Diagrams, 1994 – ongoing,

Ricardo Basbaum in conversation with Alexander Alberro

Join us at e-flux where artist Ricardo Basbaum will present his book Diagrams, 1994–ongoing (Errant Bodies Press, 2016), in conversation with art historian and critic Alexander Alberro. They will discuss Basbaum’s work in relation to the legacy of conceptual art, as well as Latin American neoconcrete art and the role it has opened up for the spectator in the process of production.

Diagrams is the first comprehensive study of Ricardo Basbaum’s diagrams, cataloging a body of work that has been integral to his artistic practice. In turn, the book offers an invaluable resource for anyone engaging with non-linear thinking and compositional work. Produced as a result of the artist’s exhibition at the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporáneo (2013), Diagrams, 1994 – ongoing brings a survey of the diagrams created and exhibited by Ricardo Basbaum in recent years, both as autonomous pieces or part of installations and other forms of action. In his own words, Basbaum takes the diagram as a “tool for intervention (…) a sort of drawing (or visual poem) that mediates the dynamic flow between words and images – discursive and non-discursive spaces – or literary and plastic spaces, etc”. Three essays by the artist are included here, followed by extensive documentation of the GCAC exhibition, and a large selection of his diagrams. Contributors include Guy Brett, Cuauhtémoc Medina, Emily Pethick, Cecília Cotrim, Monika Szewczyk, Renata Marquez, Luiz Cláudio da Costa, Santiago Garcia Navarro, Bojana Piskur, Dieter Roelstraete, Francisco Ali-Brouchoud, Brandon LaBelle, and Daniela Mattos, whose texts were assembled in the shape of a collective-conversation, where topics around diagram, alterity, group practice, temporality and affect are discussed in direct relation to the work of Ricardo Basbaum.

Alexander Alberro is the Virginia B. Wright Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at Barnard College, Columbia University. His most recent book, Abstraction in Reverse: The Reconfigured Spectator in Mid-Twentieth Century Latin American Art, is published by University of Chicago Press. He has also written and edited numerous volumes on contemporary art, and contributed essays to a broad array of critical journals and exhibition catalogs.

Ricardo Basbaum is an artist and writer, investigating art as an intermediating device and platform for the articulation between sensorial experience, sociability, and language. Since the late 1980s, he has been nurturing a vocabulary specific to his work, applying it in a particular way to each new project. Recent solo-projects include Você gostaria de participar de uma experiência artística? (Dragão do Mar, Fortaleza, 2018), Corte-contaminação-contato (Galeria Jaqueline Martins, São Paulo, 2017) the production of the artist as a collective conversation (Audain Gallery, Vancouver), nbp-etc: escolher linhas de repetição (Galeria Laura Alvim, Rio de Janeiro), Diagramas (Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, 2013), and re-projecting (london)(The Showroom, London, 2013). His work was recently included at the 20th Sydney Biennial (2016) and at The School of Kyiv – Kyiv Biennial 2015 (The House of Clothes, Kyiv). He was the artist in residence at the Audain Gallery (Vancouver) in October 2014, and at the Audain Gallery, Simon Fraser University (2014). He is the author of Manual do artista-etc (Azougue, 2013), Ouvido de corpo, ouvido de grupo (Universidade Nacional de Córdoba, 2010), and Além da pureza visual (Zouk, 2007). He was a Professor at the Instituto de Artes of the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (1998-2016), Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago (2013) and currently works as Professor at Universidade Federal Fluminense, Brazil.

Ricardo Basbaum, Will Holder and Emily Pethick (eds.)
Ricardo Basbaum: Diagrams, 1994 - ongoing
Errant Bodies Press, 2016

Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-9889375-8-1
226 pages / 3 varieties of cover with interior fold-outs
Design: Will Holder

For more information, contact program@e-flux.com.