Project description Ceci n’est pas une voiture.
Collaborative project by: Idensitat. www.idensitat.net / Can Xalant Centre de Creació i Pensament Contemporani de Mataró. www.canxalant.org / ACVic Centre d’Arts Contemporànies. www.acvic.org
Curator: Martí Peran
Selection Committee ID#6 Mataró-Vic: Jesús Carrillo, Pep Dardanyà, Pilar Bonet, Jordi Canudas, Martí Peran, Cristina Riera and Ramon Parramon
The project Ceci n’est pas une voiture; Mobile devices lurking, originated as an exercise in documentation and reflection upon the construction of mobile devices as elements of an expanded concept of, or perhaps even as an alternative to, the Museum.
The prospect of subverting the logic of the Museum by building mobile devices has a long tradition. Since Marcel Duchamp’s famous suitcase (Boîte-en-valise, 1941) or Roger Filliou’s hat (Galerie Légitime, 1962), the initiatives to move the aesthetic experience beyond the limits of the museum have multiplied. However, this same tradition of “travelling art” (Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, 1976) has also been the object of a recent co-optation by the conventional Museum. Indeed, in the last decade we have witnessed a proliferation of attempts to expand the perimeter of the traditional Museum with portable structures (the temporary pavilions of the Serpentine Gallery since 2000, the project for the Temporary Guggenheim Tokyo in 2001 or, more eloquent if anything, the recent Chanel Contemporary Art Container by Zaha Hadid in 2008).
Faced with these invasive phenomena, Ceci n’est pas une voiture aimed at reflecting on and documenting those other initiatives which, circulating in public space, collide with these conventional museum prostheses; to the extent that instead of extending the square metres of the museum, they reformulated the functions of the exhibition display as a nomadic platform nurturing direct and self-managed participation, development of social research and dissemination of educational experiences. In other words, if the temporary pavilions of the conventional museum seek to expand the extent and space of presence in order to reinforce the expansion of the museum’s narrative models, the nomadic devices that loom around the museum would be those which, traveling through the same social landscape, experiment with ways of understanding the exhibition cell as a space for reception and creation of plural and critical narratives against the hegemonic model.
Ceci n’est pas une voiture is conceived as a work in progress that combines processes of research, workshops, production and dissemination. With this objective, it is carried out as a series of activities each of which is designed as a Parking episode.
Phases of Ceci n'est pas une voiture
The project Ceci n’est pas une voiture was conceived as a work in progress, combining processes of research, workshops, production and dissemination. With this objective, a series of activities were carried out, beginning in July 2010, and continuing throughout 2011 and 2012.
Phase 1.(Parking/1) Consulta Museus portàtils. The group of students from the course “Contemporary Art Politics: New mechanisms of production and management”, from the MA in Advanced Studies of Art History (UB), developed a first statement of the question, presenting the Question mode in Can Xalant (May-July 2010) http://canxalant.org
Phase 2.(Parking/2) iD Mataró–Vic. Production of two projects, selected from a public open call, developed as residency projects in ACVic and Can Xalant, and using Idensitat’s touring device and CX-R by Can Xalant (June–September 2011). http://idensitat.net
Phase 3.(Parking/3) Workshop in Vic. May – June , 2011 Open call for a project of intervention in Vic's public space using Can Xalant’s CX-R as a tool for research and production. This activity is part of the residency program of ACVIC. Centre d’Arts Contemporànies, in collaboration with Idensitat.
Phase 4. (Parking/4) Espais, trànsits i dispositius mòbils. Workshop led by Raumlabor, organised by Idensitat at Cercle Artístic de Sant Lluc. http://idensitat.net
Phase 5.(Parking/5) Exhibition Esto no es un museo. Artefactos móviles acechan al museo./ This is not a museum. Mobile devices lurking) ACVIC. Centre d'Arts Contemporànies. Exhibition documenting different case studies. (October 2011- January 2012). Exhibition tour from May 2012 http://acvic.org
Phase 6. (Parking/6) Symposium MNCARS Madrid. The symposium was organised through 3 work tables, according to various topics of discussion proposed by the Public Programmes department of the museum MNCARS: Radical Pedagogies; Other institutionalities and Mobility and Social Space. (November 2011)
Phase 7. (Parking/7) Publication of a special edition of Roulotte. The publication looked at the exhibition materials, the workshops given throughout the process, as well as the interventions presented at the symposium. http://roulottemagazine.com