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15/11/2007

Private life

Centros de Arte y Naturaleza - CDAN, Huesca

Josep Maria Civit Collection

Exhibition curator: Menene Gras Balaguer

This exhibition presents a selection of works from an international collection of contemporary art. The unifying theme is a discourse that articulates the tragic and the banal as a duality, a ‘duel’ between opposites which, despite the distance between them, complement each other and serve as the common thread that links the collector’s acquisitions. The title of the exhibition, Private Life, alludes to the private life of the objects, which reflect a particular type of artistic production, but also the life and events with which they are associated. They simultaneously point to the inner experience of the collector, responsible for the initial selection of the works that make up the collection, in which elective affinities are the raison d'être of both a choice and a commitment. Collecting, in this case, is a private, individual action. At the same time it creates a system of relationships between the objects and other things, a system centred on the subject who takes that action.

‘I don't collect works: I collect ways of thinking,’ stresses José María Civit (Barcelona, 1947), insisting that he is only quoting Anton Herbert, whose collection was shown at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (MACBA) last year. The founder of Taula de Disseny (1974) was a key figure in Spanish design during the country's transition to democracy, and had a significant influence on the transformation and modernisation process. Civit has designed the identity of major Spanish corporations, and has progressively extended and diversified the applications of design. He has even become involved in the design of cities, which, rather than provisional images for the future, are now models whose current significance is indisputable. The quoted statement is aimed at underscoring what has driven the collector to make certain appropriations. It’s also an appeal for this distinction to be taken into account. The ‘ways of thinking’ that replace the materiality of the works, so to speak, are equivalent to what Heidegger called ‘ways of thought’: the idea is to make one's way along these pathways, freely choosing the direction and orientation, as a kind of conceptual exercise. This private collection is being introduced to the public for the first time by the CDAN within the framework of a series of exhibitions and symposia aimed at studying and encouraging collecting.

The works shown are only part of the entire collection but are very representative of the whole in terms of genre and media (paintings, sculpture, installation and video). They present images of modernity and post-modernity through fragmented and apparently orphaned narratives, which produce representations of tragic and banal aspects of a world succumbing to the weight of history and its immediate past, and to the inflation of the real. The tragic and the banal are not described: they are pointed to and highlighted in these works, perversely exhibited. Despite their antagonistic nature, the boundaries between the two qualities blur: we can even find ourselves faced with the banalisation of tragedy and the tragic, and the tragedy of the banal and banality in the contemporary world. In the collection the clearest examples of this phenomenon fluctuate constantly between the tragic and the banal dimensions of our fragile existence and the way it’s reproduced in post-human art (the rubble of large-scale natural or man-made catastrophes and the hope that comes with false happiness). Moreover the speed of the media in our information and communication society has paradoxically increased this vulnerability.

Lines in All Directions by Sol LeWitt, Something Will Come Out of This by João Onofre, Étude d´un Itinéraire by Jaume Plensa: these titles suggest an attempt to map the disorder of the present by insinuating routes and pathways that lead from work to work, designing constellations and plans that open up the possibility of making groupings, reducing distances, based on materials, themes and pathologies, whether known or yet to be discovered. The exhibition, however, starts at the end, with an imaginary denouement in which we attend Damien Hirst’s The Last Supper, after which the viewer is set adrift and moves into the darkness of the present. Though Hirst’s work focuses on ‘closure’ and the end of time/history, here it becomes an opening, an introduction, leading on to works by Imi Knoebel, Jannis Kounellis, Ángela de la Cruz, João Onofre, John Armleder, João Louro, Dan Flavin, Candida Höfer, Robert Motherwell, Gerwald Rockenschaub, José Pedro Croft, Emma Kay, Enrique Marty, Hannah Collins, Javier Pérez, Joana Vasconcellos, Franz West, Jeff Koons, Joan Brossa, José Antonio Hernández-Díez, Ann Verónica Janssens, Ana Laura Aláez, Sylvie Fleury, Carmela García, Pierre Gonnord, Mk. Kaehne, Per Barclay and Liliana Porter, to name just some of the artists whose works are included in this collection, and who exchange ‘models’ and ‘ways of thought’ as their unfinished stories cross paths in this exhibition. Though invisible, Shakespeare, Kafka and Freud insinuate themselves among the artists (‘contemporary’ or emerging classics) brought together in this collection. They help guide us in our interpretations and underscore the impossibility of fixing rules for perception and aesthetic judgment. This forces us to accept as valid all readings of the collection that it can be demonstrated are possible, and these are to be encouraged, despite their absence and lack of recognition, in any attempt to gain an insight into the works that make up this collection. Menene Gras Balaguer, exhibition curator.

