Maria Elena: behind the making
Wednesday 20 November 2019, 3 pm
— Melanie Smith (Artist, Mexico City) in conversation with Tanya Barson (Chief Curator, MACBA, Barcelona)
- Speakers
- Tanya Barson and Melanie Smith
- Venue
- Almanac Barcelona
- Tickets & register
-
bit.ly/2MwIiUo
Access to the Talks is free with the LOOP professional accreditation
- Language
- English
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In the context of the LOOP Fair, Melanie Smith presents one of her most recent videos – Maria Elena, 2018 –, together with her gallery Proyecto Paralelo (Mexico City).Maria Elena is a small mining town in the Atacama desert, founded in the 1920’s and developed by the Guggenheim’s to produce saltpetre, used for both fertilizers and explosives. The film explores an ongoing interest in the application and obsolescence of industrial modernity. It also traces the impact of the British in the region, who were heavily involved in the extraction processes of nitrates incorporating it into a satellite of an economic global system. The narrative threads a tale of contradicting montage, whereby crystals become stars, a horse’s ear a mountain and enormous beds of nitrate appear as informal abstract paintings, exposing the geological terror of the past and future.
In this conversation with Tanya Barson, she will disclose the strategies that she deployed with montage, sound and talk about the different narratives that are interwoven throughout the film.
Tanya Barson
- Jury, Speaker
London
Tanya Barson is Chief Curator of MACBA, Barcelona. Previously, she was Curator of International Art at Tate Modern 2007-2016, and Exhibitions and Collections Curator at Tate Liverpool, 2004-2007. She originally joined Tate in 1997 as an Assistant Curator. She has curated exhibitions including Christian Marclay: Compositions, MACBA (2019), Melanie Smith: Farce and Artifice, MACBA (2018); Rosemarie Castoro: Focus at Infinity, MACBA (2017); Georgia O’Keeffe, Tate Modern (2016), Mira Schendel, Tate Modern (2013); Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic at Tate Liverpool (2010); Oiticica in London, Tate Modern (2007); Ellen Gallagher: Coral Cities, Tate Liverpool (2007); Jake and Dinos Chapman: Bad Art for Bad People, Tate Liverpool (2006); Making History: Art and Documentary in Britain from 1929 to Now, Tate Liverpool (2006); and Frida Kahlo, Tate Modern (2005). She was an advisor for Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915-2015, Whitechapel Art Gallery (2015). She is currently working on a solo exhibition of the work of the Venezuelan artist Gego, in collaboration with MASP, Sao Paulo, the Museo Jumex, Mexico City and Tate Modern, to open at MACBA in 2021. From 2002 to 2016 she worked with Tate’s Adjunct Curator of Latin American art [Cuauhtémoc Medina 2002-2008, Julieta Gonzalez 2008-2012, Jose Roca 2012-2014, and Inti Guerrero 2016-] to acquire Latin American art for the Tate collection.
Last update 31th October 2019
Melanie Smith was born in England in 1965. She lives and works between Mexico City and London. Her work, in diverse media, has reflected on the extended field of painting within the history of art and its entanglement with moving image. She is interested in fragmented montage, and creates filmic and performative experiences that often allude to behind the scene productions and political farse. Mostly, her work shatters any rational significance, as a way of thinking through contingent forms and being.
She has exhibited at numerous institutions including PS1 and MOMA, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Tate, London; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City. In 2011 she represented Mexico at the 54th Venice Biennale. “Melanie Smith: Farce and Artifice” a panoramic survey, was presented at MACBA Barcelona in 2018, and traveled to MUAC Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Museo Amparo Puebla, 2019 and MARCO Monterrey in 2020.
