Every other Wednesday, from 20th January to 3rd March 2021

As part of the Plague exhibition, curated by the Cultural Ecologies Group of the Independent Studies Programme, in which we take a critical look at the various ways ‘nature’ is managed today, we are programming a season of films entitled “Plague Open Screen. Artwork from the MACBA Collection”. We invite you to enjoy unlimited access to a number of the works in the collection every other Wednesday. For 24 hours, selected films and videos by the artists Carlos Motta, The Otolith Group, Ibon Aranberri and Joan Jonas will be available to view on our website. This season presents various approaches to the exploitation of natural resources, intervention in the landscape and atmospheric phenomena, among other aspects.

If you have any questions, you can contact us via macba [at] macba [dot] cat or by calling (+34) 934 813 368.

This activity is part of Education from Below, a project with the support of Creative Europe's programme of the European Union
Education from below
Ibon Aranberri "(Ir. T. n. 513) zuloa", 2007

Programme

Activity
Nefandus, Carlos Motta

Carlos Motta, Nefandus, 2013 

Wednesday 20 January 2021

Nefandus addresses issues to do with the colonial legacy in Latin America, the effects of the exploitation of natural resources and the abuses perpetrated against human communities and their sexuality, in particular the homoerotic tradition of the pre-Hispanic world. Carlos Motta, a Columbian artist who trained on the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art in New York, regards his photographs, videos and installations as ‘social sculptures’. He explores and condemns the social and cultural injustices committed against the minority identities around him. In particular, he is interested in the impositions related to queer culture and homoeroticism, which he usually links with the European colonialism of the past in South America.

Activity
The Otolith Group "Hydra Decapita", 2010 (filmstill)

The Otolith Group, Hydra Decapita, 2010 

Wednesday 3 February 2021

Hydra Decapita is an investigation into an underwater realm imagined by the electronic music duo Drexciya. The work draws connections between issues such as globalisation, capitalism and climate change and the massacres of enslaved people in the 18th century. Using the slave trade as an allegory, Hydra Decapita combines myth and history to examine the intricate relationships between power, death, globalisation, abstraction and the modern-day system of financial capital. The Otolith Group is an art collective founded in London in 2002 by Anjalika Sagar (London, 1968) and Kodwo Eshun (London, 1967), who have written essays, mounted curatorial projects and made films and videos. Using an eclectic array of artistic media and materials, they reflect on the nature of perception and analyse the role of documents and images in the construction of the accounts of the postcolonial world.

Activity
Ibon Aranberri "(Ir. T. n. 513) zuloa", 2007

Ibon Aranberri, (Ir. T. n. 513) zuloa, 2007

Wednesday 17 February 2021

(Ir. T. n. 513) zuloa documents an intervention in a site of special scientific interest in which the artist blocked the entrance to a cave, thereby adding new meanings to the local landscape. It was, therefore, a work of land art that was not carried out with the localist aim of preserving the landscape but of recodifying it and creating new collective meanings in it. Ibon Aranberri, an internationally renowned Basque artist, is highly critical of collective interventions in the territory and the landscape. His works are held in public collections such as the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid, Artium in Vitoria and the MACBA in Barcelona. The Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona mounted a retrospective of his work in 2011.

Activity
Joan Jonas, Wind, 1968

Joan Jonas, Wind, 1968

Wednesday 3 March 2021

Wind is a dance of bodies that move guided, in part, by the strength of the wind. This work, shot in black and white in long takes with no sound, is one of the earliest performances by the artist Joan Jonas (New York, 1936), which she would set in natural or industrial environments. In it, the artist allows the wind to determine the performers’ movements in a blend of choreography, ceremony and improvisation. Jonas was a pioneer in the 1960s of performance art practice, experimental film and video installation work. In her pieces, the influence of contemporary dance and the language of avant-garde film replace narrative continuity. The result is a multimedia performance that incorporates drawing, sculpture and video.


Exhibition