Thursday October the 17th and until November the 9th 2024 AlbumArte, center for independent artistic research in Rome, and SAC-Sant Andreu Contemporani, public program dedicated to emerging art in the Sant Andreu District (Barcelona), present La forma solida del paesaggio (The Solid Form of Landscape), a group show curated by Benedetta Casini, winning curator of the International Curatorial Residency Program, a residency program promoted by Sant Andreu Contemporani, aimed at international curators, co-organized with the Institut Ramon Llull, in collaboration with Fabra i Coats - Fàbrica de Creació de Barcelona.
The program included a one month residency of the curator in Barcelona, in the spaces of Fabra i Coats, and the participation in the activities of the jury of the Miquel Casablancas Award Visual Arts Competition, aimed at artists resident in Spain. Among the received proposals, the curator Benedetta Casini selected the four projects that will be on display at AlbumArte.
The artists selected by Benedetta Casini are Judit Bou, Marta R Chust and Roc Domingo Puig, Albert Gironèsand Laura Palau, who in AlbumArte present photographs, video installations and sculptures in close dialogue with each other. What unites the artists' research is the attention to the rural landscape, investigated in its most concrete dimension. What unites them is in fact a precise biographical trait, which sees them linked either by birth or by origin to "minor" places, agricultural areas of the Catalan territory put back at the center of the discussion by the Covid-19 pandemic. The artists gathered in the exhibition strive to resignify these rural areas through close-range and circumscribed actions, deconstructing the superficial urban perspective that relegates the countryside alternatively to a underdeveloped territory or to a mere buen retiro. In doing so, they activate intergenerational relationships and encounters: the importance of the ongoing transformation emerges as well as the urgency of understanding rurality first and foremost as a political position. To the vision of the rural landscape understood as a locus amoenus, the artists in the exhibition oppose an investigative approach, a surgical proximity aimed at mending the deep wound between man and nature. Not a picturesque image artificially constructed for city consumption, but a living territory marked by substantial transformations and tensions. Within a contemporaneity characterized by a generic ecological sentiment, the exhibited works investigate a solid, tangible landscape, on which the artists fold in a fusional attitude. Contemplation is replaced by action, speech by technique: to rediscover nature it is necessary not only to observe it, but to concretely touch it, to act in it.
Biographical notes
Benedetta Casini (Bologna, 1991) winner of the Prize, is an independent curator and researcher, since 2017 part of the curatorial council of BIENALSUR-Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporáneo del Sur (Buenos Aires). In 2023, together with the artist Matias Ercole, she founded in Rome the independent space “ORO Project” dedicated to the promotion of artistic projects that connect Europe and Latin America. In 2024 she was selected for the WONDERFUL! Art Research Program 2024 1st edition, promoted by the Museo Novecento in Florence as well as the International Curatorial Residency Program promoted by SAC-Sant Andreu Contemporani (Barcelona). In 2022 she was awarded the research grant Lucio Fontana. Argentine period, promoted by the Lucio Fontana Foundation (Milan) and the Giorgio Cini Foundation (Venice). She has collaborated with institutions such as the Madre-Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina in Naples, the CCK-Centro Cultural Kirchner in Buenos Aires, the MACBA-Museum of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, the MAXXI-National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome and the Academia Real de España in Rome. She has worked with artists including Jordi Colomer, Daniela Comani, Antoni Muntadas, Joan Fontcuberta, Marta Minujín, Teresa Margolles. Among the publications: Out of place. The Territory of Art as a Space of Exception.
Judit Bou Comas (Vic, Barcelona, 1996) was trained in photography at Idep in Barcelona. Through her artistic practice she explores the ability of the photographic medium to restore the temporality of transformation processes. In recent years she has exhibited at the Center for Contemporary Art in Vic, in the Sala Moncunill in Terrassa, at the GetxoPhoto 2022 Festival, at the Biennale d'Arte Diputación in Tarragona and at the Biennale de la Jeune Creation Européenne in Montrouge, Hjorring, Césis, Cluj, Como, Figueres and Amarante. In 2020 she received the Art Jove de Catalunya Award. In 2023 she was nominated at Pla(t)form, Fotomuseum Winterthur, and received the Güell Foundation Visual Arts Scholarship.
Marta R Chust (Barcelona, 1995) and Roc Domingo Puig (Lleida, 1992) are a couple of Catalan artists working in the field of social sciences and contextual practices. Their interest is aimed at geopolitical tensions, the contrast between landscape and territory and the questioning of official narratives. Their work has been exhibited in art centers such as Bòlit (Girona), Sala d'Art Jove (Barcelona), M|A|C (Mataró), Las Cigarreras (Alicante), Sala Amadís (Madrid), Rad'Art (San Romano, Italy) and ICPNA (Lima and Iquitos, Peru). Recipients of the research and innovation grant from the Department of Culture of the Generalitat of Barcelona, they were also winners of the INJUVE creation aid. They participated in artistic residencies in the Pyrenees area (Centre d'Art and Nature de Farrera), Delta de l'Ebre (Centre d'Art de les Terres de l'Ebre Lo Pati), in Medellín (Casa Tres Patios), in Iquitos and Lima (Contemporary Correlation).
Albert Gironès (Valls, 1995) is an artist and researcher. With his research he investigates the mechanisms that give rise to popular imaginaries, focusing in particular on myths and anomalous events rooted in specific territories. Among others, his work has been exhibited in spaces such as the Center d'Art Santa Mònica y Homesession in Barcelona, CCCC in Valencia, Rad'Art in San Romano, Galeria BASE in Valparaíso and MADC in San José. He has participated in artistic residency programs at Sant Andreu Contemporani Barcelona, Kunststiftung BW Stuttgart, Tsonami Arte Sonoro Valparaíso and Plattform Kyrkslätt Helsinki.
Laura Palau (Benlloc, 1993) was trained in Fine Arts at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. She defines herself as an urban farmer or rural cosmopolitan, divided between rural communities and contemporary cities. The intersection between these two territories constitutes the fertile ground from which her artistic research draws nourishment, which takes the form of photographs, videos, installations, urban interventions and performances. Her practice is collaborative and participatory. Her work has been exhibited internationally at PhotoEspaña (ES, Dupho (NL), Helsinki Photomedia Conference (FI), IVAM (ES), CCCC (ES), Torino PhotoFestival (IT), EAC (ES), PALMA Festival ( FR), among others.
