JUNE 30 - JULY 5
[VIDEO EXHIBITION]

OPENING: TUESDAY, JUNE 30th > 19h
July 1-5 > 14h - 21h

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FREE ENTRANCE
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"AFTER THE END / WORK VALUE"

This video exhibition comes in continuation of the exhibition presented in Madrid from April 16 to May 16, 2009 at Tabacalera, the future National Centre for Visual Arts. As a second part of the same exhibition, or as a postscript, it recaptures in its title, with irony and disenchantment, the concept of "labor value" developed by Adam Smith and Karl Marx, and suggests a critical vision of our contemporary world, the one of labor and economy, to be understood with a double meaning: the labor and the economy of the daytime world, that represents for most of us more than half of our time and that truly structures our everyday life; and more generally, the labor and economy meaning of signs and significations. Those works offer for most of them, an anthropological introspection, a reflection on the structures of everyday life, on the representation and communication structures, on the sign economy, its dissolution and its vacuity.

Patrick BERNATCHEZ: I feel cold today
Vidéo, 16mm | 0:14:00
Canada | 2007


Addressing notions of decay, entropy and rebirth, "The Chrysalides Trilogy" is a series of three seemingly unconnected videos that prioritize moments of mounting tension but ultimately withhold narrative conclusion. The first video of the series, for instance, titled I Feel Cold Today, depicts a mundane office space that quietly but increasingly fills with drifting snow. Although no living subjects appear in the video, abandoned paper, books and office equipment hint at previous human occupation of the space, lending the scene an eerie apocalyptic mood that is difficult to shake.

Patrick Bernatchez lives and works in Montreal (Quebec, Canada). Over the past few years, he has developed a multiform step characterized by an aesthetic union of the marvelous and the monstrous; he explores photography, the installation and video as well as drawing and painting, his media of predilection. The topics of the body, change, sex, death and the resurrection are explored with exuberance and a lyrical combination of phantasmagoric and that what is nightmarish. His interest is in the "chronicle of a death announced" through the immutable run of time: that of living beings, individuals, and partners. He is interested in the features of a certain social schizophrenia between figuration and abstraction. These features are transmitted as well by pictorial, photographic, filmic compositions as in the form of sculptural and sound installations.
His work has been presented in many galleries, in particular: Chrysalides, Centre des arts actuels Skol, Montréal (2008) and Galerie l'Œil de Poisson, Québec (2008); Blossom, Galerie Donald Browne, Montréal (2007); Mécanique et débordements, Galerie d'art de Matane (2004), Galerie B-312, Montréal (2004). He has also participated to several group exhibitions as " Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme ", Contemporary art Museum of Montréal (2008) ; " Les Intrus ", Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (2008) ; " VALEURS/VALUES/VREDNOSTI ", 11e Biennale des arts visuels de Pan?evo, Serbie et Monténégro (2004) ; " Bonheur et simulacres, Manif d'art 2 ", Québec (2003).

Karel DE COCK: Resonance
Experimental fiction | dv | color | 00:18:30
Belgium | 2008


There is John, a businessman from Louisiana, François, a banker from London, and Antoine, a Swiss trader. Together they reflect upon their careers, the choices they have made and those they have not. The choices which have made them successful and made them what they are today. Thus we begin to get to know them a bit and also get to know one from the other. Perhaps one has been less fortunate in his career. Or perhaps we see the true face of success.

Karel De Cock is a filmmaker who lives and studies in Brussels. Initially he had a graphic conception training, but he quickly developed an interest in film.
His films are always based on the psyche of characters. For each new film the main challenge is to find a new way through which to convey the narrative, and to make up a harmonious way in which to combine content and form. Thanks to his graphic training, he combines the conventions of communication through fixed images with those of traditional film. In this manner he stretches traditional cinematographic conventions and explores new ways of communication.

