Today and history

Constant changes, day-to-day uncertainty, the difficulty of understanding what is happening. Today defines history and history is changing. The exponential multiplication of voices has made it possible for chaos to become the norm, for filters to disappear and for the counter-reply to appear even before the reply. The multiplication of voices has made everything possible.
And in this mess that is the world reality, art carries on. It continues with the classical questions, with the need to understand what we are doing, who we are, what we want.

Questions arise about utility and function, questions about pace and limits, questions about need and structures. Some questions have accompanied us for a long time. No doubt since forever. Some answers are changing, maybe not in content, but undoubtedly in form. Perhaps a revision of the form, in order not to forget the concept, will enable our today to be distinctive, that looking back will make sense and that what is written –what is said, what is done and what occurs- will play a part in this alarmingly mercurial chaos.

In this edition of A*Magazine we publish three new critical texts. Marti Manen takes a look at Marcel Duchamp by the hand of Ulf Linde. Lorena Muñoz-Alonso lives the week of Frieze in London and Rosa Naharro questions the utility of art by way of the exhibition “Arte útil” in the space Off Limits in Madrid.