DOSSIER a COMPUTER, a CAMERA and a CAT

Home , Havana biennial, Stan Douglas

A COMPUTER, A CAMERA AND A CAT

13.09.2019 - 16.11.2019

AGNES` VARDA

BARBARA HAMMER

JOAN FONTCUBERTA

REQUER

STAN DOUGLAS

TXUSPO POYO

DOSSIER a COMPUTER, a CAMERA anD a CAT

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Asked about her double status as an artist and filmmaker, about that constant zigzag between filming and photographing, Agnes Varda downplayed a dilemma that she considered false. For both efforts, she said, only three things are needed : “ a computer, a camera and a cat”. Enough with the object and the inspiration, the real and its mystery, the technique and the irrational needed to put together any work.

Well, let’s take her phrase as the title of this exhibition. Let’s pay tribute to that statement and use each of these pieces to evaporate the boundaries between one world and another. And it is worth the new territory that we founded, even briefly, after having crossed those borders. The presence of art in the cinema lasts already a hundred years. Suffice it to look at the silent films of Chaplin or Buster Keaton to see reflected the avatars of artists, stubborn and poor, who always tried it for more than always failed. Suffice it to review the protagonism of Da Vinci, Caravaggio, Van Gogh, Picasso, Pollock, Frida Kahlo or Basquiat in the history of cinema. Suffice it to see where this drift has come in a recent installment like The Velvet Buzzsaw.

Neither is the opposite way deniable ; the invasion of cinema in art. Because this one is also intense. From Magritte to Dalí, from Warhol to Carlos Saura, from Edward Ruscha to Francis Bacon, the artworld granted a different space to Marilyn Monroe or Mae West, Brigitte Bardot or Mickey Mouse, Mack Sennet or the goings-on of Hollywood. A Computer, A Camera and A Cat belongs to that second line, an exhibition which tends, from a simple display, to probe the appropriation of cinema by art. Although not only in the epidermal, but also in the invisible cinematographic mechanisms that manage to put together each of these pieces that, in principle, do not seem exactly like “cinema”.

It is the photograph of Varda herself, which is also a tribute to the Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez. Or Requer invoking Eisenstein and, at the same time, refocusing his account of the Bolshevik revolution. Or Stan Douglas in whom perseveres a filmaker-artist and who had previously re-enact the work of Tomàs Gutiérrez Alea in Borges style, displacing Memory of underdevelopment in time and producing a work that is the same and one at a time. Or Txuspo Poyo turning the cinema into a narrative material and a constructive resource of his work. Or Barbara Hammer, that merges cinema and art video to offer her pioneering stories. Or Joan Fontcuberta capturing, on the one hand, the place of the photographer in pornography and, on the other, the inevitable “pornography” in which photography has fallen.

A Computer, a Camera and a Cat is an attempt to host the cinema in art, to slightly remove the status of both and to convert its exhibition into something else. Maybe into a space in between the cinema and the gallery or a collective trailer of upcoming films.

Iván de la Nuez, Curator

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AGNÈS VARDA

Ixelles, Belgium, 1928 - Paris, France, 2019

French filmmaker born in 1928, passed in Paris in 2019. Greek father. French mother. Short studies inParis. Photographer in the fifties. In 1954, she creates a film company CINE-TAMARIS for LA POINTE COURTE. This film gave her the title of “Grand Mother of the French New Wave”. Among 33 short and long, the best known films of Agnès are : 1961 CLÉO DE 5 À 7 - 1985 SANS TOIT NI LOI (VAGABOND) - 1990 JACQUOT DE NANTES (JACQUOT) – 2000 LES GLANEURS ET LA GLANEUSE (THE GLEANERS AND I) – 2008 LES PLAGES D’AGNES (THE BEACHES OF AGNES) – 2017 VISAGES VILLAGES (FACES PLACES) - 2019 VARDA BY AGNES Official selection at Berlinale International Film Festival.

In 2003, Agnès Varda launched her third life as a visual artist. Her installations were shown at the Venice Art Biennale (2003), Fondation Cartier pour l’Art contemporain, Paris (2006), CAFA Beijing and HUBEI Museum Wuhan, China (2012), LACMA Museum, Los Angeles (2013), Logan Center for the Arts, Chicago (2015), Blum&Poe Gallery New York (2017), Nathalie Obadia Gallery Paris (2018), Pazo da Cultura Pontevedra Spain and Liverpool Biennial (2018), Domaine de Chaumont-sur-Loire, MAMM Moscou and Fondation Cartier pour l’Art contemporain, Paris (2019).

