “to extract from the earth its wealth”, “to exploit the work or qualities of another person for one’s own benefit” and “to blow up, to make an explosion”. The title of this exhibition uses these three meanings of the verb to suggest connections between them from which to approach the idea of contemporary landscape in the work of Txaro Arrazola (Vitoria-Gasteiz 1963).
Una magnífica explotación (A Magnificent Exploitation) brings together a wide selection of paintings from her series Paisajes sociales (Social Landscapes), which Txaro Arrazola has been producing since 1993, when she completed her first drawings of the landscape views that could be seen from the large window of her studio in an old factory in the then dilapidated neighbourhood of Bushwick, New York. Her drawings from life were subsequently replaced as a reference for her paintings by images that she took from newspapers and magazines. Extracting images and journalistic photographs from the news briefs conferred by their medium and transcending the everyday nature of the daily press to convert these into artistic artefacts extends their temporality and, above all, exponentially expands their functionality.
Arrazola would use this displacement to create disturbing contemporary landscapes from various parts of the world that display all manner of destruction caused by direct or indirect human action. Landscapes portraying situations of extreme poverty, favelas, war refugee camps or those of migrants for climatic or economic reasons. These sombre or directly dark paintings have very few colours and they depict an unhappy world in which people never appear.
In keeping with the idea of proximity so as not to disrupt the impression that the works extend beyond the limits of the canvas, the paintings are not framed. Nor are they framed in the past. Unfortunately today, just as 30 years ago, the works remain strictly topical. Txaro Arrazola’s social landscapes are still an all too familiar everyday scene.
Txaro Arrazola
Txaro Arrazola graduated in Fine Arts from UPV/EHU in 1988. She was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship (1996-1997) and MFA from the State University of New York, Purchase College (1996-1998) and has a PhD in Fine Arts (2012). Her work is characterised by social engagement, feminist critique of representation and research into collaborative methodologies.
She combines her individual artistic practice of painting with transdisciplinary projects and group projects, including actions produced with the Plataforma A collective in public spaces. Her work has been exhibited at Galería Vanguardia (Bilbao, 2019, 2014, 2014, 2011, 2007); Fundación Pedro Modesto Campos (Tenerife 2007); Centro Cultural Montehermoso (Vitoria-Gasteiz, 2008, 2005), and Kunstarkaden Der Stadt (Munich 2008), among other spaces and institutions.
The exhibition do mess with me includes the videos <3 S P S <3 BLOOD and <3 S P S <3 INK, acquired in 2020 as part of the Basque Government’s support plan for the artistic sector.
In the same manner as the case studies and rotations within the exhibition Zeru bat, hamaika bide, Contexts from a Collection aims to increase the visibility of the museum’s outstanding contemporary collection.
As part of its Contexts from a Collection exhibition programme, Artium Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country presents two videos by the artist Lorea Alfaro: <3 S P S <3 BLOOD and <3 S P S <3 INK, which have been recently added to the museum’s collection (A02 Gallery, until 16 January 2022). The exhibition do mess with me also includes a selection of works by Alfaro alongside these two pieces, including works made with wallpaper, Paski and Paretara, and the video Tú re-post. The exhibition is accompanied by the publication do mess with me, which contains a conversation between Lorea Alfaro and the photographer Rafa Castells. Contexts from a Collection is a series of exhibitions dedicated to showcasing the works of artists that have recently been added to the museum’s collection.
<3 S P S <3 (2016-2017) is a portrait and part of the design of a tailor-made silk shirt for the sitter, a singer from the Spanish trap scene. Lorea Alfaro views the design of the shirt like the making of a mould: “A mould is a piece [SHIRT], or number of coupled pieces [PATTERN], internally hollow but with the external details and imprints of the future solid that one wishes to obtain [HIM]. A flexible mould [SILK] is usually assembled with a rigid counter-mould [VIDEO] or ‘mother’ [MOTHER] that holds the shape to prevent its deformation [VIDEO]. The advantage of flexible moulds is that they can be removed more delicately [SILK], leading to a better result for the piece. It is also lighter [SILK] and more durable [ARTE]”.