Diego DEL POZO BARRIUSO: El topo y la anguila
Animation | dv | 0:05:02
Spain | 2007


"The Mole and The Eel" is a film about the Stock Exchange, emotional work, and the relationship between Economy and Emotion.
It tells the story of two groups of underground people who have invented another type of economy during a period of war. Individuals belonging to these two groups choose to live a rather precarious existence, within the context of a supposedly abundant economy. It is also the story of two groups of anonymous people who belong to two classes and two different levels of production. They research subjective actions through the emancipation of the chain of emotional exchanges.
In the film, the city, the river, the island and the networks of people operate on symbolic fashion forcing us to reflect on the problems and contradictions of our times.
For the Meetings, the film is limited to a single channel version, but the film also works with the installation-video format, as well as with another video and several drawing series.

Diego del Pozo Barriuso was born in Valladolid in 1974. He lives and works in Madrid. He studied at the School of Fine Arts in Salamanca and Madrid, as well as at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam.
Artist and cultural producer, he develops projects on the social production of body and of identity. His work is based on his interest for emotion, love and desire, and for the way in which these emotions associated to the private and subjective experience, are conditioned by our social environment, by power and by the methods of production.
His work is also based on the idea that mechanisms of social control are internalized by the individual. Using different techniques and media-- drawing, installations, video, etc-- he brings us face to face with a reality in which our desires, which we think of as private and personal, are revealed to be constructions that instigate consumption or social control.

Bertrand DEZOTEUX: Le Corso
Animation | hdv | color | 00:14:00
France | 2008


At the beginning of this project, the artist sets out to make a rural video, without anthropomorphism, which was to be seen from an animal point of view. This posture is obviously useless (animals do not make video, even less 3D), and the film takes the form of a documentary with a herd of animals. The camera seems to be held by an amateur who tries to follow the rapid race of the impassive creatures. Their race is indistinct and the characters are borrowed from various species (cattle, cats, and insects). Despite everything, these animals seem to obey all kinds of rules, imitations and ritual clearly defined. Some of them return directly to a primitive intelligence (turning round in circles) or events related to the recent past (the disease of Creutzfeldt-Jakob).

Born in 1982 in Bayonne (France), Bertrand Dezoteux is a young Basque artist who repeatedly leaves his native country. He first moved to Angoulême (2001 - 2003) to study the graphic novel. Then, in 2004, he learned the rigorous art of Korean Painting in Pusan. He finally got his diploma (DNSEP) in Strasbourg in 2006. There, he worked with the Bulgarian artist Plamen Dejanoff, who commissioned 5 collages. These pictures were exhibited in The MuMok of Vienna, then in the gallery La Chaufferie, in Strasbourg, where one of the collages mysteriously disappeared. Bertrand Dezoteux finished his studies in Le Fresnoy, Studio National des Arts Contemporains. He currently continues to observe, as an amateur anthropologist, the behaviors of the homo digitalus.

Johanna DOMKE: Cuers
Vid譠| 0:18:05
Germany | 2008


Johanna Domke's film Cuers is inspired by Franz Kafka's The Trial and the filmic universe of Orson Welles. The audience is taken on a fleeting and meandering journey through different sites in public space, where people are exposed to long waiting. The individual is presented as a singular being, confronting structures of public space. The particular situations are represented in an inspirational manner shifting in and out of each other. Time and space is dissolved in kaleidoscopic pictures, which emphasizes how we physically as well as mentally have trouble adjusting to our anonymous environment. Cuers seeks to create a mental space through abstraction and subversion of the familiar.

Johanna Domke's artistic practice derives from close observation of urban structures and the psychology of public space. Her films revolve around our experience of reality and the aesthetic tension between the private and the public. She is preoccupied with the authentic situation but alternates between documenting and staging such situations. The subsequent technical processing of the material reduces these situations to isolated phenomena that move between the border of documentary and non-narrative fiction. Some exhibitions: " Marginal Moments ", Art Agents Gallery, Hambourg (2008) ; " Unbreakable space ", Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen (2008) ; " Sequent silence ", Bureau pour l'art contemporain, Lyon (2007) ; " You´ll miss what´s gonna stay ", Art Agents Gallery, Hambourg (2005) et Graduationshow, Peep Gallery, Malmö (2004) ; " Still in motion ", Galleri Gustaf Gimm, Copenhagen (2003). Elle a également participé à de nombreuses expositions collectives ou des festivals tels que " ENTER ", Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense (2008) ; Rencontres Internationales, National Museum Reina Sofia, Madrid (2008), " Young Identities " - Global Youth / EMAF Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche, Osnabrück (2008) ; " Ghosts in the Machine " 516 ARTS, Santa Fe, US, (2007) ; Locarno Filmfestival, Locarno (2006), Pulsar, encuentro internacional multimedia, Caracas, Venezuela (2006), etc.

