Disagreements/Macba. Exhibition/Symposium |
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Venue: Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona-MACBA
PRESENTATIONPRESENTATION The exhibition in Barcelona covers a period spanning the past thirty years. However, despite the fact that the displays follow a chronological order, this should not be interpreted as though there were only one linear path, but as a broad timeframe which includes various possible paths and chronologies. Rather then replacing one account for another, the idea is to provide evidence of multiple potential stories. The exhibition at MACBA is structured around various theme areas which refer to different moments and situations in various scales or natures. In some cases, the aim is to reflect general tendencies or lines of force, while in others, the objective is to present specific situations in the form of case studies. The first part focuses on the Spanish transitional period of the 70's, proposing several subjects: "La carnavalización de la vanguardia" [The Carnavalisation of Avant-garde](with the Encuentros de Pamplona in 1972); "El paradigma (contra)informativo [The (counter)Informative Paradigm](analysing how the emergence of mobile video equipment led to the development of a constellation of decentralised communication experiences); "Nuevos comportamientos artísticos: la confluencia de vanguardia artística y vanguardia política" [New Artistic Behaviour: the Confluence between the Artistic and Political Avant-gardes](conceptualism and the re-Updating of the 20th century classical debate on aesthetics and politics; and "Culturas populares" [Popular Cultures](exploring the confluence of visual arts and the subcultures which grew up around musical styles). The second part of the exhibition is structured around the theme "La salida de la fábrica: el tránsito al posfordismo y el nacimiento de la biopolítica", [Leaving the Factory: the Transit to Post-Fordism and the Birth of Bio-politics], the transition from a modern capitalist accumulative model of the industrial era (whose main symbols are factories and full time workers) to a newly flexible, post-industrial accumulation model or post-Fordist model. Within this context, one of the parts of the exhibition is dedicated to the emergence of the "La ciudad empresa" (the Company City) which features the development of a new model of modernisation - a process of internationalisation promoted by the Spanish State which was based on limitless market expansion. The section opens with the birth of ARCO, which symbolises the institutional structures for the diffusion of contemporary art which were a product of the art market boom. The 1992 events (Seville's International Expo, the Olympic Games at Barcelona, and the 500th Anniversary of the Discovery of America) are featured in a section which is specifically dedicated to "Modelo Barcelona" (Model Barcelona) which centres the discussion of the company city on the transformation of public urban space which is currently taking place in the cities of the Western World. The exhibition ends with an open space which records the impact of the Internet on the redefinition of cognitive, productive and distribution networks and the appearance of a new public sphere which is based on new technology in the second half of the 90's: "El desbordamiento del marco artístico institucional: relacionalidad, creatividad difusa y nuevos movimientos sociales". (The Overflowing of the Institutional Artistic Framework: Relationality, Diffuse Creativity, and New Social Movements). The exhibition includes works by Preiswert Arbeitskollegen, Eugènia Balcells, C.V.A., Juan del Campo, Estrujenbank, Esther Ferrer, José Mª Giro, Eulàlia Grau, Grup de Treball, Concha Jerez, Joaquim Jordà, Familia Lavapiés, Rogelio López Cuenca, Antoni Miralda, Fina Miralles, Muntadas, Pere Noguera, Pere Portabella, Agustín Parejo School, Joan Rabascall, Fernando Ruiz Vergara, Francesc Torres, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, and Video-Nou, amongst many others. It also displays fanzines, comics, and projects developed in the fields of publishing, radio, and independent television, as well as experimental poetry, video, etc. Coinciding with the exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona-MACBA, a series of debates will be held on the 26th and 27th of April, 2005: PROGRAMME
PROGRAMME OF DEBATES Desacuerdos present their investigative work about issues related to the changes that postfordism have brought to the cultural sphere and the new means of production. Changes which, using terms suggested by various theoreticians of Postfordism like Paolo Virno, Antonio Negri, and Maurizio Lazzaratto, amongst others, we could polemically dub as "cognitive capitalism", "immaterial work" or "subjectivity at work ". This programme of debates intends to explore the meaning of the implication of capital and collective intelligence. It also attempts to explore the potential of new technology and communication networks in the process of the social diffusion of creativity and the permeability of artistic knowledge into the field of new social movements and new activism, particularly following the appearance of the global movement at the end of the 90's. In this respect, the exhibition ends by precisely putting forward the hypothesis that there is a new diffuse creativity which overflows the traditional institutional framework as a result of the emergence of new political subjectivities. The objective of this analysis is to convey the necessity of creating new networks for the construction of knowledge and self-training in order to fill the gap in political education which, as Sergio Bologna claims, is the great issue which remains unresolved in postfordism.
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