Encounter with Daniel G. Andújar

In conversation with Manuel Borja-Villel and Iris Dressler

January 21, 2015 - 7:00 p.m.
Place
Nouvel Building, Auditorium 200
In collaboration with
Daniel G. Andújar. Not Found, 1000 casos de estudio, 2014. Courtesy of the artist
Daniel G. Andújar. Not Found, 1000 casos de estudio, 2014. Courtesy of the artist

The work of Daniel G. Andújar enters into dialogue with institutional critique, an analysis of the mass media and intervention in public spaces. Since the 1990s his work has moved between two poles: on one side, a consideration based on the progression of the virtual, with the changing paradigm that gives rise to new forms of access and the use of technology, and on the other, raised awareness of the contradictions stemming from real intervention in the public sphere. Consequently, in 1996, under the slogan Technologies To The People (TTTP) , he started up a project conceived as a space for thought and a working archive, a space from which to articulate and bind together different artistic interventions that question, with pronounced irony, themes such as corporate language and market strategies, the processes of urban change in large metropolises and democratic promises initiated in new media. The name of the project, inherited from appropriationist critique, provides a kind of fictional company, a reverse of corporate culture, alluding, as a parody, to the utopia of freedom and independence that the Internet extols.

The forthcoming exhibition, Daniel G. Andújar. Operating System, presents a selection of the artist’s work from the 1990s, giving prominence to the most recent pieces. This ensemble of heterogeneous and complex work spans photography and installation, in addition to actions in public spaces, appropriations of language and advertising spaces and the creation of Internet communities. The encounter sees Daniel G. Andújar engage in conversation with the curator of the exhibition, Manuel Borja-Villel, and a critic with extensive knowledge of his output, Iris Dressler, to discuss some of the key aspects of the artist’s work.

Participants

Manuel Borja-Villel. Director of the Museo Reina Sofía and curator of the exhibition Daniel G. Andújar. Operating System (21 January – 4 May, 2015).

Iris Dressler. Researcher and curator. In 1996, together with Hans D. Christ, she founded the independent contemporary art platform Hartware Medien Kunst Verein in Dortmund, subsequently an exhibition space. Since 2005 they have co-directed the Württembergischer Kunstverein centre, in Stuttgart. In both centres she has curated a wide range of exhibitions, including individual shows by Daniel G. Andújar in 1997 and 2008.

Daniel G. Andújar. Visual artist and theorist. A long-time member of irational.org, an international reference point of net.art. He has exhibited internationally and overseen Internet projects such as art.net.dortmund, e-barcelona.org and e-valencia.org, as well as running workshops with artists and social collectives and actively participating in the debate on the artist’s status in the immaterial economy.