NO DEBATE, NO MUSEUM

17 March 2016 - 22 September 2016

These encounters aim to offer a place for work and reflection on the present and future of modern art centres and institutions. In a time of change in the social and economic sphere, as well as within the administration of CGAC itself and other public institutions of Galicia, we think it is the perfect time to get together and talk about the museum model we want and need, and to share our professional experiences on the Galician scene and elsewhere. With this activity, based on questions, critical evaluation and reflection, we hope to position CGAC as a meeting place and forum for debate.

The meetings will be organised around four discussion panels —artists, art criticism and mediation, institutions and art collection— which will focus on issues that, we hope, will be taken up by the target audience, the different context agents, to be able to analyse the current situation of these institutions and the challenges that must be accepted by all the professionals at these types of centres. These our fundamental sections of the art system will be analysed as a pretext and reference point to propose ideas from within and outside CGAC and its present situation after over twenty years in existence.

What is the role of museums? Can a museum be a critical institution? Are good practices being used in this sector? From what perspective is art criticism carried out? Do artists have any power in museums? How do artists make their living? Is there a market big enough to absorb the volume of creative works? What are the rights and compensations of artists in museums? What are the curator’s spaces? Who is responsible for purchasing works for public collections? Does gender equality exist in a field that appears to be as progressive as art? These are some of the issues that we hope will serve to map out and build, organize and visualize a framework, while also addressing other interesting topics revolving around how to reformulate, build and legitimate institutions that serve citizens.

The purpose of these workshops is to present opinions, careers and experiences to review different models and compare new ideas and strategies that will enhance the figure and importance of museums and centres of modern art in today’s world. Because a museum cannot exist without debate, on this occasion, the debate is taken into the rooms of the museum itself. We invite you to participate. Any and all proposals are more than welcome!


PROGRAMME

Thursday, 17 March
16:30 h ARTISTS
Moderator: Silvia García
Antón Patiño
Isidro López Aparicio
Carme Nogueira
Enrique Lista
Tamara Feijoo
Video

Friday, 18 March
16:30 h INSTITUTIONS
Moderator: Chus Martínez Domínguez
Daniel L. Abel
David Barro
Daniel Castillejo
Santiago Olmo
Video

18:30 h CRITICS AND CURATORS
Moderator: Natalia Poncela
Ania González
X. M. Buxán Bran
Javier Duero
Ángela Molina
Video

Xoves, 22 September
16:30 h COLLECTORS
Moderator: Juan Carlos Román
Rosario Sarmiento
Miguel Fernández-Cid
Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes
Virginia Torrente
Video

Entrance is free until filled to capacity.


Chus Martínez Domínguez holds a degree in History and is an expert in modern visual arts. She is an acclaimed art critic and a regular contributor to Babelia, the cultural magazine of the newspaper El País and the magazine Tempos Novos, as well as collaborating with other specialized publications such as ArtNotes, Arte y Parte and Artecontexto. She works as an independent curator of exhibitions. In 2008 she worked as the coordinator of a ground-breaking website dedicated to Galician artists, www.espazodocumental.org, and also edited the book, espazodocumental.net, a collection of essays published as a result of this project. She has been a member of the area of Creation and Modern Visual Arts of the Council for Galician Culture since 2012.

Santiago Olmo has worked as an independent curator of exhibitions and art critic since 1986. He has served on the editorial boards of the magazines Lápiz and Artecontexto (Madrid). He was the curator of the Spanish representation at the xxiv Biennial of São Paulo in 1998. In 2010 he was the director of the xxxi Biennial of Pontevedra, entitled Utrópicos, which addressed the artistic scene of Central America and the Caribbean, and in 2012 he curated the Biennial of Guatemala. He is currently the director of CGAC.

