UNCOMFORTABLE

In 2023, Fabra i Coats: Contemporary Art Centre of Barcelona will undergo a change. In February, we will leave the space where it was opened in 2012, and which gradually expanded upwards until 2015, and move to the other side of the building, on the Gran de Sant Andreu street side of the building, where, all being well, in May we will open the new Art Centre. Many things could occur during this all being well. A lot can happen in three months of impasse. For this reason, we have asked three artists to accompany us between leaving the old space, during the renovation and adaptation work for the new centre and when we move in. Three artists who have worked on everything that construction work creates, in essence: noise, dust and uncertainty. Three inconveniences that are inherent to building work (construction or renovation), which these three (art)works examine, enriching the boundary between the material and the intangible. Uncomfortable is the title of this small programme that includes three interventions commissioned to Laura Llaneli, Mireia c. Saladrigues and Anna Dot. 

Contemporary art is often uncomfortable. Whether too cryptic or too critical, today, art often confronts us with ourselves, either with some aberrant aspect of our society or with the obstinate need to understand everything and, if possible, to do so quickly and easily. In this discomfort, art has been able to find itself comfortable, exploring its own limits or its possibilities with visitors and institutions. There is no shortage of artworks, therefore, that go in search of what disturbs, that rub salt in the wound; but also, or precisely so, artworks that play with surprise, unpredictability, as well as with indeterminacy, the impossibility of understanding everything that surrounds us. The awkwardness of some works affects our daily lives without us wanting them to. These, on the other hand, seek us out. There will be no need to peer through fences or ask how things are going. These three artists invite us to pay a different kind of attention, to let ourselves be affected in order to appreciate the noise, the dust and the uncertainty in a different way.

 With the collaboration of the Sant Andreu Municipal School of Music, Institut Vapor del Fil and the community of neihgbors of Sant Andreu. 
With the support of Fundació Sorigué and Hangar, Centre for Arts Production and Research.
Acknowledgements: MUHBA.

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PROGRAM

From 19 February
THE NOISE​
Laura Llaneli with 'remor renou'

From 4 March
THE DUST
Mireia c. Saladrigues with 'Polvere che gira'

25 March
THE UNCERTAINTY
Anna Dot with 'Site Visit'

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Laura Llaneli (Granada, 1986) studied music and has a diploma in Graphic Design. She graduated in Fine Arts and has a master's in Sound Art from Universitat de Barcelona. She is represented by the ADN Galeria (Barcelona) and among the many awards she has won are the Art for Change Prize 2019, Miquel Casablancas Award 2018, Premi Embarrat 2017 and Barcelona Producció 2014. She has held solo exhibitions at Casal Solleric, ADN Galeria, Fundació Joan Miró Barcelona, Casaplan (Valparaíso, Chile), Swinton & Grant and art3 (Valence, France). She has also performed at festivals including Signal reloaded, Intermediale, Mixtur, Poesia i +, CAAMSonora, LEM, Tsonami IX (Chile) and Eufònic.

Mireia c. Saladrigues (Terrassa, 1978) is an artist and researcher, or better said, an artist-researcher. She is an international PhD candidate (DFA) at the University of the Arts Helsinki with Behaving Unconventionally in Gallery Settings, which documents instances of human and non-human disruption in cultural practices, proposing an artistic and theoretical re-reading of nonconformity. Her work has been exhibited at solo and group shows in Europe, the United States and Asia and is part of the collections of the Fons Nacional de Catalunya, MACBA and the Culture Institute of Barcelona (ICUB), as well as of private collectors. She has obtained grants from the Finnish Cultural Foundation-Suomen Kulttuurirahasto (2022), the Arts Promotion Centre Finland-Taike (2021) and the City of Barcelona Prize (2021). Recently, she has been a resident at the Royal Academy of Spain in Rome (2021-2022).

Anna Dot (Vic, 1991) is an artist and professor and has a PhD in Translation, Interpreting and Applied Languages from the University of Vic (2019). She is represented by Bombon Projects gallery in Barcelona and her work has been shown in national and international contexts, in exhibition rooms and at art interventions in specific spaces, such as the Walter Benjamin Route (2016, Banyuls-Sur-Mer to Portbou), the transhumance paths to the valley of La Santa Creu (2020) and the fort of Gósol (Festival Errant 2022). Recently, she obtained a grant for a four-month residency at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris.