On 26th of july, Moira Irigoyen will comment on her new book “That summer” through an open interview. This book is a new project from  Editorial El fin de la Noche that works with a PoD platform (Print on demand). This means that the book is printed only when solicited  by the buyer, which is an interesting method that favors the demand over the offer.

Sur de Babel says about Moira Irigoyen´s writing style: “It is characterized by a warm narrative that gives special attention to detail through the use of fine language charged with energetic stories, strength and identity”.

The author describes “That summer” as a short novel narrated in first person. Julia is character presented from two perspective simultaneously, that of a teenage girls and of an adult woman. She is hunted by her years and her memories. She is a foreigner that keeps remembering from her window in Canada, her childhood, her space, her summer, that summer. The narrative brings together these two women: the girl that feels and plays from the sunny days, the sand, the warm winds, and on the other hand the woman that survives inside her room, through the cold winter and the piles of snow accumulated in the canadian landscape.

The structure of the story is based through the reconstruction of her memories. Memories that move away from the sad and melancholic thoughts in order to present the reality of a foreigner, that sees her self expropriated from her space and observes the limits of her own identity through her window. Memory becomes the bond of the two tales and towards the end of the novel, the grown up version of Julia gains importance in order to overcome through her writing, the burdens of her memories from a foreign country. Language takes form, and in the final pages the hidden photographs and the new buds begin to re-appear from the cold.

The author was born in Buenos Aires in 1965. She graduated with a BA in Literature from the University of Buenos Aires. Her published work includes “En el fondo de la materia crece una vegetación oscura”, by Paradiso editorial, the storybook “Combustible” (Longseller) and other children tales. In 2006 she participated on the compilation “Una terraza propia” a selection of new argentinean female authors by Florencia Abatte (Norma Editorial) . The work “That summer” took her to the finals in the Concurso Novela Página/12 2007, and in that same year the novel was recognized  by the Fondo Nacional de las Artes.

For more information about the book and the author, click here.

The book of watercolors and poems “El color del agua” by Martín Reyna and Lila Zemborain will be presented in the auditorium.

Speakers at the book presentation: The author and translator Zemborain Lila Sarah T. Reyna, Juan Lo Bianco, director of the art publishing and artist Martín Reyna.

Date: Saturday July 25th, 5 pm.
Place: Auditorium PROA
Admission free

On Saturday July 25th at 5 pm, the book of watercolors and poems “El color del agua” by the poet Lila Zemborain and artist Martín Reyna will be presented – with free admission -in the auditorium of Fundación Proa. Lila Zemborain and the translator of her poems to the French language, Sarah T. Reyna, will be reading a collection of poems “Cromo soma tonal” in both languages.  The presentation will be introduced by Juan Lo Bianco, art director of the edition. Afterwards, both authors will sign copies of the book.

“El color del agua” offers a dialogue between Martin Reyna’s watercolors and the poems of Lila Zemborain. It has been published as a bilingual edition in French and Spanish. The point of departure, as the editor Virginie Boissière stated, was “the enchantment caused by the water and color as they were spread over paper.” The images were a source of inspiration for writing the poems that were translated into French, later. This publication represents the first edition of the poetry of Lila Zemborain in the French language.

In the watercolors of Martín Reyna the action of water prevails, suggesting a sense of dematerialization. These motifs have remain constant in his painting since he saw for the first time the work of Bill Viola in the Chapel of the Hospital de la Salpêtrière: videos in which the figure disappeared under the water into a large aquatic mass.

The collection of poems “Cromo somo total” by Lila Zemborain has a compact and dilated structure, suggesting the image of a drop of water falling over paper. Words were written to fit the narrative created by the art director Juan Lo Bianco with the watercolors of Martin Reyna in Buenos Aires.

Interview with Lila Zemborain by the press department of Fundación Proa.

- When did the artistic collaboration with Martín Reyna started?