Silvia García holds a doctorate in Fine Arts and is a professor and dean of the School of Fine Arts of Pontevedra. She worked in CGAC’s Activities Department from 1997 to 2005. As an artist, she has participated in the following exhibitions: Eidos da imaxe, at the MARCO in Vigo; Hacer, Diseñar, Pensar, at Madrid’s National Museum of Decorative Arts and Relatos privados y espacios públicos at the MAC in A Coruña. In the late 1990s she belonged to different net art groups and took part in several exhibits and video art projections.

Antón Patiño is a visual artist and writer. He fits the profile of a cultural activist, having participated in a number of different foundational adventures: Loia, Colectivo da Imaxe, Atlántica. He collaborated with the group Rompente and has authored works such as Xeometría líquida, Mapa ingrávido, Caosmos; the books of poetry Océano e silencio and Teoría do riso; the experimental comic Esquizoide and essays on Urbano Lugrís, Reimundo Patiño, Uxío Novoneyra and Lois Pereiro. His works have been shown at solo exhibitions in Paris, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Stockholm, Madrid, New York and Stuttgart and can be found in collections at museums such as the Reina Sofía and MACBA.

Isidro López­Aparicio (iLA) is an artist and professor. He has participated in international fairs and has had many different exhibitions - both solo and collective. He has also received awards and grants to further his studies and artistic creation from over thirty institutions. He curated five international art festivals featuring established artists as well as those emerging on the scene.In addition to teaching at the University of Granada, he is also involved in teaching activities at other institutions in Finland and the United Kingdom. He is the author of many books and articles. His professional and social commitment as an artist has led him to take on the responsibility of being the Honorary President of the Fine Art European Forum and the director of the European League of Institutes of Art. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal for Artistic Research.

Carme Nogueira is an artist. Her work revolves around the gender-related concepts of identity and privacy. In recent years she has focussed her work on the problematic issue of public spaces, with her projects being materialised through photographs and installations. Most noteworthy of her latest works are Castillete, retablo minero, curated by Leire Vergara, at the MUSAC, and the exhibition La ciudad de los aplausos, curated by Manuel Segade in Paris.

Enrique Lista studied at the University of Vigo and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts, a Master’s in Modern Art, and a PhD in Fine Arts. As an artist he has had solo shows at the Luis Seoane Foundation (A Coruña, 2013), Zona C (Santiago de Compostela, 2012), the Adhoc gallery (Vigo, 2010) and the Alterarte gallery (2007). He has also taken part in numerous collective exhibitions at museums and institutions such as the Rac Foundation (2016), MAC (2015), MARCO (2014 and 2010), Centro Torrente Ballester (2010), the Noorderlicht Photogallery (2009), CGAC (2008), the Centre Civic Sant Andreu (2007) and La Casa da Parra (2007).

Tamara Feijoo works in the field of plastic arts. She holds a Fine Arts Degree from the University of Vigo, where she also completed her doctoral studies. She has had several solo shows in galleries located in Málaga, Ourense and Madrid. Her work has also been featured in many different collective exhibitions on both the national and international scene. She has been awarded several grants and prizes such as the Gas Natural Fenosa Grant for Artistic Creation Abroad 2011, thanks to which she was able to enjoy a residency of several months in Berlin.

Daniel L. Abel holds a degree in Art History from the University of Santiago de Compostela and he carried out his postgraduate studies in Design, Art and Society at the Universitat Pompeu i Fabra. From 2008 to 2014, along with Víctor E. Pérez, Baleiro (baleiro.org), he co-directed an independently run space supported by the Area of Culture at the USC. This space featured many different exhibitions, debate series, artist-in-residence programs and concerts of experimental music. He has co-edited and co-authored two book within the framework of the research project entitled ‘Canales Alternativos de Creación Experimental. El Eje Atlántico: 1975-2010’, of the History Department at the USC. He is currently working on his doctoral dissertation focussing on collective production in modern Galician art.

