70s LABORATORIES.
Poetics / politics and crisis of modernity
in the context of the Basque Country in the 1970s.
May 14th 2009 – September 6th 2009
Alameda de Recalde, 30
Bilbao 48009
Starting on May 14th 2009, sala rekalde is hosting the collective show 70s Laboratories. Poetics / politics and crisis of modernity in the context of the Basque Country in the 1970s. The show brings together the renovating experiences of creators from different fields, who, following their creative initiation in the groups linked to the Basque School and in the Pamplona Meetings, were to produce the complex artistic and cultural framework of the final years of the Francoist dictatorship. These initiatives involved a collision between the avant-garde and the popular, between nationalism and internationalism, and, at the same time, they converged in a fertile socio-cultural magma, which gave rise to numerous expressions, ranging from the creation of new groups and manifestoes to music festivals, happenings, journals, posters, etc.
The 1970s saw the emergence of genuine artistic-cultural initiatives which, at the same time, constituted a formidable constellation of individual and group dissidences. This was a social and creative conglomerate in rebellion against the Francoist dictatorship, and it contributed to numerous exchanges. Besides, from 1976 onwards, in the new context of the political transition towards a regime of political freedoms, other forms of artistic and political action emerged. This new poetics found expression in ludic, satirical, ironic, experimental or nihilist programs involving a diversity of manifestoes, groups, journals, music festivals, meetings and other events, fostering a transversal experience amongst creators from different fields.
This show reviews those years: the material, imaginary and intellectual vestiges of that period of the appearance of new expressions of modernity. The show constitutes a deferred action on the 1970s; it is an exercise in recollection that tries to inquire without nostalgia and with a critical conscience into the genuine climate of that time, into some dissident and utopian imaginaries, and into the ambivalences of artistic-cultural creation in its relation with political action.
Laboratory 1: Art of Action and New Poetics/Politics. This first laboratory is centred on the Pamplona Meetings (1972), the emergence of feminist actions and imaginaries, agit-prop and the collaborations of artists (ecology, Basque, amnesty, etc.) Also present will be publications like Cloc (1978-1981), Euskadi Sioux (1979) and POTT (Bilbo, 1978-80), together with the group Txomin Barullo (1977- ), the Aya Workshop (1975-1986), the library of Amable Arias, and individuals such as Vicente Ameztoy, Fernando and Vicente Roscubas, Mikel Díez Alaba, José Ramón Morquillas, and many others.
Laboratory 2: Restricted Action and Experimental Languages. This second axis is centred on sonorous experimentation and the electroacoustic music of José Luis Isasa and the Enkoari group, without forgetting the importance of the visual arts and cinema that will be represented by creators such as Jose Julián Bakedano, José Antonio Sistiaga, Rafael Balerdi, Javier Aguirre, Iván Zulueta and Juan Carlos Eguillor. The representatives of experimental poetry will include figures such as Joxean Artze, Amable Arias, Ricardo Ugarte, Pedro Manterola and others.
Concurrently, several round-table debates will be held that will make up a third laboratory:
Laboratory 3: Deferred Action and Crisis of Modernity/Post-modernity. This laboratory has a theoretical-critical dimension, as it will be developed through seminars. It will inquire into the genealogy of new poetic-political practices, updating an archive of events and actions, and it will likewise try to elucidate the specific forms of the emergence of modernity and its critical developments. It will deal with questions like the modulations and interferences between the local-national and international contexts, vanguard poetics and its overlapping with the identitarian and the popular, the utopian impulse and democratic values, forms of authorship and the institutionalisation of the arts.
From june 18th 2009, The Abstract Cabinet of sala rekalde will host a project by the artist Carles Guerra A monument to radical moments. Exclusively devoted to the year 1979, it will centre on the analysis of its artistic, cultural and above all artistic panorama of the following years.
