Artium (Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain). Next exhibitions

Next exhibitions

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Enrique Chagoya. Cannibal Palimpsest
Curator: Blanca de la Torre
North Gallery. Opening: october 4, friday. Until january 12, 2014

The Mexican artist Enrique Chagoya (Mexico City, 1953), resident in San Francisco for more than two decades, presents what will be his first exhibition in any European museum. In this exhibition he will show a selection of paintings, drawings, engravings, publications, some sculpture and the most characteristic features of his oeuvre: his well-known codices.

Performed on original amate paper (the type of paper used by the Aztecs and other Mesoamerican natives, manufactured with the bark of the amate tree, of the ficus family, which the artist brings from his native Mexico), these codices are read from left to right, just as his pre-Columbian ancestors did and develop a series of scenes which, with a slightly irreverent sense of humour, deploy the characteristic iconographic repertory of Chagoya.

The artist, who combines his creative activities with his work as a lecturer at the prestigious University of Stanford, brings together figures from the world of the comic, cartoons and pop culture with faces that he takes from the world of politics, economics and religion. To all of this he adds others that he has invented himself, thereby creating a multilevel imagery.

His cannibalism is a kind of symbolic anthropophagy, which based on social criticism and political satire develops what he himself has called "reverse anthropology".

All of his work, including the exhibition itself, can be is understood as a temporal, iconographic, symbolic and political palimpsest, an authentic cannibal palimpsest.

enriquechagoya.com Chagoya in Stanford University Chagoya at MoMA

Public Treasure. Artium Collection

Curator: Juan Luis Moraza
South Gallery. Opening: october 4, friday. Until august 31, 2014

The treasures are taken from the collections and initially were closely linked to conquests and all forms of property acquisition and accumulations. Historically, the public collection began with social self-representation: when for the first time, the public is recognised as being the court that decides on matters of legitimacy and ownership. This came about as a result of the modern trend in the creation of museums as public spaces.

The museum in contemporary society has been discussed and relativized to dismiss (to a certain degree) its functions of authority and to replace these with functions of service. But, transversely, the Museum's legitimacy as a public treasure, as a place for study and protection, as an artificial environment of a class of artistic "beings" that represent true deposits of a singular and unique human knowledge, has remained intact.

With works from the Artium Collection, the exhibition Public Treasure sets out to reflect on the functions of the museum as a place for the preparation and management of the common artistic heritage.

Serendipity. A project by Tania Candiani for the Praxis programme of Artium

Curator: Blanca de la Torre
North Gallery, Praxis Room. From september 18 until december 2013

Serendipity: 1: Discovery or unearthing, by accident and intuition, of things unrelated to what one was asking about. 2: Accidental discovery or unearthing while something different was being looked into.

Serendipity is a âlaboratory of fortuitous meetingsâ, a kind of workshop of discoveries that are not based on a specific search but on sheer chance. Tania Candiani applies the scientific and empirical method applied in pursuit of accidental findings, in which the participation of the visitor will be essential.

Based on the site of the laboratory, the recommended "modes of use" will be drawn up, which rather than restricting the user, will lead him/her into a world of discovery and invention.

As the starting point is not the search for a specific (or real) discovery, the interpretations of the scientific process may be symbolic, poetic approximations, impossible inventionsâ¦. Basically, they can take on any form.

taniacandiani.com