David Barro is the managing director of the Luis Seoane Foundation in A Coruña. From 2006 to 2014 he served as editor of DARDO and director of DARDOmagazine. In addition to curating many exhibitions, he is an art critic and contributes regularly to El Cultural (1998-2014). He was the director of the following magazines: [W]art (2003-2005), Arte y parte (1998-1999) and Interesarte (1998-2002). He also served as artistic director of the art fair Espacio Atlántico (2010), the exhibition space A Chocolataría of Santiago de Compostela, the project Look Up! Natural Porto Art Show (2010), the Festival Internacional de Acción Artística Sostenible SOS 4.8 held in Murcia, and was a faculty member at the Escola das Artes of the UCP in Oporto (2000-2006). From 2008 to 2013 he was the art advisor to the Barrié Foundation as well as being in charge of its collection.

Daniel Castillejo is a cultural activist, in charge of the promotion of cultural structures in Vitoria and a curator of exhibits. At the present time he directs the ARTIUM, Basque Museum-Centre of Contemporary Art in Álava. From 2001 to 2008 he was the conservator of the Department of the Permanent Collection and Artistic Analyses of the ARTIUM, Basque Museum-Centre of Contemporary Art in Álava. From 1989 to 2001, he headed the Sala Amárica (Vitoria-Gasteiz). From 1985 to 2001, he was the specialist in charge of managing the modern art collection of Álava’s Fine Arts Museum (now the ARTIUM Collection). He is also a member of the Purchasing Commission of the Provincial Government, the Diputación Foral de Gipuzkoa and the Es Baluard Museum in Palma de Mallorca.

Natalia Poncela López graduated from the USC with a degree in Art History. Her professional activities focus on contemporary visual creation, mainly in the publishing field. She also collaborates with different media outlets and institutions as a historian and art critic. She has curated the following exhibitions: Trompe-la-mémoire. Dispositivos de temporalidade e posta en escena (Luis Seoane Foundation, 2000) and Rubén Santiago. Honoris Causa (Sala Alterarte, 2012). She was editor-in-chief of the international journal of modern art, Art Notes (2004-2010) and a professor with the USC program, Master of Modern Art, Museology and Criticism, where she taught workshops on art criticism. In 2007 she directed the course entitled Artes de mediación. Los roles de la crítica de arte en la era digital. She has also coordinated various conferences, courses and seminars organised by the Council for Galician Culture. She is currently a member of the area of Creation and Modern Visual Arts of the Council for Galician Culture and she has been an art critic on the Galician Radio program Diario Cultural (since 2006) and contributes to the magazine Tempos Novos.

Ania González holds a Law degree from the USC and a Master’s Degree in Law from the University of Vigo. She works as an attorney and as a cultural critic, having attended MACBA’s Independent Study Program. She was the co-director of the FAC Peregrina projects, De corpo en lugar and PLÉTORA until 2015. She has worked on the cultural engineering program, Outra institucionalidade alongside the digital artist Horacio González who she has teamed up with to form the group called Agentes del Caos. She is a member of a large group of agents belonging to the Instituto Galego de Praxe Actual (IGAPA).

X. M. Buxán Bran is a tenured professor at the Pontevedra’s School of Fine Arts. He directed the exhibition program of Sala X, the exhibition space of the Pontevedra Campus. He currently heads the program Estado Crítico 3 at the Alterarte Gallery at the Ourense Campus. As an art critic, he has written articles for A Nosa Terra and currently contributes to the Faro de Vigo. A collection of these reviews was compiled in the work Desprazamentos: a viaxe como unha das Belas Artes (Difusora de Letras, Artes e Ideas, Ourense, 2014). He has recently published a book entitled Bellos y desconocidos (Laertes, Barcelona, 2015).

Ángela Molina holds a degree in Spanish philology and a PhD in the Theory of Literature and Comparative Literature from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). As an art critic she contributed to the cultural magazine of the newspaper ABC until 2000. She has contributed to the art and literature sections of the cultural magazines Babelia and Quadern (El País), as well as to specialised publications (LARS, Revista de Libros, Vanity Fair) since 2001. She was the director of the journal of art and thinking, Art&Co, and is an expert on feminist theory and gender studies. She edited the volume entitled Los lugares de la crítica (Ed. Universidad Pública de Navarra, 2011).

