FIG BILBAO 8th Edition
INTERNATIONAL PRINTMAKING & ART ON PAPER FESTIVAL
November 14-17, 2019
Palacio Euskalduna
Abandoibarra Etorb. 4, 48011 Bilbao, Bizkaia, SPAIN
Curator:
ALICIA CANDIANI
Selected artists:
IAN BALLANTYNE, MICAELA MUZI, LAUREL PONTURO, JUAN REOS
Awarded best project among the 8 cubes:
MICAELA MUZI
“The Cubes of Temptations (Cubos de las Tentaciones)” is a FIG Bilbao´s project thought as an utopian space to carry out projects based on works on paper, installing them into a wooden cube as a container. The artist plays with this wooden space to explore multiple possibilities of explore the work on paper. The project has the aim of giving visibility, support and promotion to emerging artists and artistic practices based on paper.
The “Cubes of Temptations” want to give visibility, support, promotion and enhance emerging artistic practices. The cubes are offered by the organizers as utopian spaces for projects based on work on paper, which embrace-coexist-dialogue together with a continent shaped like a wooden cube, which in turn can be transformed into content. For this they selected a maximum of 8 projects from universities or guest art centers. Within the framework of the 2019 edition, with Argentina as a guest country, Proyecto´ace was convened to present emerging artists in 4 of the cubes being in charge of the UMSA, University of the Argentine Social Museum also of Argentina, the other four.
In this context, the curatorship of the cubes was for me a very welcome challenge and completely in tune with my searches (theoretical and practical) about expansion of artistic practices that involve printmaking and art on paper. My first decision, when we put the bow boat to Bilbao, was that all the artists presented had worked (either scholarships, in residences or with specific projects) or were related to the activities of Proyecto´ace. In this way, the cubes would express our vision of contemporary printmaking practices and at the same time show (in most cases) projects designed and produced in our workshops where we work collaboratively. I looked for emerging artists who, due to their professional commitment, conceptual strength and technical expertise, are treading strongly in the international arena, presenting their concepts through print media, leaving Laurel Ponturo, Ian Ballantyne, Juan Reos and Micaela Muzi in the final selection. The artists were then asked, based on what they produced with us, to make a new installation proposal for the cubes that considered it as a space to intervene and not simply as a container to hang the work. AC
ALICIA CANDIANI 