Lila Zemborain: I know Martín since the 80s, but we became really friends when he moved to Paris. Apart from having a family relationship – I am godmother of his daughter –we have both shared long discussions about painting or literature. Martín is a very good reader and during a period of his life he also wrote. On the other hand, I love his work, but never, until a couple of years ago the idea of collaborating on a project together appeared. I have been writing poetry about art for some years now, but independently. Certain images intrigue me and the desire to write about them is generated. In 2007, after the event “Ut Pictura poesis” in Rome, Alessandro Twombly in collaboration with Rafael Bueno asked me to write some poems for a catalogue which was due in a very short time. I wrote the first versions in Rome and when I arrived to Paris two days later, I asked Martín to read them since they were written in a very short time. The following day, Martín phoned me and asked if I wanted to collaborate with him in a book of watercolors that he was putting together. At the time, he told me he felt that the kind of poetry I was writing about art connected better with his watercolors than a critical discourse did. When Martín showed me the book project designed by Juan Lo Bianco I was fascinated. And that’s how this collaboration began, thanks to Virginie Boissière’s editorial skills this book became a reality.

- How does the design of your poetry connects with the watercolors of Martín Reyna?

LZ: Actually, I wrote these poems in an afternoon, but after a long process that took months. Martín gave me the layout of the book in March and I watched it with great attention three times in five months. The shape of the poems was outlined slowly, but I always knew I wanted to keep them brief. They had to be short poems had, compact and also dilated, almost like drops falling on paper. Just an allusion, a hint towards what was already there. What I did on that evening was simply to fill in with poems the blanks of the sort of  “narrative” Juan Lo Bianco had put together. Each watercolor had its own image, its intensity, its atmosphere or mood, but it was at the same time part of a series. I think the poems have this sense of unity in the dispersion, and hence the blank spaces, the breaks, and the condensation.

- It came to my attention that the book is entitled “El color del agua” and the collection of poems “Cromo somo total”, How can we understand this?

LZ: We had a sort of division between the concept of the image in the book and the concept of the poem in the book. “El color del agua” is the name that Martín probably gave to the process of painting the watercolors, and it is a beautiful name. My poems, however, responded to another name, which emerged from a more diffuse state of attention and increasingly concentrated in the body, so the organic reverberations of chromium (color), soma (body), tone (sound).

- I noticed that in “El color del agua” different languages can be traced. On the one hand, the Spanish language, in which the poems were written, also French, language to which the poems were translated and the English language as well, the one of your city of residence. How do you think they interact within the book?

L.Z: The translation process was great. Sarah had already been working on another book of mine, which she fortunately found interesting to translate. Therefore I had, in addition to our friendship, a relationship with her through language. Sarah speaks excellent Argentinian Spanish and has a keen sense of rhythm, sound and image. Besides a translator and poet, Sarah is a speech therapist, so her working material is language. The translation of the poems to French was very fluid, perhaps much more fluid than when they are translated into English, given that the grammar structure is the same. Moreover, Sarah is well aware of Martin’s work so she could subtly translate what I saw in the watercolors.

- What is the place of this book in the context of his work?

LZ: This book has been a pleasure, a break, and has a playful quality that may not be present in my other books. Probably, because when we enter into the compulsion of the other we forget our own compulsions. Martín’s watercolors have a sense of joy and that has made the writing lighter, less dense. I think that is definitely the effect ekphrastic poetry (a verbal representation of a visual representation) has on me. Leaving one’s own obsessions through the images created by others.

- I read that you are interested in the relationship between visual arts and contemporary Hispanic American poetry, Does this book respond to that interest?

LZ: Yes, I love to read ekphrastic poems, wherever they come from. One of the poems that impresses me the most in this genre is the poem by Ashbery on the painting of Parmigianino, “Portrait on a convex mirror.” But who really gave me the idea of writing about painting was Robert Creeley, through a few poems he wrote for a catalogue of an exhibition of Francesco Clemente in 1997. I believe that living in New York, gave me the chance to be in more contact with the ekphrastic poetry that is written here, though I know that Latin American poets have written wonderful ekphrastic poems. Just a couple of years ago, I organized a series of poetry readings at KJCC that I direct in NYU, they were poems written specifically about Latin American geometric art from Fundación Cisneros, wich was being exhibited at a gallery of the university at the time. There, Coral Bracho, Yolanda Pantin, Mariela Dreyfus, Cecilia Vicuña, Roberto Echavarren, Jussara Salazar and Edwin Torres read. It was incredible. Each poet created a vision of the works chosen completely unusual. In this exchange, the different textures of diverse types of art fed each other.

