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Chus Martínez – The Current

When

Where
Mudam Auditorium
Followed by

Screening of Sea Lovers by Ingo Niermann

Language

English

Fee

8€ (exhibition entry included)

Booking required

Fully booked!

Limited admission

Subject to modification or cancellation

Face mask mandatory

Social distancing must be respected

Is the Ocean an art space? With this question in mind, curator and researcher Chus Martínez has explored different concerns with the state of the ocean and the discourse around it. Through the three-year programme The Current she has engaged with the most pressing issues related to oceans and explored contemporary solutions in relation to art.

‘The world of art is still too dependent on “interpreting the sea” as a site for the extension of land-based activities: shipping, colonial travel, warfare, and communication, including networked undersea cables... And the work of the sea seems in no need for the world of art... But I feel my intuition is not crazy, that if we have been orienting our form of life around the principles of the industry, of production, of the capital, there is hope that we could do a similar thing around biological life.’

Chus Martínez (b. 1972, Ponteceso) is the director of the Art Institute at the Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz (FHNW) Academy of Art and Design in Basel. Martínez has been the Chief Curator at El Museo Del Barrio, New York. She was the Head of Department for Documenta 13, and Member of Core Agent Group (2012). Previously she was Chief Curator at MACBA, Barcelona (2008 to 2011), Director of the Frankfurter Kunstverein (2005 to 2008) and Artistic Director of Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2002 to 2005). Martínez curated the National Pavilion of Catalonia for the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and the Cyprus National Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennale (2005). In 2014–15 she served as curatorial ‘alliance’ for the 14th edition of the Istanbul Biennial (2015); in 2008 she served as a Curatorial Advisor for Carnegie International and in 2010 for the 29th Bienal de São Paulo. In 2021, Martínez was included in ArtReview’s annual list of the most influential people in the field of contemporary art.

Chus Martinez
© Photo : Nici Jost