Peter DOWNSBROUGH: And [ Back
Video | dv | black and white | 00:04:37
USA/Belgium | 2006


AND [BACK 'plays' a complex 'game' with the words AND and BACK, where the word BACK sometimes functions as indicator, sometimes as trigger, sometimes as a comment on what is happening on-screen. It's especially the left/right and right/left ('back' also meaning 'backwards') the movement of things represented - mostly vehicles - but those of cinematic interventions as well and of importance. This BACK movement is sometimes repeated in the typography; finally it penetrates and in a sense organizes the film in its entirety: as a 'story' that unfolds, as a 'structure' with its symmetries and morphological qualities.

The work of Peter Downsbrough (US, 1940) - sculpture, graphics, photography, video, film, books - began with an interest in architecture and articulates a complex relationship between architecture, language and typography. Only the bare essentials remain: form is reduced to lines, colours are mostly barred. In his videos, movement and language are explored in relation to time and space: they both represent and deconstruct modern urban and industrial architecture. At the same time, a linguistic twist takes place: by inserting and interposing word blocks like AND, AS or IN, Downsbrough tilts the videos to a kind of 'phrase', which simultaneously functions as a 'place' for the viewer to lodge in. Downsbrough has exhibited at the Reina Sofía (Madrid), the SMAK (Ghent), the Paleis voor Schone Kunsten/Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels) and the Muzeum Sztuki (Lodz).

Marianne FLOTRON: Fired
Video | dv | color | 00:07:51
Switzerland/The Netherlands | 2007


Born in Switzerland in 1970, Marianne Flotron currently lives and works in Amsterdam (Netherlands). After two years of studies in history in Zurich, she continued courses at the School of Fine Arts of Geneva (Switzerland), where she earned her degree in 2001. Currently, Marianne Flotron is in artistic residence at the Rijksacademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. She won the Swiss Art Awards in 2003 and in 2007. In 2008, she received the Aeschlimann Corti award from the canton of Berne.
At present, her work is being shaped more by the deconstruction of an object or a situation given by the addition of successive layers. Because of her interests in the interrelationship between systems (political or economical) and human behavior, she attempts to find the traces of manipulation which could potentially influence human behavior (and vice versa). Her starting point is often a form of conduct which, without context, has the tendency to become abstract or absurd.

Alicia FRAMIS: Secret strike Rabobank
Video | betaSP | color | 00:09:17
Spain/The Netherlands | 2004-2008


Just an ordinary weekday at the Rabobank head office. Employees are performing their usual tasks. The camera takes a tour through the building, starting in the basement and then moving upwards, floor by floor. While the filming takes place, all ongoing activities - insofar as there were any - come to a halt and freeze. Everyone is paralysed, from the seven directors of the bank, up to the cleaning ladies, the security personnel, and dozens of employees having lunch in the canteen. What remains is a secret choreography of bodies that have come to a standstill, seemingly pointlessly. Framis has been wondering what would happen if we stop doing the things we always do, day in day out, hour after hour. In contrast to a real strike, in which tools are downed consciously, as a means to another end, Framis' Secret Strike performances are about the confrontation with ourselves. A strike can be something personal, small, modest but powerful; if everyday someone stops working a few minutes to think or to resist, this might end up being more dangerous than a large, planned strike.

Alicia Framis was born in 1967 in Barcelona, Spain. She studied Fine Arts at the Barcelona University and at Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris. She also completed her masters at the Institut d'Hautes Etudes, Paris and at the Rijksakademie Van Beelde Kunstende, Amsterdam. Alicia has lived and worked in Barcelona (1985-1990), Paris (1990-1993), and Amsterdam (1995-2005). She currently works in Shanghai.

