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5/5/2006

Trial Ballons/Globos Sonda

MUSAC Contemporary Art Museum, Leon

A proposal produced by MUSAC and curated by Yuko Hasegawa (Artistic Director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa), Agusti'n Pe'rez Rubio (Chief Curator, MUSAC) and Octavio Zaya (independent curator, Co-Editor of ATLA'NTICA magazine and member of the Advisory Committee of the MUSAC Collection), along with Tania Pardo as Assistant Curator. Trial Balloons is an exhibition meant to explore the diverse and complex artistic trends currently engaging and concerning a selection of international art practitioners who have been working since the dawn of the current century. This group show, which comprises the work of 48 artists and other creators -including designers, architects, musicians and performers- will occupy all of MUSAC’s halls and exhibition spaces.

The show will be inaugurated on the 6th of May and it will close on the 10th of September. For the opening, MUSAC is publishing an exhibition guide including a brief note on each of the artists selected (list enclosed) and the conceptual framework in which the exhibition is presented. During the second week of July, the museum will present the catalogue of the show, which will include illustrations of all the installations of the works at MUSAC and the theoretical texts by the curators. The show’s logo has been designed by Vasava and the catalogue is a joint publication by ACTAR and MUSAC. The Museo de Arte Contempora'neo de Castilla y Leo'n is an initiative of the Junta de Castilla y Leo'n through the Fundacio'n Siglo.

In the words of Agusti'n Pe'rez Rubio, Chief Curator of MUSAC and one of the three curators of this new exhibition, “Through this project, in addition to rejoicing after its first year since its inauguration and celebrating the good results obtained, which are even much better than originally expected, MUSAC aims to make a little more headway without losing sight of its original purpose, its idea of collection; in short, to embrace the museographic plan upon which it is sustained. Thus, embodying quite a venture, Trial Balloons tries to reflect in two directions: on the one hand focusing on the re-generation of the artistic event wherein the museum is the foremost protagonist, and on the other hand, probing our obsessions with everything that is emerging and innovative, the fleetingness and speed characteristic of contemporary society, and more specifically with regard to contemporary art. It is very important that MUSAC, as an institution, endeavours to meet this sort of challenge, being true to the present, and demonstrating itself as a new museum model for the twenty-first century. The project therefore goes a step further by making a self-reflection about the institution as creator of energies and communities within a sector such as art."

The proposal stems from the very definition of trial balloons, non-manned balloons that automatically measure temperatures and winds and provide other environmental data at different altitudes, and from the social and political use of the term, which means to tentatively put forth an idea or anticipated plan to test public reaction. Considering what is inherent in the term and its shifting into other applications, and within the context of some important trends and practices developed over the course of the last five years in the contemporary art world, the curators strive to elaborate, according to Pe'rez Rubio, “a metaphor that forges paths, experiences sensations, individualises collectives, and once again considers those other realities lost after the years of documentary and verite art. The very atmosphere of the project is that which joins these balloons, taking into account that perhaps the obsession with the new and the conspicuousness of a still unknown present already weighing us down are very much alike, which should rise and grasp these or other ideas, concepts and personalities emerging from the broad scenery of contemporary art".

For Octavio Zaya, curator of the Shirin Neshat exhibition which MUSAC presented last autumn, and member of the museum’s acquisitions committee, “Trial Balloons is neither a homogeneous entity nor a consciously directed ‘movement’. It is instead a space, a ‘condition’, a predicament where competing intentions and effects, diverse social and intellectual tendencies and lines of force converge and clash. Trial Balloons is an open project and therefore unstable, contradictory, partial and going in several directions. There are no hierarchies no preferences because it flirts and weaves itself equally with the unquestionable, the unpredictable and with failure. Trial Balloons is a process of the potential, of the still possible; scenarios we can speculate with and structures that can be crossed out, changed, interchanged and reinterpreted. They are not fixed representations but spaces of spontaneous encounters and collaborations. Trial Balloons is a polyphony of this moment. This is not an efficient project but one full of complexities, accidents, and errors, and unresolved, doubtful and undefined questions.

Within this context, in the confusing and unbalanced situation caused by the flood of information brought by mass media as well as the globalization that threatens to homogenize cultures, Yuko Hasegawa wonders, “How can one maintain the freedom of spirit and relate one’s self to the outer world?" “The artists in this exhibition" --answers the Artistic Director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art of Kanazawa, Japan herself-- will present us their simple solutions to these questions. Their sharp manner of observation on something usual, ordinary, and vernacular is beautifully balanced with their unusual and extraordinary transformation through their outstanding manner of intervention or juxtaposition. That will not create a pre-established harmony, but instead, a richly transformed expression will be generated through the exposition of their naked sensibility to the reality while taking nourishment from it. It can be called ‘the survival of sensibility.’"

Opening: 6 may 2006

MUSAC
Avda. de los Reyes Leoneses, 24 - Leon
Hours: 11 - 14,30/17 - 19

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