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Failure

Magazine

December
This month's topic: Failure
Failure.jpg

Failure


When we proposed this month to tackle the subject of failure, we had in mind Samuel Beckett’s maxim, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”…. We also thought of its opposite, success, and in how through art practices, precisely for their idiosyncrasy, they can entertain unproductivity or shift parameters that don’t fit amongst those society assumes as symbols of success.

We began the month with an article by Alexandra Laudo about a project still in process by Enric Farrés Duran: El viatge frustrat (the frustrated journey)

We continued with an in depth reflection by Sonia Fernández Pan that also arose from Beckett, questioning the notion of failure, its vicissitudes and contradictions.

From Latin America, Juanjo Sáez , reviewed the failed art system, the lavish system construed from large biennales and opulent events that produce, in the majority, moments of too many appearances and questionable importance.

Montse Badia interviewed Ignasi Aballí, , on the occasion of his exhibition in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, but above all because he is an artist who really embodies this approximation of the work of the artist, conscious of its impossibility.

But as this intense month progressed, the most recent (and grave) events have made us stop and think about a much more profound, dark, and real failure, our collective failure .

We don’t want to end November feeling negative. Yes; we can, as Beckett presaged, fail better, but this only will occur if we try different measures to affront a system that disturbs us. Let’s fail better, on every level, in every gesture.

This month's topic

A*DESK is a critical platform focused on publishing, training, experimentation, communication and dissemination in relation to contemporary culture and art, which is defined by transversality. The starting point is contemporary art, because that is where we come from and this awareness allows us to go much further, to incorporate other disciplines and forms of thought in order debate issues that are relevant and urgent for understanding our present.

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