VIEWS FROM THE EXHIBITION "VISUAL ORIGIN. FILM | VIDEO | INFORMATION", 2024.
PHOTO: MIQUEL COLL
Exhibition
From February 29 to May 26, 2024
From February 29 to May 26, 2024
Visual Origin. Film | Video | Information
Founded during the period known as the Spanish Transition, from 1977 to 1978 the collective Film Video Informació (FVI) explored the enormous possibilities of the new audiovisual media.
In June 1977, a group of experimental film and video makers, photographers, poets and artists working with alternative media founded FVI/Film Vídeo Informació, in Barcelona. The initial nucleus was made up of Eugènia Balcells, Eugeni Bonet, Juan Bufill, Carles Hac Mor, Manuel Huerga, Ignacio Julià and Luis Serra.
The members of FVI wanted to explore and promote – individually and collectively – the possibilities of experimental cinema and video in an interdisciplinary context and according to a broad and progressive notion of the arts. To do this, they organised screenings and edited two issues of Visual magazine (1977–78), coordinated by Balcells, Bonet and Huerga. Their objective was to open debates and reflect on the audiovisual field at a time that was deemed foundational: a moment of political transition, liberation, and mental and sensory opening. Among the authors promoted and supported by FVI and Visual were Chantal Akerman, Anthony McCall and Michael Snow, as well as a classic like Carl Theodor Dreyer.
This exhibition will focus on the attitude and project that FVI and Visual represented as foundational, critical and creative initiatives, resulting in numerous subsequent manifestations and collaborations in the visual and audiovisual fields.
The exhibition presents a selection of works that will shed light on some of the contributions of the members of this group made between 1976 and 1989, both as joint collaborations and as individual works, especially in experimental film, video and television.
In 1979, the FVI group was fragmented when some of its members were conscripted into military service. Visual magazine would come to an end after its second issue. However, most of the members continued to collaborate on common projects. For example, Bonet, Bufill and Huerga were the promoters of the exhibition Cinéma d’avant-garde en Espagne. Une anthologie (Avant-garde Cinema in Spain. An Anthology), finally curated by Eugeni Bonet and Manuel Palacio, and presented at the Centre Pompidou in 1982. The exhibition rescued the figure of José Val del Omar from long oblivion.
Bonet became one of the first promoters, theorists and programmers of video art in Spain. In the premises that were the headquarters of FVI – at carrer Berlinès in Barcelona – Rafael Tous opened the legendary Metrònom, whose programming was advised by three members of FVI. And in 1985, Huerga and Bufill created, together with Jordi Beltran, the programme Arsenal, on TV3, an audiovisual experiment that saw the introduction of counter-cultural languages into mainstream television.
This project is part of a new series of small-format exhibitions that will explore the emergence of magazines and periodicals as a space for critical thinking, but also as foundational gestures capable of generating new contexts for artistic practice.
The exhibition is complemented by various screenings in the MACBA auditorium and in the Filmoteca de Catalunya.
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Visual Origin. Film | Video | Information
5 artists
curated by
És autor de llibres de poesia com Subespecies humanas (Península, 1992) i Antinaufragios (Vaso Roto, 2014). Ha traduït del català la poesia d’Andreu Vidal (Huesos de sol, Rosa Cúbica, 2010). Ha desenvolupat una àmplia tasca en fotografia, vídeo, cinema experimental i periodisme cultural, especialment com a crític d’art al diari La Vanguardia, i anteriorment com a crític de cinema i de música. La seva obra fotogràfica és abstracta i se centra en temes com la llum, l’energia, l’aigua i el fluir del temps. La seva mostra individual més recent és Tiempo y luz (PHotoEspaña 14, Galeria Joan Gaspar, Madrid), on presentava un selecció de fotografies en diàleg amb dos vídeos. Ha comissariat exposicions com Tintín a Barcelona. Homenatge a Hergé (Fundació Joan Miró, 1984) i programes de cinema experimental com Cinemavisió (MACBA, 2006). Autor també de guions de còmic dibuixats per Guillem Cifré, Pere Joan i Antoni Calonge.
Va ser creador (amb Manuel Huerga i Jordi Beltran) i guionista (amb Jordi Beltran) del programa de televisió d’avantguarda Arsenal (TV3, 1985-1987), amb emissions com Crits, Nico-Garrel: la cicatriu interior, La Terra de les 1000 Danses o Cap a l’origen: les portes del passat (aquesta última en col·laboració amb Eugenio Trías). Va ser director dels vídeos televisius El viatge de Robert Wyatt (1987), inclòs en la sèrie Arsenal, i Buñuel (1989-1990), tots dos en col·laboració amb Manuel Huerga (codirector) i Aixalà (muntatge). Entre la seva obra audiovisual recent cal esmentar Signaturas (síntesis) i Travelling-Light (2008) i el programa Apropiaciones (2011, televisió, La 2 / CCCB, sèrie Soy Cámara), aquest últim codirigit amb el col·lectiu CANADA.
El seu cinema experimental s’ha difós en mostres com la XVI Biennal de Sao Paulo (1981), Cinéma d’avant-garde en Espagne. Une anthologie (Centre Georges Pompidou, París, 1982), Surface / Ground. Exploring the planar in Video and Film (Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, EUA, 2010) o Del éxtasis al arrebato (CCCB, Barcelona, Anthology Film Archives, Nova York, National Gallery of Art, Washington, MNCARS Reina Sofia, Madrid, Jeu de Paume, París, Tate Modern, Londres, 2009-2011).
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Visual Origin. Film | Video | Information
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Teaser of the exhibition “Visual origen. Film | vídeo | informació”
Teaser of the exhibition “Visual origen. Film | vídeo | informació”
In June 1977, a group of experimental film and video makers, photographers, poets and artists working with alternative media founded FVI/Film Vídeo Informació, in Barcelona. The initial nucleus was made up of Eugènia Balcells, Eugeni Bonet, Juan Bufill, Carles Hac Mor, Manuel Huerga, Ignacio Julià and Luis Serra.
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