Cuco Suarez
Total Fear
19 May - 25 July 2004
La Caixa Foundation
Sala Montcada
Montcada, 14, 08003 Barcelona
Tel.: 902 22 30 40
Tue to Sat 11-3 pm and 4-8 pm
Sundays and holidays, 11 am to 3 pm Free admission
www.fundacio.lacaixa.es/salamontcada
“la Caixa” Foundation’s Sala Montcada analyses the mechanisms of individual panic and collective psychosis
Total fear
Fear of otherness, but also of oneself. Situations of psychosis, panic and anguish repeated day after day. Wars of mass destruction and terrorist massacres, yet also mental imbalance and split personalities. We live immersed in a ‘geography of fear’ that distorts the terms of human relations and exchange. This definition, conceived by sociologist Mike Davis, is the basis for Total fear, an exhibition that explores in “la Caixa” Foundation’s Sala Montcada the mechanisms and ambivalence of fear in its individual and collective forms. Under the title The dream of reason, artist Cuco Suarez (Pola de Laviana, Asturias, 1961) presents a claustrophobic installation (symbolizing the space of oneself) that analyses the psychotic and endogenous aspects of individual panic through interviews with psychiatrists, patients and pharmacists, continuously projected inside a space lined with drawings of striations taken from Ridgest Riley’s painting. In parallel, the Xhafabdessemed group, made up of artists Sislej Xhafa (Peja, Kosovo, 1970) and Adel Abdessemed (Constantine, Algeria, 1971), present The second total fear, an installation that engages visitors in reflection on the fears that grip all of society using a symbolic, conceptual curtain of objects hung from the ceiling, evocations of contemporary fears: ex-votos, crosses, mines and kefias that symbolize the three monotheistic religions and that appear as metaphors for aggressiveness and terror toward otherness.
The exhibition Total fear, curated by Teresa Macri, can be visited at “la Caixa” Foundation’s Sala Montcada (Montcada, 14), from 19 May to 25 July 2004.
Sala Montcada, Fundacion “la Caixa”, Barcelona
“La Caixa” Foundation’s Sala Montcada is embarking upon a new cycle of artistic projects, faithful to the avant-garde, experimental spirit that has guided its programming from the outset. If up to now it has worked as a training and dissemination platform for emerging curators who designed the programming for an entire season, as of this year each exhibition will be conceived as a laboratory for dialogue between artist, spectator, curator and the space itself. It is an attempt to turn the hall into a cultural, social, political and aesthetically permeable space where the absence of hierarchy between curator, artist and visitor facilitates a creative, fluid and productive dialogue. The season will be made up of four exhibitions, each with a different curator (one Spaniard and three from outside Spain), who will invite a Spanish and another foreign artist to carry out a common project, specifically suited to the space. At the end of each season, “la Caixa” Foundation will publish a catalogue featuring texts, reference works, pictures and all of the activities or discussions held in relation with them.
14 October to 7 December, 2003
Montse Romani (curator) / Ursula Biemann and Maria Ruido (artists) 18 December, 2003 to 22 February, 2004
Moritz Kung (curator) / Lara Almarcegui and Adrian Schiess (artists) 4 March to 9 May, 2004
Jose Roca (curator) / Jose Alejandro Restrepo and Juan Luis Moraza (artists) 18 May to 25 July, 2004
Teresa Macri (curator) / Cuco Suarez and Xhafabdessemed (Sislej Xhafa + Adel Abdessemed (artists)
For more informartion and graphic material, please contact:
Ines Martinez Ribas. Communications Department of “la Caixa” Foundation
Av. Diagonal, 621, torre 2, planta 8. 08028 Barcelona
Telephone: 93 404 60 73. Fax: 93 404 61 16 / 60 80
ines.martinez.fundacio@lacaixa.es