JANNIS KOUNELISS, ÁNGELA DE LA CRUZ, IMI KNOEBEL, FRANZ WEST, JOHR ARMLEDER, JOAO ONOFRE, DAN FLAVIN, JOANA VASCONCELOS, MIQUEL MONT, OTTO ZITKO, EMMA KAY, ANN VERÓNICA JANSSENS, HANNA COLLINS, R.G. BIANCHI, YASAMUSA MORIMURA, PEIO IRAZU, VICTORIA CIVERA, DAVID AUSTEN, JORDI COLOMER, JOSÉ PEDRO CROFT, MARK LUYTEN, JAUME PLENSA, GARY STEPHAN, JOAO LOURO, FORD BECKMAN, ANTONI LLENA, DAMIEN HIRST, GERWARLD ROCKENSCHAUB, JORGE SANTOS, CARLOS PAZOS, JEFF KOONS, JEAN-BAPTISTE HUYNH, SEAN SCULLY, CANDIDA HÖFER, NOH SONG KYON, CELESTE BOURSIER-MOUGENOT, LINDA BESEMER, ALFREDO ROMANO, JOSE A. HERNÁNDEZ-DÍEZ, MITSUO MIURA, W. ENGELBRECHET, MIGUEL ÁNGEL CAMPANO, ROBERT MOTHERWELL, CHEMA ALVARGONZÁLEZ, JORGE GALINDO, JOHN NIXON, RAFAEL BARTOLOZZI, JOAN BROSSA, ENRIQUE MARTY, JOSEPH MARIONI, ADRIAN SCHIESS, JOSÉ MARÍA SICILIA, SOL LEWITT, STEPHANE COUTURIER, OCAMPO, SILVIA BÄCHLI, BERNARDÍ ROIG, TXOMIN BADIOLA, GERARDO BURMEISTER, ANA LAURA ALÁEZ, GABRIEL KURI, SYLVIE FLEURY, DOMÈNEC, ROBERT LLIMÓS, SCOTT RICHTER, GARCÍA SEVILLA, EVA LOOTZ, PETER WÜTRICH, ANA NAVARRETE, ALDO IACOBELLI, EDUARDO ARROYO, VICTOR MIRA, JOSÉ SANLEÓN, MARION THIEME, OLAF MOIJ, DANIEL GÖTTIN, BEGOÑA MONTALBÁN, DIANA WYSE, RUUD VAN EMPEL, SUSY GÓMEZ, PIERRE GONNORD, CARMELA GARCÍA, ALBERT RÀFOLS CASAMADA, LAWRENCE CARROLL, MK. KAEHNE, MIREYA MASÓ, DENMARK, CHEMA MADOZ, AGUSTÍN DE LLANOS, SANTI MOIX, VIÇENS VIAPLANA, XANO ARMENTER, RAY SMITH, BLEDA & ROSA, LILIAN PORTER, MASSIMO VITALI, JAVIER PÉREZ, FRANK THIEL, PER BARCLAY,…

Centro de Arte y Naturaleza. Fundación Beulas
C/ Doctor Artero, s/n Huesca 22004
Opening hours:
Winter (October 2 to April 30) 11 am to 2 pm; afternoons 5 pm to 8 pm
Sundays and public holidays: 10 am to 2 pm

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