Niklas GOLDBACH: Dawn
Video | 0:01:12
Germany | 2008


Dawn was filmed in the abandoned basement floor of the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. The Palais was completed for the International Exhibition of 1937. Though the palace`s 30s classicism exterior remained intact, the interior has undergone a succession of alterations. In 2001 the Palais got partly reconstructed. The video shows around 60 people lying motionless on sleeping bags in the still unrenovated basement floor of the Palais de Tokyo while a disco ball is slowly rotating.

Niklas Goldbach was born 1973 in Witten, Germany.
He studied photography at the University of Bielefeld and `Experimental Media Arts` at the University of the Arts Berlin where he graduated with honours in 2004. In 2005 he majored in the MFA program `Integrated Media Arts` at Hunter College, City University of New York and postgraduated with a "Meisterschüler" degree of the University of the Arts Berlin.
Since 2001 his work has been exhibited throughout Europe, the United States and Asia. From November 2007 until June 2008 Niklas Goldbach was participant of the artist in residency programs of "Palais de Tokyo", and "Cité Internationale des Arts", Paris.

Mehdi MEDDACI: Lancer une pierre
Video | hdv | color | 00:22:00
France/ | 2008


It's a residual and diegetic gesture; a gesture towards the liquid wall consecrating the Mediterranean Sea. Who hasn't thrown a stone to set off a vibration into the world?
Or at least once again be able to relive the important link with what remains of reality.
Later in a closed circle, the image and sound, construction and destruction, submerged and emerged that still can co-exist on both sides and some people throwing a stone in a missing place.

Mehdi Meddaci was born in 1980. He is a graduate of Fresnoy National Studio of Contemporary arts (France) and the École Nationale Supérieure of Photography in Arles. His works have been shown in many exhibitions, at the Large Palais of Paris in December 2008 (group exhibition), the International Festival de Artes y Digitales Culturas, Gran Canaria in November 2008, the International Festival of the Mediterranean Cinema of Montpellier in October 2008, the Festival "Time of images" the Farm of the Bush of Paris, in Panorama 9-10, Fresnoy National Studio Of the Contemporary arts Tourcoing, in June 2008 (group exhibition), the International Festival of the Mediterranean Cinema of Montpellier in October 2007, with the Festival "Time of images" the Farm of the Bush, Paris, in Panorama 8 "Supposed guilty! " in June 2007 (group exhibition), in Frac PACA of Marseilles in January 2007.

Erik MOSKOWITZ, Amanda TRAGER: Cloud Cuckoo Land
Video | 0:16:27
USA | 2008


Cloud Cuckoo Land is collaboration between Erik Moskowitz and Amanda Trager. The title of the piece, Cloud Cuckoo Land is taken from the Aristophanes' play The Birds. In the 4th Century BC, the notion of utopia was already in play-and put into doubt. The narrative encompasses a family's move to a contemporary commune. The central character, Bianca, after years of fantasizing about the ideal way to raise her child and with fixed, romantic notions of the "best" way to live, is confronted by her own intolerance and inability to integrate with the community. The video's narrative exploits conventional cinematic devices (shot/reverse shot, music cues) and is meant for exhibition in gallery and museum space as well as in cinematic space. The video critiques assumptions too easily relied upon when determining the difference between public and private space. The prescribed boundary between art space and cinema space functions as a model of the larger issue whereby artificial and arbitrary boundaries are used to define conventions of personal and societal comfort and safety.

Erik Moskowitz uses the relationship between cinema space and gallery space as a point of departure for installation and film. Amanda Trager fuses painting, sculpture, and installation with first-person prose narrative. The artists' involvement with fractured narrative or anti-narrative is of long-standing in their independent practices. For Moskowitz it dates back to childhood, when Spalding Gray invited him to perform in the Wooster Group's Sakonnet Point. His work with Spalding continued for the next eight years; his relationship with Joan Jonas dates from this period. More recently, Moskowitz has been known for music/video installations based on excerpts from literary sources. Erik Moskowitz exhibitions: Momenta Art, NYC (2008) ; Freight and Volume, NYC (2006) ; Holiday, NYC (2005) ; Le Sous Salon, Paris (2005) ; "Exposition 5-31 Janvier 2009", Ecole Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Cherbourg, France (2009) ; "Melodrama", Sara Meltzer Gallery, NYC (2008); Impakt, Netherlands (2007) ; Antimatter, Canada (2007 and 2006). Amanda Trager exhibitions: Momenta Art, NYC (2008 and 2001) ; Le Sous Salon, Paris (2005) ; Clifford-Smith Gallery, Boston (1998) ; Annika Sundvik Gallery, NYC (1996) ; "Exposition 5-31 Janvier 2009", Ecole Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Cherbourg, France (2009) ; Tina B.-The Prague Contemporary Art Festival (2008) ; Brooklyn Museum's "Open House" (2004) ; NextNext Visual Art program, Brooklyn Academy of Music (2004); White Box Gallery, NYC (1998); Feature Gallery, NYC (1996).