1965 : Silver Bear prize at Berlin Film Festival (1965) – 1985 : Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival - August 2014 Léopardo d’Onore at the Locarno Film Festival - May 2015 Palme d’Or d’Honneur at the Cannes Film Festival – September 2017 Grolsch prize from the audience at Toronto Film Festival for best documentary to Faces, Places. November 2017 : Agnès received an honorary Oscar for her career. 2018 : Etoile d’or at the International Film Festival of Marrakech.

Agnès Varda Tomas Oliva, sculptor, Havana (Cuba series) 1962 - 1963 Silver print 19,8 x 29,2 cm

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Agnès Varda Agnès Varda Beauty Contest (Cuba series) Building Manager - Woman sitting with a machine- 1962 - 1963 gun and boy with white shirt, Havana (Cuba series) Silver print 1962 - 1963 14,5 x 21,8 cm - 24 x 31 x 2,3cm Silver print 20,1 x 29,9 cm - 29,5 x 39,5 x 2,3 cm

Agnès Varda Agnès Varda Cha-Cha-Cha danced by members of the I.C.A.I.C Children (one eating an ice cream), Marianas, among which Sarita Gomez wearing military clothest Havana (Cuba series) (Cuba series) 1962 - 1963 1962 - 1963 Silver print Silver print 14,7 x 21,9 cm - 28,6 x 35,6 cm 20,7 x 29,8 cm -32,5 x 37,5 x 2,3 cm

Agnès Varda Agnès Varda Man with hat and cigar, Havana (Cuba series) On the road between the Sierra Maestra and Santiago de 1962 - 1963 Cuba - Man and child, “Patria o muerte” (Cuba series) Silver print 1962 - 1963 14,5 x 21,8 cm - 24 x 31 x 2,3cm Silver print 20,1 x 29,9 cm - 29,5 x 39,5 x 2,3 cm

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BARBARA HAMMER

Los Angeles, USA, 1939 - New York, USA, 2019

Barbara Hammer was born in Hollywood in 1939. Her documentary and experimental films are considered among the earliest and most extensive representations of lesbian identity, love, and sexuality. Accompanying her career as a filmmaker, Hammer has time and again worked with performance and installation. She has participated in group exhibitions such as the Whitney Biennial in 1993, the WACK! show at MOCA L.A. and MoMA PS1 in 2007/2008. With film retrospectives at New York’s MoMA in 2010 and the Tate Modern, London, in 2012, the artworld’s interest in Hammer’s work has recently increased. Hammer has been a teacher for many years and held a professorship at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee (CH). She died in 2019.

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JOAN FONTCUBERTA

Barcelona, 1955

Joan Fontcuberta is a renowned conceptual photographer as well as being a writer, editor, curator and teacher, who has played a significant role in the task of achieving international recognition in the favour of the history of Spanish photography.

Fontcuberta graduated in Communication at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 1977. After working in advertising, he taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Barcelona from 1979-1986. He was one of the founders of Photovision magazine, originally launched in 1980, becoming a major publication in the field of European photography. Since 1993 he is professor of Communication Studies at the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

Among the most representative institutions where his work has been exhibited we find: MACBA (Barcelona), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), CCCB (Barcelona), MNAC (Barcelona), Zabriskie Gallery (New York), the Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg), Harvard University (USA), MOMA (New York), the Maison Européene de la Photographie (Paris) etc. In 1994 he was ordained Knight of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2011 he won the National Essay Prize Essay in Spain and in 2013 he obtained the prestigious Hasselblad Photography Award. In 2016 he was awarded the Ciutat de Barcelona Prize for his contribution to “the theoretical reflection on the role of images in contemporary culture” with his publication “The fury of images. Notes on post-photography”.

Joan Fontcuberta Blow Jup 2019 2 video, 3:06 min, 2 single channel videos, loop and sound Ed. 5

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RENIER QUER FIGUEREDO - REQUER

La Habana, 1983

He was born in Havana, Cuba (1983) and has exhibited at the Valencian Institute of Modern Art (IVAM), the Center for the Development of Visual Arts (Cuba) or the Havana Biennial. His work include cinema, art or iconography and works like invisible tunnels in the emblematic moments of history. Requer investigates communist symbology as a remnant of a world disappeared in geopolitics but turns its splinters into art.

