18 pictures and 18 stories
“18 pictures and 18 stories”: fourth stage of “Performance in Resistance”* by Isidoro Valcárcel Medina at CAC Brétigny, Brétigny
by
18 pictures and 18 stories is a project of Bulegoa z/b, realized in collaboration with If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution of Amsterdam, that presents and accompanies Performance in Resistance by Isidoro Valcárcel Medina through 18 stories and on a journey to 6 cities.
In Autumn 2010, If I Can’t Dance invited Valcárcel Medina and Bulegoa z/b to take part in Performance in Residence, a program that studies and researches performances from the past from the perspective of current artistic practice, and that includes the participation of Flávio de Carvalho e Inti Guerrero, Guy de Cointet and Marie de Brugerolle, Matt Mullican and Vanessa Desclaux. Valcárcel Medina responded to the invitation with Performance in Resistance, 18 photographs mounted on passe-partout that show as many actions carried out by the artist in different cities between 1965 and 1993. The resulting set of images blurs the limits between the lived moment and the document, between what happened and fiction. Performance in Resistance also shows the guiding principle of Valcárcel Medina’s practice, his refusal to submit to the conventions of any institution or discipline, including the discipline of history. Such performative resistance arises from the artist’s conviction that his only material is his historical time, and that the imagination “hides a wealth which drives the world”.
18 pictures and 18 stories conceives investigation as an imaginative practice which can transform and reactivate its objects of study. The work takes the form of an itinerant framework which produces narratives. 18 different people have been invited to take one of the 18 photographs that make up Performance in Resistance and propose a story. The first stage of this specifically-conceived work by Valcárcel Medina was the Hetveem Theater, Amsterdam, in February 2012. There, three narrators, Moosje Goosen, Emilio Moreno and Esteban Pujals Gesalí, told 3 stories based on 3 of the set of photographs: Campaña 1969 (Madrid, Murcia, 1969) S/T. Herramientas de Precisión (Milan, 1987) and 136 manzanas de Asunción (Asunción, 1976). At the second stage at Bulegoa z/b, José Díaz Cuyás, Jaime Vallaure and Azucena Vieites told 3 stories based on Peón al Rey (Murcia, 1965), El discurso sigue… su curso (Granada, 1993) and Retratos callejeros (Barcelona, 1975).
In its third stage, Performance in Resistance traveled to the Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona, on 6 June 2012. Nuria Enguita, Aimar Pérez and Manuel Martínez retold El cuadro (Madrid, 1969), La Visita (Varias ciudades, 1974) and El Sena por París (París, 1975), respectively.
The fourth stage, at CAC Bétigny on Saturday 27 October, starts at 11am at the Passerelle Simone de Beauvoir, Paris, with Esther Ferrer’s narration of El Sena por París (Paris, 1975). It continues at 12am on a bus trip from Paris to Brétigny with Jon Mikel Euba’s narration, and ends at 2pm at the Edutainer in front of the CAC, with Pierre Bal-Blanc’s narration of Maratón (Madrid, 1981).
Next, Performance in Resistance will continue journeying to BNV Producciones de Sevilla (6 November) the Festival Playground, STUK (11 November), Lovaina and MAC, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, Universidad de São Paulo (29 November). Isidoro Valcárcel Medina will be available on the telephone to answer questions from the narrators or public.
* Photographs: Rocío Areán Gutiérrez, student at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, London.
Pierre Bal-Blanc is the Director of CAC Brétigny (Contemporary Art Center of Bretigny, Greater Paris) in France, where he has been running Phalanstère Project since 2003: a site-specific artist works series parallel to the exhibitions and residencies program of the art center. Some of the many projects he has curated are: La Monnaie vivante-Living Currency (Stuk Leuven Belgium – Tate Modern London -, Moma Warsaw – Poland, 6th Berlin Biennale) or Draft Score for an Exhibition (Le Plateau Paris, Artissima Torino, Secession Vienna, Index Stockholm), where he negotiated the current and historical analysis of the body and strategies related to performance in the visual arts.
( http://www.cacbretigny.com )
Jon Mikel Euba (Amorebieta, 1967) is an artist and lives in Bilbao. Solo exhibitions include PRIMER PROFORMA 2010. BADIOLA EUBA PREGO, MUSAC, León (2010) and Kill’em all + Fiesta 4 Puertas at Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona (2003). His work has been included at Manifesta IV Frankfurt (2002), Istanbul Biennale (2005), Busan Biennale (2004), and Venice Biennale (2003). Performances by him have been staged at De Appel and Stedlijk Museum Bureau, Amsterdam (2008), Project Arts Centre, Dublín (2009), and Van Abbe Museum, Eindhoven as part of If I Can’t Dance. Edition III – Masquerade (2010) and Valparaíso Intervenciones, Valparaíso (2010).
Esther Ferrer (1937, Donostia-San Sebastián) is an artist and lives in París. In 1967 she made her first performance; this ephemeral practice runs through the body of her work. She has produced objects, photographic works and systems based on series of prime numbers. In 1966 she joined ZAJ, an experimental group founded in 1964 by Ramón Barce, Juan Hidalgo and Walter Marchetti and disbanded in 1996. In 1999 her work was exhibited at the Spanish Pavilion, Venice Biennale. In 2008 she was awarded the Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas, and in 2012 the Basque Government Gure Artea award.
18 pictures and 18 stories is co-produced by BNV Producciones, Seville; CAC Brétigny, Greater Paris; If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, Amsterdam; the Museum of Contemporary Art of the University of São Paulo (MAC USP); Playground Festival in STUK/Museum M, Leuven; Tàpies Foundation, Barcelona; Tate Modern, London; and Het Veem Theater, Amsterdam.
The publication and the performances are realized with the support of Corpus: a network for performance practice financed by the European Union.