Interview with Martin Reyna

- When did the artistic collaboration with Lila Zemborain started?

Martín Reyna: We have been friends with Lila for many years, now. Poetry and literature are recurring themes when we meet. When I read the “Letters to Cézanne” of Rilke I felt that the best way to put words to painting was through poetry. Later, Lila made me read the poems she had written on Alessandro Twombly’s paintings and when I saw them I realized her verses would work perfectly with my poems.

- How do your paintings interact with the poetry of Lila Zemborain?

MR: The link appears in the dialogue that we have in the book. When I look at the watercolors and at the texts that are next to them, I am in presence of new sounds that refer to new forms that begin to exist in new ways for my vision. This has been so important to me, that for organizing the details of the exhibition “El color de agua” at RedGaleria I have used Lila’s poems to guide me through the selection of materials.

- What can we find in “El color del agua” from your first encounter with the work of Bill Viola?

MR: The water theme was a constant in my painting from the beginning, but it had always emerged from a representative perspective. When I saw the videos of Bill Viola- where the drop of water becomes a mighty mass of water that washes out the picture – I started using water as working material. In recent watercolors, the water works on the paper and gives shape to the colors, leaving the painter behind, acting as a companion to the accidents that the action of the water dictates.

- What was the criterion employed to select the watercolors?
MR: Juan Lo Bianco, who designed the book, came to my shop to see the watercolors and he proposed to start an editorial project with them. There, I put him in contact with Virginie Boissière, the editor who was already working with this project before. Juan Lo Bianco carried out the selection and assembled the sequences from which Lila wrote. I think that Juan found a visual rhythm that works very well with the nature of my work.

- What place does this book have in the context of your work?

MR: “El color del agua” is conceived as a dialogue, in which my pieces work in tune with the intervention of others. Putting the watercolors at the service of the idea and visual rhythm of Juan and at the verses of Lila is something new to my work. And, precisely, my paintings in watercolor on paper, that have started several years ago, achieved with this edition a central place in the context of my work, having in mind that working with watercolors in large formats was a way to restore this technique that was historically rendered as secondary, used only for notes or blueprints. My project consists on giving watercolor a central role instead of considering it as support for another more relevant work.

The authors

Lila Zemborain

Born in Buenos Aires and lives in New York since 1985. From 2000 to 2007 was director and editor of the poetry series Rebel Road since 2003 and directs the series of poetry KJCC at the King Juan Carlos I Center at New York University, where he is Clinical Assistant Professor in the Masters in Creative Writing Spanish. In 2007 he received the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.
He has published books of poetry Rasgado (Buenos Aires, Tse-Tse, 2006), mauve orchids of the sea (Buenos Aires, Tse-Tse, 2004) / Mauve Sea-Orchids (New York, Belladonna Books, 2007), Guardians of the Secret (Buenos Aires, Tse-Tse, 2002) / Guardians of the Secret (Texas, Naomi Press, 2008), You (Buenos Aires, Ediciones Ultimo Reino, 1998), open sesame under water (Buenos Aires, Ediciones Ultimo Reino, 1993 ). Has been included in anthologies Women looking South. South American poets in the USA (Madrid, Torremozas, 2004), Actual triantología poetry of Argentina, Brazil and Peru (Lima, Humunculus, 2004), The Light of City and Sea An Anthology of Suffolk County Poetry 2006 (South Beach Street Press, 2006) and Corresponding Voices (Syracuse, Point of Contact Productions, 2002) and in the catalogs of art Heidi McFall (New York, Aninna Nosei Gallery, 1995), and Alessandro Twombly (Brussels, Alain Noirhomme Gallery, 2007). In 2002 published the essay Gabriela Mistral. A faceless woman (Rosario, Beatriz Viterbo Editora).