These are essays that work as prologues of who we are today. Hence the use of the storyboard, the plane or the sketch as supports to bring to light stories that are hidden within the History, imaginary buried under the images, life where until now there was only representation.

He graduated from the Visual Arts of San Alejandro in 2004 and from the Higher Institute of Art (Art of Conduct) in 2008. His work has been exhibited in multiple venues such as: Bueno Bonito y Barato, Pasagüero, México DF (2007). States of Exchange: Artists of Cuba, International Institute of Visual Arts (INIVA) in London (2008); State of Exception (Exhibition organized by the Chair of Art of Conduct), in Habana Gallery, Tenth Biennial of Havana (2009). I know how to read, Text and image in Latin American art, at the Wifredo Lam Contemporary Art Center, Havana (2011). To break the walls, at the National Museum of Fine Arts (MNBA), Havana (2013). Never real / Always true. Workshop / Meeting held by Iván de la Nuez at the Valencian Institute of Modern Art (2017) ÁNIMA. Carlos Garaicoa OPEN STUDIO 13.0., Madrid (2018). CROSSED CURRENTS / CULTURAL EXCHANGE. Smart Museum of Art. Sample organized by the National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago (2019); From a Rockefeller fan to a Kruschov disciple. Stories told by artists. Collateral exhibition at the 13th Havana Biennial (2019). Regensburg Germany, (2018). He has made several storyboards for Cinema and the comic Bim Bom (with script by Arturo Infante), published by Diábolo Ediciones, Madrid, Spain in 2011.

Requer (Renier Quer Figueredo) Octubre actualizado mientras vuelvo en sí (Detalle) 2016 Storyboard, graphite on cardboard Variable dimensions

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View of the installation

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STAN DOUGLAS

Vancouver, Canada, 1960

Through photography, film and installation the Canadian artist Stan Douglas has, since the late-1980s, examined complex intersections of narrative, fact and fiction while simultaneously scrutinising the media he employs and how it shapes our understanding of reality. Douglas’ work is often in the first instance an examination of place – Lisbon, Potsdam, Havana and Detroit have provided the impetus for, respectively, The Secret Agent, 2015, Der Sandmann, 1995, Inconsolable Memories, 2005 and Le Détroit, 1999 – but entangled with the detail of specific geographical and political circumstance is a diverse range of source material that has included the literary constructs of Franz Kafka, Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville, Samuel Beckett and ETA Hoffmann, and the films of Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles.

While we may recognise the literary, filmic or musical references, along with the stories, places or even characters appropriated in these complex works, expectations are often frustrated. Instead of narrative fulfilment, Douglas offers us complexity, perplexity and doubt. The artist has remarked that ‘life is all middle’ and in Douglas’ work the viewer often finds himself plunged into events whose beginnings are obscured and whose ends seem to dissolve into mutability.

Stan Douglas has been the subject of numerous exhibitions at prominent institutions worldwide. Recent venues for solo exhibitions include MUDAM, Luxembourg (2018-2019); the Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg (2016); Pérez Art Museum Miami, Florida (2016); Salzburger Kunstverein, Salzburg, Austria (2016); Wiels, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Brussels (2015); Museu Coleçäo Berardo, Lisbon (2015); Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh (2014-2015); Carré d’Art - Musée d’Art Contemporain, Nîmes (2013, solo, travelling to Haus der Kunst, Munich, 2014; Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, 2015 and Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2015); Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota (2013) and the Moscow Photobiennale 2013. His work has been presented at the 58th Venice Biennale (2019); Sharjah Biennal 14, UAE (2019); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2019); Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2018); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2018); Tate Modern, London (2018); Aargauer Kunsthaus, Switzerland (2017); Hayward Gallery, London (2016-2017); Audain Art Museum, Whistler (2016); The Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia (2016); Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria (2014); Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2013); The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2013); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, (2012, travelling to Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2012); ZKM/Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe (2010); and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2010). Stan Douglas is the recipient of the 2016 Hasselblad Award.

