Lara Almarcegui Ivry souterrain

Transcription

1 le Crédac Press release Lara Almarcegui Ivry souterrain Exhibition from 19 April to 23 June 2013 >> > Opening on Thursday, 18 April 2013 from 5 PM to 9 PM Centre d art contemporain d Ivry - le Crédac La Manufacture des Œillets rue Raspail, Ivry-sur-Seine, FR informations : + 33 (0) contact@credac.fr Open every day (except Mondays) from 2 to 6 PM, weekends from 2 to 7 PM free admission Press Contact Axelle Blanc Head of communication + 33 (0) ablanc.credac@ivry94.fr This exhibition has received the financial support of the Mondriaan Fund, Amsterdam, and of Acción Cultural Española (AC/E). With the careful support of Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris. Metro: 7 line, Mairie d Ivry / (20 mn from Châtelet / 200 m from the metro) Member of Tram and DCA networks, Crédac enjoys the generous support of the City of Ivry-sur-Seine, the Regional Direction of Cultural Affairs of Île-de- France (the Ministry of Culture and Communications), the General Council of Val-de-Marne and the Regional Council of Île-de-France. Media Partners: 1

2 Lara Almarcegui Ivry souterrain From 19 April to 23 June 2013 Opening on Thursday 18 April 2013 from 5 PM to 9 PM Lara Almarcegui, Going Down Into a recently Excavated Tunnel, Madrid, 2010 Photo: Alfonso Herranz, courtesy of the artist and Ellen De Bruijne, Amsterdam. Since the mid-1990s, Lara Almarcegui has been interested in the interstices that exist in urban and suburban areas, the empty lots, underground passages, ruins and construction sites, spaces that are normally ignored or overlooked, which she rigorously studies in order to pass on her experience of them. Invited in 2010 to bring her brand of research to the area bounded by Ivry-sur-Seine, Almarcegui focused on the city s underground reality. The current show at Crédac features a selection of the artist s projects related to a new publication entitled Ivry souterrain (Underground Ivry). The city of Ivry-sur-Seine is currently undergoing enormous change and a profound redefining of its territory, where major development projects are about to break ground. These sites are already redrawing the map and revamping land use, notably to the east and the vast, formerly industrial zone of Ivry-port (now known as Ivry Confluences), and to the west along the former N305 route (now RD5). For centuries, with its many quarries and warehouses, Ivry helped to build and feed the Paris metropolis. The disappearance of once-thriving industries has left behind wasteland and economically depressed zones. Today s change is taking shape around several key points, including the economy, diversification of services, housing, and education and recreation zones. These mutations are fashioning a new urban landscape. Based on a synthesis of current data on the state of the city s underground areas, the book Ivry souterrain examines the different periods and below-ground levels of human activity, networks and infrastructures. Old quarries and labyrinthine basements, sacred thermal springs, metro tunnels, buried lakes, networks of water, energy and telecommunications present a genuine portrait of the city through what lies beneath it. In several of its manifestations, Almarcegui s work resembles a straightforward inventory of data related to a given site. It is an inventory that is both horizontal (territories that she reveals through maps and slideshows accompanied by visitors guides), and vertical (the geological nature of a particular area, construction materials or materials coming from a destruction of some kind, which she presents in the form of lists or installations). Each work or show is an objective reproduction of the long-term experience of a place and a synthesis of a large amount of information. This reproduction may assume a monumental aspect (the Rubble Mountains, shown notably at Secession, Vienna in 2010 and currently on view at MUSAC in León, Spain), or it may be slight and minimalist, such as slideshows, guides, lists of the weights of materials so many typologies springing from research or education sources enabling the viewerreader to make a mental representation of the spaces in question. The artist also offers in-the-field experience with visitors to her shows, inviting them to join her on guided discoveries of the places and construction sites that are the subject of her research. Through a physical understanding of a place, these visits help the people there to reappropriate the issues at stake. The notion of change is central to this artistic practice, which views the city as a living entity in an approach inherited from psychogeography (as defined by Ralph Rumney). If indeed wastelands figure among the rare places that still fall outside the economic imperatives and mechanisms of control that characterize the postmodern city (absence of clearly indicated borders, hygiene and security monitoring, and harboring people who are not officially there, etc.), they are eventually co-opted and transformed. Thus the guides Almarcegui has produced of wastelands in London, São Paulo, Rome or Sharjah, for example, crystalize these sites divisions and history at a given moment, often at the dawn of major development projects like the Olympic Games, revealing the transitory nature of all space. While the artist s projects are endemic and intrinsic to their context, they also allow her to freeze a fleeting moment and, through the work of memory, locate it in a longer, more expansive timeframe. The integrity, clarity and systematization of her art with respect to a specific place point up its singularity while making it possible to tease out the issues that have a global resonance. 2

