Synopsis

This project was chosen by an independent panel chaired by the MACBA’s director Bartomeu Marí and made up by Glòria Picazo, director of the Centre d’Art La Panera; Gerard Vilar, doctor of philosophy and professor of aesthetics at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and director of the UAB’s master’s in Thinking Contemporary Art; Xavier Antich, president of the Board of Trustees of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, professor of aesthetics at the Universitat de Girona (UdG) and director of the UdG’s master’s in Communication and Art Criticism; Marta Gili, director of the Jeu de Paume; Piedad Solans, doctor of art history and art criticism, and Àlex Susanna, deputy director of the Institut Ramon Llull.

 

Process of working

In addition to documenting the life of each subject in photographs and filming their trip to the museum, Francesc Torres and Mercedes Álvarez were directly responsible for choosing the featured individuals based on all of the variables of sociology and character. The general spirit of this project is very closely tied to the priorities and forms of expression that Francesc Torres has developed throughout his international career, placing paradoxes in tension and visualizing the relationships between citizens and institutions which are normally hidden.
Mercedes Álvarez filmed each of the participants using her renowned ability to draw out conventional wisdom with a sense of excitement, dignity, irony and the transcendence of small things.The collaboration between Torres and Álvarez evokes the ties shown between art and cinema, a current topic of debate in many international centers addressing new interpretations of contemporary art.

The title

25% refers to Catalonia’s unemployment rate, which is well known internationally. The mass unemployment affecting a fourth of the country’s active population forces us to take initiatives in reaction to prevent this situation from becoming a tolerated state of life that turns invisible since it affects a plurality. Making it visible, showing its severity and the dignity of those in this situation and their ethical and aesthetic paradox are also central aims of this proposal.

The space and the exhibition language: the Cantieri Navale

The exhibition will take place along the 380m2 of the Cantieri Navale, with no visual interruptions or added walls, leaving the open space bare to view such that the whole of what is on exhibit and also the different nature of the expressive media used can be identified at first glance.

Visitors will find photographs of the eight subjects enlarged to mural size and accompanied by a brief biography. The photographic documentation of their lives produced by Francesc Torres will also be on display. In the space are four screens with an interlinked arrangement where the eight participants’ itineraries in making their reasoned selections of their favorite work from the MACBA collection are projected front and back. The films will last from 3 to 5 minutes. The layout of these screens establishes a non-explicit relational field with the works of art that have been borrowed for the exhibition, both the objects provided by each participant from among their own belongings and the artists’ works from the permanent collection that were selected.