The print on the shirt is a repeated motif of a tattoo that was on the forearm of one of her relatives. This same motif has had other bodies in previous works such as Paretara (2014) or the Paski #mablood scarf (2015). These repetitions, present in all her work, signal the artist’s interest in seeking ways of incorporating elements into life that stem from a type of attention, care and time, different from those found in everyday objects.
Lorea Alfaro (Estella Lizarra, 1982) is an artist. Her most recent works can be seen in the exhibitions 2020, together with Jon Otamendi (Fundación Joan Miró, 2021), Un mundo sin cualidades (Galería CarrerasMugica, 2020) or No lo banalices (Galería CarerrasMugica, 2018, 948 Merkatua, 2019). She has been working through the hollow brand LA (3l3a) since 2014.
This British artist is renowned for her film work, which she combines with her interest in painting and printmaking.
Nashashibi’s work shows “how important it is to build human bonds that can (...) enable a more enjoyable and lovable existence”.
The exhibition includes several paintings produced during the artist’s stay at Artium Museum in order to set up of the project.
Artium Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country presents the artist Rosalind Nashashibi in a new exhibition project for its Z Gallery programme (until 14 November 2021). The show includes the screening of two films by this British artist, Vivian’s Garden and Part One: Where There Is a Joyous Mood, There a Comrade Will Appear to Share a Glass of Wine, as well as several paintings produced by Nashashibi during her stay at the museum in order to prepare this exhibition. The museum has also produced a publication with a text by Francisco Salas to accompany the show.
Rosalind Nashashibi's recent exhibitions include those held in museums and institutions such as Secession, Vienna; The Art Institute of Chicago, and Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, among others, and her presence in international events such as the 52nd Venice Biennale, Manifesta 7, Sharjah 10 and Documenta 14 is also worth noting. She has won various awards, including the Beck’s Futures art prize in 2003, and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2017.
What are we doing together? It is a recurring question for the students in the film class at Dora Maar High School, as well as for Eric Baudelaire (Salt Lake City, USA, 1973), who worked with them for four years. Answering this political question –which involves representations of power, social violence and identity– led them to search for a cinematic form that would do justice not only to the uniqueness of each student, but also to the essence of their group.
What are we doing together if not a documentary or fiction? A dramatic film, perhaps, in which time works upon the bodies and discourse of the students, and in which we discover the possibility of each person speaking on their own behalf by filming for others and becoming co-authors of the film and subjects of their own lives.
Eric Baudelaire is an artist and filmmaker. His recent feature films include Also Known As Jihadi (2017), Letters to Max (2014), The Ugly One (2013) and The Anabasis of May and Fusako Shigenobu, Masao Adachi and 27 Years Without Images (2011), all of which have been widely screened at film festivals such as Locarno, Toronto, New York, Marseille and Rotterdam.
Curator: Garbiñe Ortega
The Z Gallery (Z for zinema, cinema in Basque) programme aims to bring to the public authors interested in searching for new narrative forms by questioning the genres that historically categorise cinematographic language. 2021 season of the programme we want to highlight the interest and research deployed by their authors on the idea of the collective, as well as the ways in which to continue thinking and working together to project a shared future.
The British-Palestinian artist Rosalind Nashashibi (Croydon, London, 1973) is renowned for her film work, which she produces simultaneously with her work in painting and printmaking. Through her meditative, slow-paced films, she suggests a flexible treatment of time that occasionally seems to be suspended.
The artist is presenting two pieces from her filmography (Vivian's Garden y Part One: Where There Is a Joyous Mood, There a Comrade Will Appear to Share a Glass of Wine) on the occasion of her participation in this series at the Museum.
Her recent exhibitions include those held in museums and institutions such as Secession, Vienna; The Art Institute of Chicago, and Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam, among others, and her presence in international events such as the 52nd Venice Biennale, Manifesta 7, Sharjah 10 and Documenta 14 is also worth noting. She has won various awards, including the Beck’s Futures art prize in 2003, and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 2017.
Conversation with Rosalind Nashashibi at Artium Museum: Thursday 16 September, 6:00 pm.
Curator: Garbiñe Ortega
The Z Gallery (Z for zinema, cinema in Basque) programme aims to bring to the public authors interested in searching for new narrative forms by questioning the genres that historically categorise cinematographic language. 2021 season of the programme we want to highlight the interest and research deployed by their authors on the idea of the collective, as well as the ways in which to continue thinking and working together to project a shared future.
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