3 Almarcegui thus combines a social commitment with her analytical art practice. Going beyond merely laying out what is, she turns a critical eye on the notion of progress and the destructive consequences of urban development subjected to financial imperatives. Questions connected with the environment, the denial of natural spaces, are some of the concerns underlying her artistic commitment. By pointing up the land s subjugation to building development, Lara Almarcegui produces work in an approach that proves political and ecological, in the original sense of the term, i.e., the understanding of what surrounds us. Because they speak to us from margins of the land and society, her works stand as invitations to leave the exhibition space and reappropriate our environment. Edition Lara Almarcegui, Ivry Souterrain Co-edition le Crédac / Ville d Ivry-sur-Seine, 2013 To be published 18 April 2013 Biography Lara Almarcegui (Saragossa, Spain, 1972) lives and works in Rotterdam, Netherlands. She is represented by the galleries Ellen de Bruijne Projects, (Amsterdam) and Parra & Romero (Madrid). Solo Exhibitions 2013 Spanish Pavilion, 55th Venice Biennial, IT Ivry souterrain, Centre d art contemporain d Ivry le Crédac, FR Parque fluvial abandonado, MUSAC, León, ES 2012 Madrid Subterráno, CA2M, Madrid, ES 2011 Brachflächen, Grabungen, Baustoffe, Künstlerhaus Bremen, DE Margin and City, CAAC Sevilla, Sevilla, ES Lara Almarcegui, Fondazione Pastifico Cerere, Rome, IT Een braakliggend terrain, Stedelijk Museum Den Bosch, Den Bosch, NL Construction Materials, Excavations, Wastelands, TENT, Rotterdam, NL 2010 Lara Almarcegui, Secession, Vienna, AT Lara Almarcegui, Ludlow 38, New York, USA 2008 Ruins in the Netherlands, Galeria Pepe Cobo, Madrid, ES Guide to Ruined Buildings in the Netherlands, Ellen de Bruijne Projects Amsterdam, NL Colocation #6, La Box-Ecole nationale supérieure d art de Bourges, Bourges, FR 2007 Construction Materials of the exhibition Room, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Málaga, ES Sharjah Art Biennial 8: Still life, Art, Ecology and Politics of Change, Sharjah Art Museum, AE 2006 Construction Materials of Frieze Art Fair, Frieze Projects, Frieze Art Fair, London, UK 2004 Lara Almarcegui, FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon, FR 2003 Lara Almarcegui, INDEX The Swedish Art Foundation, Stockholm, SE Chantiers ouverts au public, Centre d Art Le Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire, FR Demolition in Front of the Exhibition Room, Gallery Marta Cervera, Madrid, ES 2001 Construction Materials, Etablissement d en Face, Brussels, BE Selected group exhibitions 2012 TRACK, Smak Gent, BE Manifesta 9, Genk, BE Art and the City, Zurich, CH STATUS 24 Documents, Fotomuseum Winterthur, CH Materiality, Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdansk, POL Parckdesign, Brussels, BE Kirunatopia, Museo de Bellas Artes, Umea, SWE Beirut Experience, Villa Bernasconi, Geneva, CH Contours of the Common, CCA Centre for Contemporary Art Derry, London-Derry, IRL The stumbling present, California University Art Museum, Santa Barbara, USA De Nederlandse Identiteit? De Kracht van Heden!, Museum De Paviljoens, Almere, NL 2011 Found in translation Chapter L, Casino Luxemburg, LUX Viaje a Yucatán, Museo Tamayo, México, MX Over your city s grass will grow, Hidde van Seggele Gallery, London, UK Too late, too little, (and how) to fail gracefully, Fort Asperen, NL Beirut experience, Beirut Art Center, Beirut, LBN Living as art form, Creative Time, New York, USA 2010 Taipei Biennial, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, TW Communauté/Gemeinschaft, Kunstverein Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, DE Double Infinity, Dutch Culture Centre in Shanghai, CN El Ángel Exterminador A Room for Spanish Contemporary Art, BOZAR Brussels, BE Desplazamientos (displacements), Arts Santa Monica, Barcelona, ES The Garden of Forking Paths, Akbank Art Center 3

