The central aim of this exhibition is, therefore, to explore the ways in which contemporary artists have used cartographic language to subvert traditional systems of representation, propose new formulas or suggest the very impossibility of representing a globalised, ever more chaotic world.
We map our world in order to gain a glimpse of the reality in which we live. Since time immemorial, maps have been used to represent, translate and encode all kinds of physical, mental and emotional territories. Our representation of the world has evolved in recent centuries and, today, with globalisation and the Internet, traditional concepts of time and space, along with methods for representing the world and knowledge, have been definitively transformed. In response to this paradigm shift, contemporary artists question systems of representation and suggest new formulas for classifying reality. The ultimate aim of Contemporary Cartographies. Drawing Thought, an exhibition that seeks to draw a map formed by cartographies created by twentieth- and twenty-first century artists, is to invite the visitor to question both the systems of representation that we use and the ideas that underpin them. The exhibition, organised and produced by ”la Caixa” Foundation, is comprises more than 140 works in a wide range of formats – from maps and drawings to video installations and digital art – on loan from the collections of several major contemporary art galleries. The artists represented include such essential figures as Salvador Dalí, Paul Klee, Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein, Gordon Matta-Clark, Richard Hamilton, Mona Hatoum and Richard Long, shoulder-to-shoulder with a roster of contemporary artists, including Art & Language, Artur Barrio, Carolee Schneemann, Ana Mendieta, Erick Beltrán, On Kawara, Alighiero Boetti, Thomas Hirschhorn and Francis Alÿs, amongst others. Finally, the exhibition is completed by a series of revealing documents drawn up by experts from other fields, such as Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Lewis Carroll and Carl Gustav Jung.
Contemporary Cartographies Drawing Thought.
Organised and produced by: Obra Social ”la Caixa”.
Curator: Helena Tatay.
Dates: 21 November 2012 till 24 February 2013.
Venue: CaixaForum Madrid (Paseo del Prado, 36). Madrid.
The artists whose works are featured in the exhibition are:
Ignasi Aballí / Francis Alÿs / Efrén Álvarez / Giovanni Anselmo / Art & Language / Zbynék Baladrán / Artur Barrio / Lothar Baumgarthen / Erick Beltrán / Ursula Biemann / Cezary Bodzianowski / Alighiero Boettti / Christian Boltanski / Marcel Broodthaers / Stanley Brouwn / Trisha Brown / Bureau d’Études / Los Carpinteros / Constant / Raimond Chaves y Gilda / Mantilla / Salvador Dalí / Guy Debord / Michael Drucks / Marcel Duchamp / El Lissitzky / Valie Export / Evru / Öyvind Fahlström / Félix González-Torres / Milan Grygar / Richard Hamilton / Zarina Hashmi / Mona Hatoum / David Hammons / Thomas Hirschhorn / Bas Jan Ader / On Kawara / Allan Kaprow / William Kentridge / Robert Kinmont / Paul Klee / Yves Klein / Hilma af Klint / Guillermo Kuitca / Emma Kunz / Mark Lombardi / Rogelio López Cuenca / Richard Long / Cristina Lucas / Anna Maria Maiolino / Kris Martin / Gordon Matta-Clark / Ana Mendieta / Norah Napaljarri Nelson / Dorothy Napangardi / Rivane Neuenschwander / Perejaume / Grayson Perry / Santiago Ramón y Cajal / Vahida Ramujkic / Till Roeskens / Rotor / Ralph / Rumney / Edward Ruscha / Carolee Schneemann / Robert Smithson / Saul Steinberg / Hiroshi Sugimoto / Willy Tjungurrayi / Joaquín Torres García / Isidoro Valcárcel Medina / Adriana Varejao / Oriol Vilapuig / Kara Walker / Adolf Wölfli.
