b-guided > Barcelona

b-inspired Exhibitions

299 artists, 24 curators, 23 agents...

By Juan Montenegro 22.11.12

Galeria de la Mota Estrany presents "2 galeristes, 299 artists, 24 comissaris, 23 agents, 51 Exposicions col·lectives, 90 Exposicions Individuals, 16 glass cabinets, 53 fires, three locals, 532 m2, 7 logotips", an exhibition project that proposes an hypothesis of the history of the gallery since its opening in 1996 until the present, however, the starting point of the research is back in 1996 when the merging of both galleries —Galeria Àngels de la Mota (1987 -1996) and Galeria Antoni Estrany (1990-1996)— led to the current, and both their previous trajectories.

  • "299 artistas, 24 comissaris, …"  courtesy Galeria Estrany-De la Mota, Barcelona

    In the different retrospective exhibition projects on the local artistic context that have taken place in Barcelona within the last twenty years, like ‘Anys 90, Distància Zero’ by José Luís Brea (Centre d’Art Santa Mònica, 1994), ‘inter/zona’ by Manel Clot (Palau de la Virreina, 2000), ‘Vostéstàquí’ by Rosa Ferré and Chus Martínez (Palau de la Virreina, 2001) or ‘La Questió del Paradigma’ by Manuel Segade (Centre d’art la Panera, 2011), the presence of the galleries may have been overshadowed by the story of the 'institutional art space' or the 'independent art space'.

    And in that process of historification the presence and role of the 'gallery space' it should not be ignore, not only as introducers of artists in their respective areas of influence but mainly as contents generators.
    With this project, conceived by Ferran elotro, the gallery Estrany-de la Mota becomes 'case study', an excuse to start a discussion from a particular context, but with issues that are exportable to other artistic communities.

    On one hand, the exhibition offers the public much of the information that has been generated throughout the history of the gallery; both analog and digital materials from all past exhibitions has been recovered and all this information has been made available to visitors through a hanging folders file installed in one of the exhibition rooms, where each folder contains the material for each of the exhibitions (datasheet, invitations, posters, etc ...). Due to the large amount of documentation compiled the file is also available on-line, allowing other reading rhythms.

  • '299 artists, 24 curators, …' courtesy Galeria Estrany-De la Mota, Barcelona

  • '299 artists, 24 curators, …' courtesy Galeria Estrany-De la Mota, Barcelona

    On the other hand, the exhibition presents a selection of works. For this selection, an extensive research was done by interviewing artists, people from the gallery and curators and external agents, and basically serves three needs. First, the selection includes works by various artists, in a new context and generating a new narrative, all pieces that have an artistic value as long as they illustrate the gallery exhibition line at different times of its history, pieces like 'Sense títol' by Antoni Abad (1993), 'Pintura de paret #5 (Galería Estrany-de la Mota)' by Ignasi Aballí (2007), 'Model d'us per Eric' by Ramón Guillén-Balmes (1993), or the installations 'Tierra de Jerico (falso Land Art o como cagarla en Estrany-de la Mota)' by Bestué/Vives (2005) and 'Gasworks Yaoi' by Francesc Ruiz (2010).

    Second, the selection of works represents the role of collectionism as crucial economic factor in the life of an art gallery, so some of these works belongs to private collections as 'David' by Hans-Peter Feldmann, 2006, courtesy of Col.lecció Agustí Torelló - Rosa Raventós, Barcelona; or 'Kissing with Amobarbital’, Douglas Gordon (1995), courtesy of Cal Cego, Barcelona collection.

    Finally, to recover exhibition spaces of the gallery that perhaps they had been used before but were no longer used, as the Glass Cabinet, a piece of furnture originally located in the shop window next to the access door to the gallery, that between 1997-2001 it was destined to autonomous exhibition cycles by young curators , like Creatures o Eduard Broto. From this exhibition, Glass Cabinet, which now exhibits the work 'Autopsy', by Joan Morey (2007-2012), will play the role of exhibition space with a parallel programme of curated cycles, and may even be transported to new locations as it could be an art fair.

  • '299 artists, 24 curators, …' courtesy Galeria Estrany-De la Mota, Barcelona

  • Pauline Fondevila. 'P. (1)'  (2006), courtesy Galeria Estrany-De la Mota

  • '299 artists, 24 curators, …' courtesy Galeria Estrany-De la Mota, Barcelona

     

  • "299 artistas, 24 comissaris, …"  courtesy Galeria Estrany-De la Mota, Barcelona

  • Joan Morey. 'Autòpsia' (2007-2012), Glass Cabinet, courtesy of the artist & Estrany-De la Mota, Barcelona

    It is noteworthy that it is not the first time the gallery makes exhibition memory projects, previously have seen similar processes like the exhibition ‘En la medida de lo possible’ de Antoni Abad (Galeria Antoni Estrany, Barcelona, 1994), or the exhibition programme ‘Beginhof’, that took place at the 2000-2001 season, where based on four collective exhibitions the gallery funds where shown in dialogue with other art pieces.

    2 galeristes, 299 artistas, 24 comissaris... is complemented by a series of public activities. The exhibition opened the 9th October, coinciding with the 22nd anniversary of the day that this space located in the Passatge Mercader in Barcelona opened to the public for the first time, as Galeria Antoni Estrany.

  • From 09 October to 05 January
  • Galeria Estrany-De la Mota
  • Passatge Mercader, 18 08008 (eixample)
  • www.estranydelamota.com