PARLAR SOBRE, PARLAR PER, PARLAR. LES FORMES DE L’ENUNCIACIÓ SUBALTERNA A 25%. CATALONIA AT VENICE

In 2013 Catalan culture was present in the “Eventi Collaterali” of the Venice Biennial for the third time. The project chosen was 25%. Catalonia at Venice, curated by Jordi Ballo from an idea by Francesc Torres, with the participation of Torres himself and the filmmaker Mercedes Alvarez. It also involved eight unemployed men and women, selected from a wide social spectrum, who were asked to choose two objects: one from their own home and another from the permanent collection of the MACBA. The final exhibition included these objects as well as the photographs taken by Torres, who had shared the daily lives of the eight participants. Similarly, Alvarez filmed their visit to the MACBA and documented their opinions about the function of art and their process of selection. In this paper, we analyze this project as an example of the difficulty of any attempt to open a new space of enunciation with full capacity of decision in contemporary arts and politics. We use the discourses and images of the exhibition and...