Martin Reyna

Born in Buenos Aires in 1964. Since 1994 lives and works, also in Paris. In 1983 he participated in the exhibition presented by Rafael Bueno “Recent painters’ workshop in the area together with Sergio Avello, Joseph Garofalo, Alejandro De Ilzarbe, Miguel Harte and Gustavo Marrone. Was convened in 1986 by M-13 Gallery in the East Village of New York for the exhibition “Latin American in New York” with Guillermo Kuitca and Raphael Bueno. In 1991 he traveled to Paris for the exhibition “L’atelier de Buenos Aires organized by Philippe Cyroulnik who participated in the Pablo Suarez, Roberto Elia, Jorge Macchi, and in 1992 held his first solo exhibition Gallery Michel Vidal, Paris.
Discovered in 1994 videos of Bill Viola, from that moment on the water – a constant in his work – no longer occupy a representative to become a working material. He developed the series of paintings “Abstract Landscapes” (2000). The Infinite Art Gallery of Buenos Aires and Virginie Boissière Art Contemporain in Paris published the first monograph of his work in 2004. In the same year, made a presentation at the Space and Adamski in Paris Del Infinito Arte Gallery presented his work at the ARCO fair in Madrid. Virginie Boissière presented their work in London and Scoop Fair Lineart, in Ghent, Belgium in 2005 and in 2007 exhibited his works in the university library of Angers in the Annual Congress of the Arts in the Hispanic world.

Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Struth and the Becher matrimony Interview and documentaries Series.

From July 14th and August 28th

Tuesdays and Fridays 16hs
Admissions with Exhibition tickets

Program:

-      Conversation with  Andreas Gursky – Museo Haus Lange, Krefeld. 68’

-      Bernd y Hilla Becher – Dir. Jean-Pierre Krief. 13’

-      Thomas Ruff – Dir. Jean-Pierre Krief. 13’

-      Thomas Struth – Dir. Jean-Pierre Krief. 13’

Conversations with Andreas Gursky – A Museo Haus Lange, Krefeld. 68’ production.

Interview conducted in November 2008 as part of the exhibition Andreas Gursky: Werke / Works 80 – 08 at the Museum Haus Lange in Krefeld, Germany, by its Director Martin Hentschel, and Education Coordinator Thomas Janzen. The artist comments of his formative years with Otto Steiner  and the Becher matrimony, on how he merged the opposing tendencies of their teachings -subjective and objective – in his work.
During the interview he addresses topics such as his method of working in series, the passage of the large format and digital media, and the relationship between photography and painting. He also reflects on how globalization and contemporary life have affected his artwork.

Contact Series – A KSVISIONS, ART and Jeu de Paume production

Contacts is a series documentaries on contemporary photography, in which the  invited artists guide the spectator to the heart of their creative photographic process by selecting images and commenting on their contact sheets, tests and impression. Thorough this process they show the evolution of the character and meaning of their work throughout the years. In this opportunity are presenting the episodes devoted to Bernd and Hilla Becher, Thomas Ruff and Thomas Struth.

Ciudad y Subjetividad
Curator: Rubén Guzmán
Saturdays and sundays, 15.30 and 17.30 hs.
Under the auspices of: Goethe-Institut y Robert Bosch Argentina Industrial S.A.
Admission: $5.- (each function)

Complete programe. Click on the image to see it on real size.

On Saturday, June 6th, an open interview with Fernanda Garcia Lao was held in Fundación PROA´s Auditorium. Afterwards, the author of the novel Muerta de Hambre signed copies in our Library.

The event was organized by Fundación Proa and Sur de Babel, an independent book club that intends to give a broader reach to the books edited by smaller Argentine book publishers.

For more information about Sur de Babel, click here.

Open interview to Fernanda García Lago, author of the novel ‘Muerta de hambre’

Saturday, June 6 – 5 PM

Organized by Fundación Proa and Sur de Babel, independent book club

Auditorium

Fundación Proa

Pedro de Mendoza 1929, La Boca, Buenos Aires

Free access to the open interview

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“I have been thick and unfortunate ever since I can remember (…) I had hidden secrets behind the couch. Useless, but fresh things. Dessert spoons and scissors. I used them to stroke my face heated with fury for being and thinking like a fat 39 year old”.

