Sebald Variations
11 March–26 July 2015
Opening: Tuesday, 10 March, 7:30 pm
Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona
c/Montalegre, 5
08001 Barcelona
Spain
With original materials of W. G. Sebald and the participation of the artists: Carlos Amorales, Mariana Castillo Deball, Simon Faithfull, Andrea Geyer, Núria Güell, Susan Hiller, Pablo Helguera, Josiah McElheny, Trevor Paglen, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Taryn Simon, Jan Peter Tripp, Guido Van der Werve and Jeremy Wood; and the writers: Julià de Jòdar, Reinaldo Laddaga, Valeria Luiselli and Piedad Bonnett.
An exhibition conceptualized by Jorge Carrión and Pablo Helguera.
Sebald Variations is a conversation between art and literature. It takes as its starting point, the work and the figure of the German writer W.G. Sebald (1944–2001), the author of some of the key books of the turn of the last century, such as The Rings of Saturn and Austerlitz. Sebald’s universe is shown today in the works of contemporary artists and writers who have been influenced by the author.
Sebald’s works are a hybrid of images and texts, of travel writing, novels and essays. They are autobiographical yet interested in collective history. Profoundly poetic, and at times provocatively nostalgic, they explore most of the great themes of the 20th century: migrations, individual memory, historic discourses, political violence, trauma, the figure of the author, travel, tourism, intertextuality, archives, documentaries and art and literature as ethical instruments of restitution.
Designed as an experiment, the exhibition brings together works by international renowned artists and writers that are explicitly or implicitly Sebaldian. It is both a visual and textual essay that gathers the voice of the author and other artists and writers working in different fields and examines the way a number of Sebald’s conceptual strategies—the use of images with texts, his own peculiar reflections on history, the unexpected juxtaposition of scenes, the fake, the digression—have influenced the visual arts and literature since his death, a little more than ten years ago.
Sebald Variations is presented as part of Kosmopolis 15. The Amplified Literature Festival , being held at the CCCB from 18 to 22 March, which pays tribute to W. G. Sebald with two conversations, one between Camille de Toledo and Cristina Rivera Garza , and the other between David Grossman and Carles Torner, who will explore the German writer’s legacy in depth.
Publication
A bilingual catalogue (Catalan/English & Spanish/English) accompanies the exhibition.
Blog
Sebaldiana is the digital magazine accompanying the exhibition.