Antoni MUNTADAS: Stuttgart (for H.H.)
Installation Video | dv | 0:09:11
USA | 2006


"There are two concepts that Muntadas has used on several occasions to refer to some of his projects, and which are is worth reconsidering when examining the piece Stuttgart (for H.H.) (2006). These concepts are the idea of ritual and of protocol. Muntadas's understanding of "ritual" comprises an entire series of dynamics which unfold in urban contexts and are linked to such diverse phenomena as tourist flows (City Museum, 1991-2007), indiscriminate cultural consumption (On Translation: Stand By, 2005-07) and the perception of the memory of a specific place (Media Sites/Media Monuments Buenos Aires, 2007). In all of these projects, as well as in others which delve in the same subject-matter, rituals are rendered a sort of collective behavior which allow for an exploration of social, economic, political and cultural factors under which lies a metaphor, or, rather, a metonymy for the unmasking of the impulses which articulate, reconfigure and define our perception of the city and history." Valentín Roma

By considering the media as a socialization and normalization instrument, Antoni Muntadas' internationally renowned video and media installations question the contradictory messages given by the written and televised media, their organization and their language. Through his work, Muntadas re-conceptualizes available imagery so as to evoque a reflection on the significance of messages from the spectator, creating thus a gap in the uniform construction of the "media stream". This flow of information is disseminated by advertising agencies in their aim to consummate and raw of all analysis by the public. In his film "Political Advertisment" (presented in cooperation with Marshall Reese), Muntadas shows us the country of televised politics. His film "Between the frames" focused on the world of art and showcased interviews which revealed the structural links establishing forms of art communication, their construction and their trade.

Noëlle PUJOL, Ludovic BUREL: Rien n'a été fait
Documentary | dv | 0:39:00
France | 2007


Mrs. and Mr. B. have been running the M. K. factory for 20 years. From a hundred twenty employees down to two, the firm has been approaching its end for many years. Their main activity "perruquer" ("to go canny"). With their son, they use a "working time" in a roundabout way, they recycle their machines tools, some materials and files for household, artistic and various other purposes. "They hedge for pleasure to create free products, to make through their "work" known a peculiar skill and to reply with an expense in solidarity with the working-class and households. (Ludovic Burel)

Noëlle Pujol was born in 1972 in Saint-Bosoms (France). She is a graduate from Ecole Nationale Supérieure of the Art schools of Paris and National Studio of Contemporary arts Le Fresnoy, in Tourcoing. Her artistic work explores the fields of the documentary cinema and video installation. Her films were shown at the International Festival of Documentary Film of Marseilles, at the International Festival of Film of Belfort, at the Filmmaker Film Festival - Doc11 of Milan, at the International Festival of Locarno. In 2008, two personal exhibitions of the artist took place in the Gallery of the Triangle in Rennes and at the ERBA of Valence. The work of Noëlle Pujol was shown in many group exhibitions in particular "Variations" at the Gallery the Girls of the Martyrdom of Paris in 2007 and at the World Fair of Aïchi, French house in 2005. She is currently preparing her first full-length film "They were once monmon".

Manuel SAIZ: Buffer
Video | hdv | 0:03:00
Spain | 2008


The term buffer is used in computer technology to define a space of memory in which the information is stored in preparation for process or transfer. The buffer receives the information in a disorganized and abrupt manner and delivers it regularly in packets adequate for further manipulation. The film Buffer describes the functioning of an architectural device executing metaphorically the same function, ordering human been as data through its physical displacement in space. Its mechanism refers to daily life situations in which the population of big cities interacts with public services. The sculpture depicted shows the basic structure of these situations. Visitors experiencing the work would feel a repetitive and mechanic excitement close to alienation.

