Tag: contemporary art museum

Postcard from Bilbao, Spain: Vitoria-Gasteiz showcases contemporary art

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Above: Videostills from Soneto de Alimanas, Naomi Rincon Gallardo, 2022, at Artium

Soneto de Alimanas depicts a group of underground, marginal characters who conspire to celebrate ‘delirious entangled re-existences’ amidst a world subjected to the logics of exploitation. It generates a solidarity of rejected beings who communicate across airwaves and defend their existence and the potential driven by their otherness to resist violence and dispossession.”

Curator’s Notes at Artium

It’s hard not to get shoved into the backseat of the artworld when your city lies in the shadow of Bilbao’s Guggenheim. Vitoria-Gasteiz is forty miles away, yet the ambitious leadership of Alava province saw an empty hole – the opportunity to promote the flourishing contemporary art scene of Basque Country.

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Postcard from Bordeaux, France: And the artist went out screaming…

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Above: “There are other worlds but they are in this one,” surrealist poet Paul Eluard, 1895-1952, artist Dora Garcia, 2018

The substantial 1824 brick building, Entrepot Laine, that houses Bordeaux’s Contemporary Art Museum originally was designed as a warehouse for produce shipped in from French colonies. Neglected on a wharf on the Garonne on the edge of the Chartrons District, it was purchased by the city in 1974 and repurposed to showcase French and international works of contemporary art.

When we were there the nave of the museum was dedicated to “Absalon Absalon,” an exhibition continuing through February 1 that showcases the interrupted work of Meir Eshel (1964-1993). After a stint in the Israeli military service, Eschel moved to Paris in 1987 and enrolled in a workshop in the Ecole Nationale Superiure des Beaux Arts. He changed his name to Absalon, a rebellious son featured in the Old Testament. The biblical figure of Absalon was vanquished and murdered, forever associated with the idea of revolt ending in tragedy.

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Postcard from Merida, Mexico: Contemporary art with metaphorical humor

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Above, “Memento Mori,” by Rodrigo de la Sierra

Dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of modern and contemporary art in the Yucatan, the Fernando Garcia Ponce-Macay Museum opened in 1994 in a prominent landmark (built in 1573) on Merida’s Plaza Mayor adjacent to the Cathedral. A passageway between the two was enclosed with glass in 2001 and offers the opportunity to house large works for the public to interact with on a daily basis.

The main exhibition while we were in Merida early this year placed Timoteo in the spotlight. The plump, elfin-like, endearing Timo allows artist Rodrigo de la Sierra “to embrace the subtle art of the metaphor.”

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