FIGUERES, 9, 10 I 11 DE NOVEMBRE DE 2011

Mexico City, 2011

Produced as part of the “Hand to Hand with General Cárdenas” project by Antimuseum of Contemporary Art in Mexico DF.

Curator: Tomás Ruiz-Rivas

This replica of the Monument to the Third International designed by Russian artist Vladimir Tatlin in 1920 but never actually made, is a paradigm of utopian architecture and a symbol of the revolution that always remained unfinished. The replica is made from such materials, and in a size and colours which lend it a child-like touch, turning it into urban furniture, a children’s climbing frame.

It was installed temporarily in the gardens of the Parque España (Condesa colony), close to the monument commemorating General Cárdenas, a revolutionary officer and President of Mexico (1934-1940). The monument was later moved and finally installed in the gardens of the Faro de Oriente cultural centre in Iztapalapa, in the impoverished outskirts of Mexico City.

Installation. 2 models, table and fluorescent light.

Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona. 2010

Project produced for the exhibition “Salvat-Papasseit, poetavanguardistacatala”.

Curators: Pilar Bonet and Maia Creus

Joan Salvat-Papasseit, Catalan avant-garde poet and revolutionary, was always optimistic about social change and defended education and culture as basic tools for revolutions and to achieve emancipation.

In 1924, at the age of 30, he died of tuberculosis in his dark, damp flat in Argenteria Street in Barcelona.

Ten years later, in 1934, during the Republic, members of the GATCPAC (J.L. Sert, B. Subirana and J. Torres Clavé) were commissioned by the Regional government of Catalonia to design the first tuberculosis health centre (1934-1938) located at the heart of el Raval neighbourhood, as part of the programme to socialise hospital care and fight against tuberculosis. This revolutionary, regenerating action to improve living conditions for the working class was commissioned by the republican regional government of Catalonia and backed by the most modern thinking professionals and intellectuals in the country. However this project was violently aborted in 1939 following the victory of fascism.

This fracture of 10 years, spanning the death of the poet and beginning the hospital became a tragic metaphor emphasising the distance between desires and dreams and the (always slim) chance of achieving them.

In a completely white room lies a large table. Upon the table lie two wooden models: the model of the house in Argenteria Street where Salvat-Papasseit passed away and the model of the Tuberculosis Hospital. Lying like isolated pieces at each end of the large table, highlighting this fracture.

Model maker: Oriol Poch

Idensitat #5

Manresa, 2009/2010

The artist proposes the construction of a replica of Plácido’s Motocarro (tricycle) as part of a training and professional reintegration program for youngsters. Plácido (a film made in 1961, mainly shot in Manresa, considered to be one of the best films of Luis G. Berlanga).
The tricycle would be turned into a mobile “commemorative monument” , an ironic device and a capsule of critical memory, and through its movement around the streets would restore a landscape and would recreate the others’ landscape.Plácido’s Motocarro could be used in many forms and be the catalyst for different events; as a small, mobile multimedia display, the support for an open air video projector, or it could use its loudspeakers to communicate and spread the activities of different collectives. Also it could be used as a means of transportation for “alternative tourism” in emerging urban spaces of Manresa.

With the collaboration of Jordi Aligué Pujals, Balan Mihaita Catalin, Dima Nicolae Alexandra, Joan Segarra Jordana, students of the Institute Lacetènia tutored by Professor Pere Maria Izquierdo.

Living without leaving a trace

Ostende, Argentina, 2009.

Project:

Engage a professional sign writer to hand paint a banner with the words by Walter Benjamin “Living without leaving a trace”.

To hang the banner (called “pasacalles” in Argentina) inside an abandoned half-built house and leave it there.

It is quite usual in Argentina –both for political organisations and trade unions to divulge their messages, and for individuals to announce birthdays, etc…– to engage professionals to hand paint banners and murals.