Extract from the novel ‘Muerta de hambre’

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Sur de Babel, Independent Book Club

A monthly selection of the best-kept literary secrets edited in Argentina.

Sur de Babel is an independent book club that intends to give a broader reach to the books edited by smaller Argentine book publishers. Every month a narrative work is selected (either novel or short story), after a careful editorial search and reading of all the material received, is sent out to all the members. Each member pays monthly subscription of $10, covering the shipment costs and membership fees, in addition to the price of the book selected for the month.

The Sur the Babel editorials are Del Dock, Bajo La luna, El cuenco de Plata , Entropía, Mansalva, Malas Palabras Buks, El Andariego, among others. The web site holds all previous selections, along with the interviews made to the authors and members of the selected editorial. Sur de Babel is not an editorial, receiving only edited material or works to be edited. This cultural project was born by the disparities in today’s book market: The books that appear on the tables of the major books stored are often edited by larger publishers, which often times leave out excellent literary proposals. The main objective of Sur de Babel is to shed new light and and opportunity to the literature hidden amongst the book stacks.

About the novel

“My mouth is full of hunger. Nevertheless, my body is too heavy to engulf. I’ve gained several pounds in the last days. I can’t stand the clarity of existence: my fat rolls are confused with the sofa where I am interlocked”.

Aesthetics, beauty, and thinness are elemental when thinking of the cannons used to analyze the feminine stereotypes of today. At first, Muerta de Hambre could be considered to rival against postmodern stereotypes, at the same time as being a story charged with educative and moral teachings. Nevertheless, none of this happens, as the story progresses we notice that the irony, sarcasm, and huge “weight” of the protagonist are the support for an ominous and turbulent dialogue that even the reader finds hard to digest.

Maria Bernabé Castelar, amongst spoons, desserts, and candy wrappers allows for us to penetrate the story of her life with a variety of short stories that regenerate themselves within the confinement and jail-like appearance of the body. Bernabe represents pure loneliness. A child, a teenager, and a hungry, un-loved woman that finds herself in a place that starts and ends “by the plate”. Garcia Lao, at the core of a desolate monologue, shows as a woman chained to the insurrection of her own boundaries, of her own personal discourse, and to the most intimate gastronomical compulsion. It is at this point that the reader finds himself within the boundaries of a body, and of a discourse that can explode at any minute. Fatality surrounds the protagonist and those around her but even inside the tragedy, they make us smile with a bit of sarcasm and irony about the destiny of our weighty protagonist.

The aesthetic plurality, the delicate writing and an argument that stands out by its creative tone and good humor, are only some of the reasons why Sur de Babel chooses to celebrate Muerta de Hambre. A story rooted in a delicious stylistic support, and a woman that makes us smile and laugh with a captivating argument that allows for us to step back from the recently digested words.

About the author

Fernanda Garcia Lao was born in Mendoza in 1966. At the young age of 10, due to the political situation affecting the country, her family decided to move to Madrid, where she lived until 1993. “My way of being, my personality, is strongly related to being exiled”, expressed the author and adds the following on regards to her life and work: “My words gained importance when I had to leave everything behind, from a young age I have cultivated monologues”.

Garcia Leo has lived in Buenos Aires for over 16 years and possesses an extensive, varied, and interesting artistic career. She is also a narrator, dancer, playwright, actress and journalist. No doubt her work presents all her integrity and artistic plurality. She received the following awards: First Prize for a Novel given by Fondo Nacional de las Artes, and Third Prize of the Julio Cortázar Novel (2004). She also received a grant from Fundación Antorchas for her play Ser el amo, and the award from Secretaría de Cultura de la Nación for La mirada horrible (2002), among others.

The Editorial

Edgardo Russo, owner of a long and successful editorial career, and after having investigating and participating on several projects related to literary production, started his own editorial in 2004: El cuenco de plata. “The main differential characteristic of El cuenco de plata is that we do not promote ourselves as ‘a company of Argentine capital’ (because it is not any guarantee anything and also because one of our partners is from Bolivia), and our passion for books prevails over any social prestige or genealogy”. The editorial has an interesting and extensive catalogue covering all narrative genres, and can be explored by any single reader (utopical?), that finds comfort and pleasure in all its proposals, no matter their variety.

