19/9/12

Contemporary Cartographies. Drawing Thought at CaixaForum, 2012.


Michael Druks. Druksland–Physical and Socia, 15 January 1974, 11.30 am., 1974.
© Michael Druks. Fotografía: England & Co Gallery, London


We map our world in order to gain a glimpse of the reality in which we live.
Since time immemorial, maps have been used to represent, translate and
encode all kinds of physical, mental and emotional territories. Our
representation of the world has evolved in recent centuries and, today, with
globalisation and the Internet, traditional concepts of time and space, along
with methods for representing the world and knowledge, have been
definitively transformed. In response to this paradigm shift, contemporary
artists question systems of representation and suggest new formulas for
classifying reality. The ultimate aim of Contemporary Cartographies.
Drawing Thought, an exhibition that seeks to draw a map formed by
cartographies created by twentieth- and twenty-first century artists, is to
invite the visitor to question both the systems of representation that we use
and the ideas that underpin them. The exhibition, organised and produced
by ”la Caixa” Foundation, is comprises more than 140 works in a wide
range of formats – from maps and drawings to video installations and
digital art – on loan from the collections of several major contemporary art
galleries. The artists represented include such essential figures as
Salvador Dalí, Paul Klee, Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein, Gordon Matta-Clark,
Richard Hamilton, Mona Hatoum and Richard Long, shoulder-to-shoulder
with a roster of contemporary artists, including Art & Language, Artur
Barrio, Carolee Schneemann, Ana Mendieta, Erick Beltrán, On Kawara,
Alighiero Boetti, Thomas Hirschhorn and Francis Alÿs, amongst others.
Finally, the exhibition is completed by a series of revealing documents
drawn up by experts from other fields, such as Santiago Ramón y Cajal,
Lewis Carroll and Carl Gustav Jung.


Contemporary Cartographies. Drawing Thought. Organised and produced by:
”la Caixa” Foundation. Dates: 25 July - 28 October 2012. Place: CaixaForum
Barcelona (Av. de Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia, 6-8). Curator: Helena Tatay.


(...)

 4
Physical, mental and emotional territories

Humans have always needed to design and build structures in order to
understand the chaos that is life. Maps break down reality into fragments,
enabling it to be presented in the shape of tables. In this way, we translate and
codify, not only physical space, but also knowledge, feelings, desires and life
experiences. 

Representing the Earth on a plane, projecting a three-dimensional object in two
dimensions, was an astounding transformation. This process enables us to
grasp the idea of space, which has shaped European thinking. As the
geographer Franco Farinelli notes, since the beginning of European knowledge
there has been no other way of knowing things except through their image. It is
difficult for us to go beyond their appearance, their representation.

In the seventeenth century, classifications and phenomena began to be drawn
on a plane. Mapmaking knowledge was combined with statistical skills. In this
way, data maps emerged, helping to visualise knowledge and converting it into
science. A century later, linked to the colonial expansion of certain European
countries, scientific cartography came into being. At the same time, maps of
emotions began to appear in French salons hosted by women. Since then,
maps have been used to represent and make visible physical, mental and
emotional territories of all kinds.

In the twentieth century, technical advances such as the airplane and
photograph, which enabled reality to be reproduced exactly, wrought changes in
the way the world was represented. Moreover, non-material communication –
the telegraph and the telephone  – caused the “crisis of space” that was so ably
reflected by the cubists.

Internet finally dispelled all traditional concepts of time and space. The
contemporary space is a heterogeneous space. We are aware that we live in a
network of relations and material and non-material flows, but we still do not
possess a model to represent this invisible network. We live in tension between
what we were and can think and these new things that we are unable to
represent.

This exhibition explores a theme that has unattainable ramifications. Based on
art (a microspace for freedom in which models of knowledge can be
reconsidered and redefined) it proposes a map – arbitrary, subjective and
incomplete, like all maps – of the cartographies formulated by twentieth-century
and contemporary artists. This map invites us to question the systems of
representation that we use, and the ideas that underlie them.

 Artists:
Artistas:
Ignasi Aballí, Francis Alÿs, Efrén Álvarez, Giovanni Anselmo, Art & Language, Zbynék Baladrán, Artur Barrio, Lothar Baumgarthen, Erick Beltrán, Zarina Bhimji, Ursula Biemann, Cezary Bodzianowski, Alighiero Boettti, Christian Boltanski, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brown, Trisha Brown, Bureau d'Études, Los Carpinteros, Constant, Raimond Chaves y Gilda Mantilla, Salvador Dalí, Guy Debord, Michael Drucks, Marcel Duchamp, El Lissitzky, Valie Export, Evru, Öyvind Fahlström, Félix González-Torres, Milan Grygar, Richard Hamilton, Zarina Hashmi, Mona Hatoum, David Hammons, Thomas Hirschhorn, Bas Jan Ader, On Kawara, Allan Kaprow, William Kentridge, Robert Kinmont, Paul Klee, Yves Klein, Hilma af Klint, Guillermo Kuitca, Emma Kunz, Mark Lombardi, Rogelio López Cuenca, Richard Long, Cristina Lucas, Anna Maria Maiolino, Kris Martin, Gordon Matta-Clark, Ana Mendieta, Norah Napaljarri Nelson, Dorothy Napangardi, Rivane Neuenschwander, Perejaume, Grayson Perry, Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Vahida Ramujkic, Till Roeskens, Rotor, Ralph Rumney, Ed Ruscha, Carolee Schneemann, Robert Smithson, Saul Steinberg, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Willy Tjungurrayi, Joaquín Torres García, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, Adriana Varejao, Oriol Vilapuig, Kara Walker, Adolf Wölfli.
 



More in the web of CaixaForum.
More info in the Pdf.
Very nice tumblr of the curator, Helena Tatay.

And i have to say that i´m more than happy to be in the links section.

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