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Workshop with Asier Mendizabal

Workshop with Asier Mendizabal

FRONT AND BACK. FOUR WORKS

This encounter will endeavour to identify or refute as the symptoms of an era, some general standards in artistic practices that turn to historiography, narrativity and referentiality as more or less central tools within their working method.

The role assigned to criticism of comparing contemporary work with the ideal draft of what contemporaneity might demand of it, identifying what is lacking in the work once it is compared with the totalizing narrative that is expected at each present moment, is essentially the wrong role. This, however, is still the way that much criticism is presented, revealing and valuing the recourses that art puts into practice. In this sense it seems appropriate to submit to an examination the double accusation, in principle rightly aimed, that the most interesting criticism currently exposes: first, whether it is true that the recourse to referenciality and historical material, even historiography as a method, are hegemonic procedures peculiar to our time, revealing a neglect of the need to write the present; and secondly if its analysis necessarily confronts us with an unproductive fascination with history as a fetish.

As a procedural condition we will limit the proposed examples to four works and texts that form part of Asier Mendizabal’s practice, that will be presented at the beginning of each session. We will confront these with critical and artistic material by other authors and from other times as the workshop develops.

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Asier Mendizabal (Ordizia 1973) is an artist based in Bilbao. His practiced, linked to the programme of sculpture, is resolved through diverse media and procedures, habitually including writing. He has exhibited in solo shows at Raven Row in London; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid; Culturgest, Lisbon; DAE, San Sebastian and in the Museu d’Art Contemporani in Barcelona. He has participated in group exhibitions such as: IllumiNATIONS, 54 Venice Biennal; Scenarios about Europe, Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig; In the First Circle, Fundació Tapies, Barcelona; Às Artes, Cidadãos, Serralves Museum, Porto; Després de la notícia, at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània in Barcelona, Manifesta 5 and the Biennials in Taipei and Bucarest.

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Dates: From Monday 3 June to Thursday 6 June. 16.00 to 20.00.

Price of the Workshop: 170 €

Consult the different itineraries in the Study Programme at A*DESK 2012-2013 in Barcelona to obtain discounts.

For more information, to reserve a place or matriculate write to contact@a-desk.org

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