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Interview to Victoria Rodríguez Lacrouts, from Sur de Babel

By Diego González, Librería Proa

- What developed the idea for Sur de Babel?

- It was a personal matter. Both Josefina Heine and me are avid readers and we love to spend our time searching bookstores, which is imperative if you wish to get “something more”, since most bookstores only display on their novelty tables the exact same thing as the other stores. What do you see? Books edited by the big editorial firms. In order to search for that special something, first of all you need time, and then information, since I won’t find different offers if I don’t ask for it. For this reason many books and projects are left unseen. With all of this in mind we began brainstorming about the possibility of making this project accessible to people. This was the birth of the Sur de Babel Independent Book Club.

- What type of members do you have?

- Luckily, they vary. We have readers that are more advanced than others. What we realized is that this excites us, Sur de Babel found its place in two different types of readers: to the “experts” the offer is very attractive, since they get to encounter new authors with every one of the selections. For those who don’t read very often, the idea of receiving new books to their homes along with interviews to the authors and editorials, is quite novel. Usually, this type of reader won’t search for new things on the bookstores, and with this system, they are informed and pushed to good literatu re. Its of great importance to us to create a closer bond between the books and the reader, and this is what makes the radical distinction between our club and a bookstore or online store. Sur de Babel has a particular selection criteria: to read, to discuss and the choose. This is also why the interviews are primordial for the project.

- What is your relationship with Fundacion Proa?

- We are very happy to combine our objectives with Fundación Proa. The bookstore at Proa also aims to promote and generate visibility to smaller firms. They provide a space for our book selection presentation, which we cherish greatly. On the other hand, we will start to conduct our interviews at Proa; we are very excited to promote and bring back the live interviews to the authors that often give new perspective to the readings. The first talk will be to Fernanda Garcia Leo, author of Muerta de Hambre, the selection for May. The novel is excellent. We thought that making it at  the beggining of June would be appropriate, in order to give everyone proper time to read the novel and be able to ask questions to Fernanda. A book signing will be held afterwards.

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More information: libreria@proa.org

David Lamelas at Proa auditorium

On Saturday in the auditorium of Fundación Proa presented conferences with David Lamelas and Berta Sichel, hosted by Rodrigo Alonso. David Lamelas presented his work on a journey from its beginnings in the Di Tella Institute, then spoke of his experience and various exhibitions, both in London and the Los Angeles -where he has lived.

Through production of their films, videos and installations, he inquired about the works as Time, which took place in 1970 and 2007 where a group of persons in line will give the time every minute. Discussed fiction, time, the use of film and video by the way, and having been a pioneer in production of work that included both the medium of film, as the facility that will take you to museums.

Berta Sichel giving her conference at Proa auditorium

For its part, Berta Sichel addressed the issue of Expanded Cinema, the film and video programming in the area of an auditorium of the museum, the exhibition of the same museum. Presented a series of videos that show the audio-visual journey through history, and current production.

Meetings ang dialogues
April 2009
Coordinated by Rodrigo Alonso

Saturday, April 4th

From 16: 00 to 17:30 hs
David Lamelas
Instead of cinema
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From 18:00 to 20:00 hs
Berta Sichel
Director of the Audivisual Department of Reina Sofía Art Center, Madrid
The cinema at the museums

Next activities

Paula Perissinotto
Director of FILE- International Festival of Electronic Languages, San Pablo, Brasil
The digital era: a challenge for the culture of XXI century
Leandro Erlich
Around his work
Juan Maidagán / Dolores Zinny / Juan Forn
Instead of heaven architecture
Jorge Macchi: Block
Presents: Giorgio Guglielmino
Books of artist
Dialogues

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Saturday, April, 4th

From 16: 00 to 17:30 hs

David Lamelas

Instead of cinema

David Lamelas, en Film 18 Paris, 1970/2004, vídeo, 9

David Lamelas, a pioneer of coneptual art, began his career in the mythical Di Tella and now he is recognized as one of the most important artists of videos and installations. In dialogue with Rodrigo Alonso, he will present a journey through his video works. “Instead of cinema” becomes a reflection about the imprecise limits between art and cinema.