Manuel Saiz is a London based visual artist. Since the middle eighties he has been showing sculptures, photographic prints and videos in art galleries and museums worldwide. Since 1995 he works mainly in video and video installations. His productions have been shown in many art film and video festivals, as Impakt (Utrecht), VideoLisboa (Lisbon), Videoex (Zurich), Int. Kurz Film Festival (Hamburg), Transmediale (Berlin), etc. His video installations have been shown in commercial galleries and public spaces worldwide. Recent shows include Parallel Universes at Moriarty Gallery (Madrid), Nominal Politics at T1+2 Space (London) and the group shows East End Academy at Whitechapel (London) and Save the Day at Kunstbuero (Vienna). Specialized Technicians Required: Being Luis Porcar received the first prize in the main competition of the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur. As a founder member of TheVideoArtFoundation in 2003 he directed 25hrs (www.25hrs.org), a screening showing a selection of 300 international video art works that made up a complete panorama of video art creation since 1990. Other recent projects include videoDictionary and Art Summer University, Tate Modern, September 2007 ; " Parallel Universes " at the Moriarty's Gallery of Madrid; " Nominal Politics " at the T1+2 Space of London ; and the group show " East End Academy " at the Whitechapel of London or " Save the Day " at the Kunstbüro of Vienna. Manuel Saiz is represented by Galeria Moriarty (Madrid) and Montevideo (Amsterdam).

Gregg SMITH: Le courant
Experimental fiction | betaSP | color | 00:17:11
South Africa/France | 2008


The loose narrative follows the progress of a young man who has arrived in a small provincial town in order to present his application for a job there. The job at hand entails the overseeing of the redevelopment of a piece of land.
Agriculture has declined in the area and some would like to see the land used more profitably, through the construction of a dormitory suburb for a nearby city.
In order to expedite such a project, however, someone has to be in charge of its management, who would tolerate some fairly unorthodox procedures. The young man is considered up to the task.
It soon becomes evident that the area physically affects its inhabitants. A rhythmic force and sporadic moves charge their bodies, during everyday activities. Nevertheless, these movements are never noticed or remarked upon.

Gregg Smith is originally from Cape Town. He obtained a degree from the Michaelis School of Fine Arts in Cape Town, and after having studied at the National Studio of Contemporary Arts in Fresnoy, he has since, put on art projects and theatre in South Africa and abroad, blending performance, painting and art in public space. His work has recently been shown in different places: Biennale of Dakar, Musée de Jeu de Paume, the Rotterdam Film Festival, etc. Among other remarkable projects in the domain of art in public places, we have "The Lovephones" (Cape Town, 2000) and "The Lovephones in London" (London, é//&), "The Long Street Baths Mural Project (Cape Town, 1994-98), and his project coming to Cape Town "very Real Time". Recently , the Contemporary Art Space of Castille in Spain commissioned a new work for the exhibition "Our Hospitality" directed by Rodrigo Alonso.

Chelsea TONELLI KNIGHT: The official
Video | dv | color | 00:06:30
USA | 2007


In the video installation "The Official," Chelsea Tonelli Knight explores the ghosts of power at the heart of bureaucracy. Shot in private offices and hallways at the UN in New York, "The Official" tackles the role of a male diplomat at the heart of an idealized institution. What first appears to be a documentary or an interview becomes a fragmented narrative where the drama behind authority and seduction is played between the diplomat and his non identifiable interlocutor. The two characters adopt a series of attitudes, shifting the tension between institutional and intimate and questioning the way they define themselves one from the other.

Chelsea Tonelli Knight is a video and performance artist based in Chicago. She received her MFA (Master of Fine Arts) at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2007 and was a Fulbright Scholar in Italy in 2007. Knight has exhibited her work in the US and in Europe, most notably at the Werkschauhalle Gallery des Spinnereigalerien in Leipzig, at the St. Louis Art Museum, at the Centro d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea of La Spezia in Italy, and has participated in 2007 Istanbul Biennale.