Current exhibitions include May You Live In Interesting Times, La Biennale di Venezia, curated by Ralph Rugoff, until November 24th, 2019

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Stan Douglas Solitaire 2017 Digital chromogenic mounted on dibond 152,4 x 203,2 cm Edition of 5 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#5/5)

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TXUSPO POYO

Alsasua, Navarra, 1963

Txuspo Poyo holds a BA in Fine Arts from the University of the Bask Country (UPV). In 2001 he complete dan ISCP residency sponsored by Fundación Marcelino Botín and also studied at the CADA center of New York University, In 2006 he received funding from Fundación Arte y Derecho and Fundación de las Artes de Valencia for his Delay Glass Project, and the same year won the Premio Gure Artea of the Basque Government. In 2008, he was awarded first prize at the 10th Unión Fenosa International Exhibition. In 2015 he received funding from The Fundación BBVA for La Engaña tunnel Project and 2018 from Huarte Centro de arte contemporáneo and the Gobierno de Navarra for the Izaro Project. He has taken part in the Madrid Region’s 15th Image Symposium, and has been an invited speaker on master’s programs at the University of Cuenca and the UPV.

He has held solo exhibitions in venues such as Fundación BBVA, Madrid, Museo Artium in Vitorio, Centre d’Art La Panera in Lleida, the Costa Rica Museum of Contemporary Art and Design and the Montcada Gallery of Fundació la Caixa in Barcelona. His group exhibitions include Geopolíticas de la animación showing at the CAAC in Seville and MARCO in Vigo ; Les Rencontres Internationales Madrid/Paris/Berlin; the 2md Angola Triennial; the FILE in São Paulo; Incógnitas at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; Cine y casi cine at the Reina Sofía in Madrid; Multitude at the Artist Space, NY and Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo in Guarene – Turin, Italy.

Txuspo Poyo Alianza 2019 The artist’s mother’s alliance streched to become a gold thread 42,5 x 33,5 cm

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Txuspo Poyo Txuspo Poyo Terrorist´s jacket Reward Miss Award 1993 1993 35mm and 16mm film 35mm and 16mm film, 112 photographs of the same face with 170x120cm different hairstyles 170x120cm

Txuspo Poyo Reward Miss Award (Detalle)

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1 Joan Fontcuberta 7 Agnes` Varda Blow Jup On the road between the Sierra Maestra and 2019 Santiago de Cuba - Man and child, “Patria o Video, 3:06 min, 2 single channel videos, muerte” (Cuba series) loop and sound 1962 - 1963 Silver print Stan Douglas 2 29,5 x 39,5 x 2,3 cm Solitaire 2017 Agnes` Varda Digital chromogenic mounted on dibond 8 Children (one eating an ice cream), Marianas, 152,4 x 203,2 cm Havana (Cuba series) Edition of 5 + 2 AP 1962 - 1963 3 Txuspo Poyo Silver print Reward Miss Award 28,6 x 35,6 cm 1993 9 Agnes` Varda 35mm and 16mm film, 112 photographs of Cha-Cha-Cha danced by members of the I.C.A.I.C the same face with different hairstyles among which Sarita Gomez wearing military 170x120cm 5 clothest (Cuba series) 1962 - 1963 Txuspo Poyo 4 Silver print Terrorist s jacket ´ 32,5 x 37,5 x 2,3 cm 4 1993 35mm and 16mm film 10 Agnes` Varda 170x120cm Beauty Contest (Cuba series) 1962 - 1963 5 Txuspo Poyo Silver print Alianza 24 x 31 x 2,3cm 2019 The artist’s mother’s alliance streched to 11 Agnes` Varda 3 become a gold thread Building Manager - Woman sitting with 42,5 x 33,5 cm a machine-gun and boy with white shirt, Havana (Cuba series) 6 Agnes` Varda 1962 - 1963 Tomas Oliva, sculptor, Havana (Cuba series) Silver print 1962 - 1963 7 9 11 29,5 x 39,5 x 2,3 cm Silver print 6 Agnes Varda 8 10 12 19,8 x 29,2 cm 12 ` Man with hat and cigar, Havana (Cuba series) 1962 - 1963 Silver print 13 24 x 31 x 2,3cm

2 13 Barbara Hammer Superdyke 1975 Video, 17:34 min, color, sound, 16 mm film

14 Requer (Renier Quer Figueredo) Octubre actualizado mientras vuelvo en si 2016 Storyboard, graphite on cardboard Variable dimensions

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