David Lamelas (Buenos Aires), is one of the most important artists of his generation and one of the pioneers of conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s in Argentina, Europe and United States.
His work includes architectural installations (Premio Nacional Instituto Torcuato Di Tella, 1966), performances, photographs and films. Estudió en la Academia Nacional de Bellas Artes y en St. Martins School of Art de Londres. He studied at the National Academy of Fine Arts and at St. Martins School of Art in London. He  was the Argentine representative at the IX Bienal de San Pablo (1967), where he received the prize of Sao Paulo Biennale, represented Argentina in the 34th Venice Biennale (1968).
In 1976 he settled in Los Angeles, California. In 1997 he lead the retrospective exhibition of his work “David Lamelas: A New Refutation of Time” at the Witte de With in Rotterdam and the Kunstverein in Munich. In 1993, she received a Guggenheim fellowship in 1998 and one of the DAAD stopendium of Germany. He has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions in Europe and United States, among others. “Reconsidering the Object of Art 1965-1975″, MOCA Los Angeles (1995), “Live in Your Head”, The Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (2000), “Beyond Geometry,” Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles ( 2002), “Behind the Facts. Interfunktionen 1968-1975”, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Museum Fridericianum, Kassel; Fundação de Serralves – Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Porto (2003-3004), Galerie Jan Mot, Bruselas (2006), Sprüth Magers, Berlin-London (2008-2009), “Above-the-Fold”, Kunstmuseum Basel, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Basel (2008), and soon in Centro José Guerrero de Granada, España.
His work includes the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, MOMA, New York, Tate Gallery, London, Walter Art Center, Minneapolis, MOCA, Los Angeles and LACMA, Los Angeles, among others.

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Saturday April 4
18:00 to 20:00 pm

Berta Sichel

Director of Audiovisual Center, National Museum of Art Reina Sofia, Madrid (MNCARS)

The Cinema Museum

Berta Sichel

Presents: Rodrigo Alonso
Reservations: auditorio@proa.org / 4104-1000

In his presentation, Berta Sichel address the issue of cinema in the museum. Through the artistic experiences that have come to the environment and related to the history of cinema in general areas will display formats, distribution and programming.

Berta Sichel is Director of the Audiovisual Department of the National Museum Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid – MNCARS since March 2000.
Sichel is a reference in the international art scene for his extensive knowledge in the field of video, experimental film, photography and new media. Is international curator of exhibitions of contemporary art, researcher, critic and art historian, university professor and lecturer, editor, correspondent of art publications in Europe and Latin America, a consultant to foundations, cultural institutions and collections.
She curated exhibitions like “Primera generación: Arte e imágen en movimiento: 1963-1986”, presented in the Centro de Arte Museo Reina Sofia, in 2006-2007, which includes many videoinstalations of international artists like Nam June Paik, Gary Hill, David Lamelas, Bill Viola, Juan Downey, Vito Acconci and Bruce Nauman. Among others, she has developed Yvonne Rainer retrospective, MNCARS y MACBA (2008),  “Samuel Beckett – Films for TV, y Around Us” in ArtPace of San Antonio, Texas. Ahe curated “Sites-No Sites”, in Museo Vostell of Malpartida de Caceres, Spain (2008), “The Visible and the Invisible” in Centro Cultural Itaú (Brasil, 2008), “Almost Cinema” in Centro Andaluz of Contemporary Art of Sevilla, Spain (2008), “Somewhere Beyond the Sea”, in Freeze Art Fair of London (2005) y “Between Science and Fiction” in the Biennial of San Pablo (1985), among others. She received prizes of Goethe Institut (2005) and the Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts Research (1998), among others.
She´s doctor by New York University, Department of Communication and Culture (1995-1998), expounding about “The Idea of Innovation in Art and Technology”. Master in Media Ecology (1984), Department of Communications and Culture, New York University, New York, and Master in Communications Systems (1980), Department of Linguistics and Communication, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil.

As a part of Marcel Duchamp: a work that is not a work “of art”, Proa presents a selection of films for this weekend, with an extended program from 11.30 am. Leer el resto de la entrada »