THE CAAM PRESENTS THE 8.1 DISTORSIONS. DOCUMENTS. NOTHINGS AND TALES EXHIBITION

From January 25^th to March 30^th, a group of forty artists of an intergenerational nature, either solo, in couples or groups, consisting of Canary Island-born creators who live and work here or decided to move to other climes and accidental visitors or foreigners now settled in the Islands, participate in the 8. 1. Distortions. Documents. Nothings and Tale exhibition project presented by the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno (CAAM) in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

The first chapter of 7.1 Distortions. Documents. Nothings and Tale took place exactly one year ago. The project now culminates with 8.1, with the aim of mapping artistic production today in the Canary Islands, enhanced by the participation of a series of renowned artists of different geographical origins whose work has at some time been focused on the Islands.

The selection criterion followed by the exhibition’s three curators, Alicia Murría, Gopi Sadarangani and Néstor Torrens, besides scanning the artistic panorama, combined two formulas in 8.1: on the one hand, a direct invitation to creators whose production seemed interesting and who, for different reasons, had not participated in 7.1. Together with these invitations, an open call was made for projects, providing them with access to other authors who, for different factors (not having participated in significant exhibits, having only a brief history either because of age, a presence in alternative or less visible channels), were unknown or, in the curators’ words “we had involuntarily passed over – nobody is perfect and us less than anyone –; we are aware that many artists, in spite of their rigour, suffer from a shortage of effective platforms on which to display their production”.

As for the contents of 8.1., the idea was to continue along the lines of 7.1, with themes and means reflecting – and constructing – the present, and with the curators using as few filters as possible, so that the artists and their work were what built the fabric of the map, this one reading (among other possibilities) which the exhibit aimed to provide. On both occasions, then, the aspects that the works invite to consider range from macro to micro; from the social concerns affecting everyone to others, just as important, affecting privacy, as both of them are an essential part of our daily lives. According to the curators, “these works approach reality from different positions, either the socio-political context of the Islands, how leisure and culture is understood, the function of art or museums, or others such as, for instance, the representation of nature, the idea of landscape and its re-interpretation from current perspectives, or a look at the city and its architecture”.

The forms of narrative adopted today by creators and their usual media, whatever their origin, are all reflected here; from practices which can be described as traditional, such as painting, sculpture or drawing to those using what are known as new media, such as photography (from analogic to digital), video, installations, animation and also performance, graffiti or work in which sound is the protagonist. It was also decided to explore less usual territories, such as radio, with specific interventions which will be broadcast daily on Radio Guiniguada as part of the exhibition, for as long as it remains open.

“One of the outstanding aspects of this project”, say the curators, “and also one of our main objectives, was to emphasise the idea that culture is found in multiple manifestations, phenomena and conduct, many of which are not always understood and analysed with the care, and broadness of mind, that they deserve. These attitudes are probably the reason for the growing distance between the museum, as a paradigm of high culture, and the young public; a possible solution of the problem does not consist of making culture spectacular but of accepting its diversity and admitting its multiple hybrid forms”.

As with 7.1, a newspaper is published which analyses, together with audio art and the producing of computer-generated images, media such as comics and territories such as the hip hop culture (in which graffiti, rap or DJ music provides a healthy creative environment) where humour, irony or an incisive lack of inhibition are often highly effective critical tools. They are supplemented by fifteen authors who, in both editions, have provided a glance at both the singular aspects of this territory and the course of current artistic production.

This plurality of attitudes and analyses, all these ways of seeing and thinking, are behind Distortions. Documents. Nothings and Tale 7.1 and 8.1; the map does not refer to “Canary Island art” but to different views of the present by relativising the concepts of centre and periphery, assuming what is local and global as intercommunicated and complementary mental spaces.

On occasion of this exhibition, the CAAM has programmed a series of parallel activities, including an Open Evening, Guided Visits, a course on art centres and contemporary art museums in relation to the modernisation process and the application of good practice criteria directed by Juan Antonio Álvarez Reyes (12th and 13th March), and a debate about the crossroads of art in the Canary Islands, with the involvement of artists, critics, associations, journalists, writers, centre managers...

The exhibition blog, (http://ochopuntouno.blogspot.com ) provides information about all the parallel activities.