Javier Duero is a cultural producer. He studied communication and audiovisual production at the Official Institute of Radio and Television. In 2002 and 2003 he received training in video art and digital culture at the Daniel Langloise Foundation and at Videographe (Montreal-Quebec). His interest revolves around the development of projects related to cooperation, research, education, and art curating. He has recently collaborated on specific projects for HEAD - Haute École D’ Art et Design of Geneva, the CAC - the Modern Art Centre of Quito, the Goethe-Institut of Berlin, the Es Baluard Museum of Mallorca, the Injuve, the Complutense University of Madrid, the Instituto Cervantes and the Spanish Academy in Rome.

Juan Carlos Román is an artist and profesor. He received his PhD from the University of Vigo and teaches Art and Contemporaneity at the School of Fine Arts in Pontevedra. His works have been featured in more than twenty solo exhibitions and he has participated in over one hundred collective shows, on both the national and international scene. His works can be found in many different museums as well as private collections, some of the most noteworthy being: Artium, Fundación la Caixa, CGAC, the Fran Daudel Foundation, the Testimoni Collection and the Palacio de la Zarzuela. He has published numerous essays in catalogues and specialised journals where he analyses the works of contemporary artists. His most recent work: ‘Los 100 problemas del arte contemporáneo’ has just been published in the Infraleves collection edited by CENDEAC of Murcia, 2016.

Rosario Sarmiento is a curator and art critic. She specialises in art collecting and the art history of women in Galicia. She was the director of the Caixa Galicia /Abanca Art Collection from 1998-2014. She has curated and coordinated the exhibitions of great artists like Eduardo Chillida, Francisco Leiro, Jannis Kounnelis, Tarsila do Amaral, Tamara de Lempicka, Diego Rivera, Frida Khalo, Maruja Mallo and Urbano Lugris, among others.

Miguel Fernández Cid is an art critic, editor and independent curator. He was the head of purchasing at the Coca-Cola España Foundation and director of CGAC from 1998 to 2005. At the present time he directs the Gonzalo Torrente Ballester Foundation in Santiago de Compostela.

Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes is an art critic and curator of exhibitions. He has directed the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo in Seville since February 2010. He was the curator of the Montcada Gallery of La Caixa Foundation (Barcelona), the director of El Periódico del Arte (the Spanish edition of The Art Newspaper, Il Giornale dell’Arte and Le Journal des Arts) and director of the Centro Párraga (Murcia). He contributed to the cultural magazine of the newspaper ABC as an art critic from 2004 to 2010 and he has written articles for many different cultural and modern art magazines in Spain and abroad.

Virginia Torrente holds a degree in Art History. From 1993 to 1999 she worked as the conservator and head of exhibitions of the Modern Art Collection and, from 2000 to 2003, at the Patio Herreriano Museum of Valladolid. She was in charge of plastic arts at the Casa de América in Madrid from 2004 to 2006, and has worked as an independent curator since 2007. Some of the highlights of the many exhibitions she has curated are: Paraísos indómitos (Marco Vigo and CAAC Seville, 2008); Estación experimental, with Andrés Mengs (CA2M Madrid and Laboral Gijón, 2010); 89 Km. CGAC Collection (Marco, Vigo, 2010); Arqueológica (Matadero Madrid, 2013); 8 cuestiones espacialmente extraordinarias (Tabacalera, Madrid, 2014); Patricia Gadea Atomic-Circus (MNCARS, Madrid, 2014); and El público (Centro Federico García Lorca, Granada, 2015). She also served as the artistic director of the first edition of JustMad (2010) and she created and directed the first two editions of Jugada a 3 bandas (2011 and 2012). She has given lectures and published texts that are typically related to modern art both in Spain and abroad. From 1999 to 2009 she participated in an independent curator project called Doméstico.

COORDINATION: Chus Martínez Domínguez and Santiago Olmo.