4 Istanbul, TR Radical Natures, Dick Institute, Kilmarnock East Ayshire, GB 2009 Radical Natures, Barbican Art Centre, Londres, UK Athens Splendid Isolation, 2nd Athens Biennial, GR City Mobility, Shenzhen Architecture & Urbanism Biennial, Shenzhen, CN Evento, Bordeaux Biennial, FR 40 Lives of One Space, 3rd Moscow Biennial, RU Utopia and Monument, Sterische Herbst, Graz, AU The Boundary Layer, The Prairie Art Gallery, Grand Prairie, Alberta, CA Liquid Times, Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, DE 2008 Annual Report, 7th Gwangju Biennial, South Korea Taiwan Biennial, 2008 Matière à Paysage, la Galerie, Noisy-le-Sec, FR Greenwashing. Environment: Perils, Promises and Perplexities, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, IT Estratos, PAC, Murcia, ES Lofoten International Arts Festival, Svolvaer, NO 2007 Still life, Art, Ecology and Politics of Change, 8th Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah Art Museum. E.A.U Momentum, Festival of Nordic Art, Moss, NO 27th Sao Paulo Biennial, Sao Paulo, BR Frieze Projects, Frieze Art Fair, Londres, UK Biacs, Sevilla Biennial, ES Theater of Life, Galeria Civica d arte Contemporanea, Trento, IT 2005 Public Act, Kunsthalle Lund, SWE Delicious, Sint-Truiden, BE 2003 Liverpool International Biennial, Tate Liverpool, UK Common Property, 6th Werkleitz Biennial, Halle, DE LAB, Kröller Müller Museum, Otterlo, NL Catastrofi Minime, Museo di Arti Provincia di Nuoro, IT Idealism, De Appel, Amsterdam, NL 1:1 x temps, quantités, proportions et fuites, Frac Bourgogne, Dijon, FR Dispersion, Bas Museum of Art, Miami, USA 2002 Bigtorino 2002, Torino Biennial, IT 2000 Scripted Spaces, Witte de With, Rotterdam, NL Espacio como Realidad, como Proyecto, Pontevedra Biennial, ES 1999 Stedelijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam, NL Event Saturday 15 June 2013 at 4 PM Meet the artist Lara Almarcegui / Eva González-Sancho Free admission. Boking required: +33 (0) / contact@credac.fr Rendez-vous Thursday 6 June at 3:30 PM Art-Tea A guided visit of the exhibition with Crédac s docents followed by teatime. A event jointly organized with the Retirees Service of the city of Ivry-sur-Seine. Participation: 3 Booking required: / contact@credac.fr Sunday 23 June from 3:30 to 4:30 PM Atelier-Goûté (Studio-snack) During these workshop-afternoon treats, children from 6 to 12 years of age become docents at the art center and lead their families on a tour through the show. Young and old are then invited to enjoy an afternoon snack and a practical workshop that extends the exhibition visit in a sensitive and playful way. Conference cycle on contemporary art Tuesday 2 April at 7 PM Denaturing the Ecology 4/5 Conference by Bénédicte Ramade An insight on the artistic practices of ecology detached from nature. Tuesday 4 June 2013 at 7 PM TRANS305 5/5 Conference by Stefan Shankland TRANS305 is a Artistic and Cultural High Quality Project he has founded within the construction site of the Joint Development Zone (ZAC) of the Plateau neighbourhood in Ivry. > >> The talks are held at the Multimedia Center of Ivry Antonin Artaud Auditorium - Running time: 90 mn. Free admission. More info about the events: >->> 4

5 Images available upon request to Lara Almarcegui, Guide to the Wastelands of the Lea Valley, 12 Empty Spaces Await the London Olympics, London, 2009 Courtesy of the artist and Ellen De Bruijne, Amsterdam. Lara Almarcegui, Removing the Outside Wall of a Ruined House, Taipei, Courtesy of the artist and Ellen De Bruijne, Amsterdam. 5

6 Images available upon request to Lara Almarcegui, Removing the Parket Floor, Secession, Vienna, 2010 Photo: Oliver Ottenschläger, courtesy of the artist and Ellen De Bruijne, Amsterdam. Lara Almarcegui, Removing the Asphalt, Amsterdam Fair Ground, 2004 (with the Stedelijk Museum Bureau) Photo: Edo Kuipers, courtesy of the artist and Ellen De Bruijne, Amsterdam. 6

7 Images available upon request to Lara Almarcegui, Water tower: Construction Materials, Phalsburg, Courtesy of the artist and Ellen De Bruijne, Amsterdam. Lara Almarcegui, The Rubble Mountain, Sint-Truiden, 2005 Courtesy of the artist and Ellen De Bruijne, Amsterdam. 7

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