EXHIBITION
El modelo vacacional en la costa de Rumania entre los años cincuenta y ochenta, reflejaba las políticas occidentales del ocio, combinadas con las políticas "correctivas" de la Unión Soviética. Estructurado alrededor del trabajo duro, el sacrificio y la recompensa, el régimen socialista inició la movilización de imágenes y estrategias publicitarias de un nuevo consumismo y felicidad material que tenían como propósito mostrar que la planificación socialista, podía producir placer con igual eficiencia y abundancia.
Coastland: The Invention of Paradise analyzes and questions the Black Sea socialist vacation paradise by seeking to understand the production of the landscape through operative images. The exhibition reveals the designed and controlled experience of the coast that underlies the tanned bodies, the sandy beaches, the perfect blue skies and the modern architecture of its images where a mediated paradise for the masses is built through postcards, music, radio commercials and films.
The exhibition presents a collection of official postcards sent between the sixties and eighties, and reads into the different elements that compose them to show the construction of these paradisiac images, and confront them with an equally simulated reality of hyperrealist summer paradises and pockets of presumed utopia. The composition of the territory, architecture, objects and bodies reveal how an ideological apparatus was materialized and executed through the leisure policies and architectures of the regime that produced them. The postcards presented, act as a device that registers the flaws and evidences the inconsistencies between the real and the projected, allowing one to see the hidden but true state of an invented paradise where architecture, propaganda, ideology and simulacra converge on the beach, and the images exhibited are nothing more than the reflection of a material simulation of the real.
PUBLIC PROGRAM
With a program by Andrea Carrillo Iglesias, we present "The Invention of Paradise", an evening of short film screenings and performances by different artists to address the issue of the construction of paradise through the image, as well as ideological projects and their spatial relationship.
ARTISTS
ANDREA CARRILLO IGLESIAS (Mexico)
PERFORMANCE AND PROGRAMMING
Andrea Carrillo Iglesias (Mexico, 1986) is an artist and designer who lives and works between Tijuana, Mexico City and Los Angeles. Carrillo has a B.A. in Graphic Design from the Art Center College of Design, and a M.A. in Art, Design and Public Domain from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. In 2015 he completed a one-year post-graduate study in Visual Arts at the Sandberg Instituut, Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam.
Joan Bennasar studied Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona, the independent study program SOMA Mexico and residencies in Taipei artist village (Taiwan) and Hangar (Barcelona). He currently lives and works between Mexico City and Barcelona. He has recently received the Sala d'art Jove grant in the categories of Creation and research in collaboration with MACBA 2014, the Can Felipa arts visuals 2015 grant, the Guasch Coranty 2015 creation grant, the Injuve 2016 production grant and the DKV/ Museo Es baluard 2016 video production grant.
Tacita Dean is a British visual artist who is mainly known for her work as a video artist, standing out for her use of 16 mm film. She is a member of the group of contemporary artists Young British Artists, was nominated in 1998 for the Turner Prize. Dean, has exhibited in important spaces, such as the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía or the Tate Britain. In 2018 she became the first artist to exhibit simultaneously at Portrait, the National Gallery and the Royal Academy.
Fabiano Kueva is an artist and curator who lives and works in Ecuador. He was a member of the collectives Películas La Divina and Centro Experimental Oído Salvaje. He has developed projects in museums, public spaces and community contexts; air, satellite and web broadcasts, as well as records, books and published articles. He received the Radiodrama Award at the 3rd Latin American Radio Biennial; the Paris Award at the 9th International Biennial of Cuenca; the Nuevo Mariano Aguilera Award. He participated in the 10th Havana Biennial, the 2nd Montevideo Biennial and the 56th Venice Biennial. He has participated in artistic residencies in Apexart, Villa Waldberta and Lugar a Dudas.
Andrew Roberts is a visual artist interested in industries that use digital imaging at the core of their operations. He often incorporates the languages of video games, genre films, comics, cartoons and concept games. Growing up in a family with ties to the oil, military and technology industries, Roberts developed an interest in how these industries shape and control entire populations. His creations often take the form of conceptual corporations, immersive installations, films, performances and objects presented as evidence or active agents within his narratives. Absurd yet critically charged, her work addresses the neoliberal mechanisms operating within Mexican territory.
Katherinne Fiedler has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Barcelona. In recent years her work has focused on exploring notions related to landscape and nature in relation to political, poetic and social construction factors, from a nostalgic perspective. His works are characterized by a solid conceptual construction and visually by an emphasis on the cinematographic, with clear aesthetic lines that refer to his pictorial training. She has won important scholarships and residencies such as the Casa Velazquez Artistic Creation Scholarship, CIFO Emerging Artists Scholarship, LARA 2017 Panama, invited by Gerardo Mosquera, FLORA 2016 Scholarship, residency directed by Jose Roca.
David Ortiz Juan is an artist who lives and works between Mexico and Spain. He studied his master's degree at the Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam and was a professor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. His work has been exhibited at Salón ACME (Mexico City, 2019), Fabra i Coats (Barcelona, 2018), Centre del Carme (Valencia, 2018), Cairo Video Festival (Cairo, 2017), Galería Luis Adelantado (Valencia, 2017), CICA Museum (Gimpo, 2016), The State Darwin Museum (Moscow, 2016), La Situación (Cuenca, 2016), Data Rhei (Paris, 2016), Espacio Oculto (Madrid, 2016), Galerie Juliètte Jongma (Amsterdam, 2014), MOTI Museum (Eindhoven, 2014), Círculo Tien (Taipei, 2013) and La Rambleta (Valencia, 2012), among others.
Ana Vaz is an artist and filmmaker. Trained at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Le Fresnoy Studio National des Arts Contemporains, Vaz was also a member of the SPEAP project (Sciences Po, École des Arts Politiques) conceived and directed by Bruno Latour. His works have been screened at the TATE Modern, TABAKALERA, the New York Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, Videobrasil or the Cinéma du Réel; in 2015 he was awarded the Kazuko Trust, given by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in recognition of the artistic excellence and innovation of his work with the moving image.
anavaz.com
ANA VAZ (Brazil)
OCCIDENTE
CREDITS
EXHIBITION
CURATOR | Tania Tovar Torres
RESEARCH PROJECT | Miruna Dunu
CURATORIAL RESEARCH | Juan Carlos Espinosa Cuock
CURATORIAL ASSISTANTS | Scarlet Barba Romero, Lídice Cuatecontzi Galicia, Ulises Mendoza Valdéz
POSTCARDS | Personal Collection of Miruna Dunu
GRAPHIC DESIGN | Estudio P
PHOTOGRAPHY | Proyector
PUBLIC PROGRAM
COORDINATION | Andrea Carrillo Iglesias