08.08 — 10.13.14
Curators: La Ene
Malba presents C-32 Sucursal. La Ene en Malba, a new edition of the Contemporary program dedicated to current, local, and regional art. On this occasion, an exhibition is presented dedicated to La Ene, New Museum of Contemporary Art Energy, an institutional criticism project founded in 2010 in Buenos Aires.
C-32 Sucursal is conceived as a temporary transfer of La Ene's activities to the Malba space, occupying the Contemporary program room, the façade, and the museum's esplanade. La Ene's collection—comprising 16 pieces—and archive will be on display. In addition, a series of workshops, interventions, and residencies will be carried out jointly by both institutions. The exhibition is coordinated and curated by a team composed of Gala Berger, Sofía Dourron, Marina Reyes Franco, and Santiago Villanueva.
“The La Ene collection arose in response to the constant problems faced by museums in their reserves, problems of storage and also conservation,” explains Marina Reyes Franco, one of the founders and current director of La Ene. Faced with this situation, the new museum set out to overcome these obstacles and seek alternatives to traditional concepts of collection and institutional heritage. The guiding principle of the collection is that the works can be stored on a hard drive and activated anywhere.
As part of the exhibition, Sofía Olascoaga (Mexico) and Radamés “Juni” Figueroa (Puerto Rico) will carry out different projects as residents. Olascoaga will continue her research “Between Utopia and Disenchantment” on alternative education in Cuernavaca, Mexico, which has aspects to explore in Argentina. The residency aims to share the work and research process derived from the historical experiences already addressed in Cuernavaca, which generated reflections, practices, and models of community life and social action from psychoanalytic, feminist, alternative education, and social movement perspectives between the 1950s and 1980s.
For his part, Figueroa—in line with his latest projects at the Whitney Biennial and the Sculpture Center in New York—will create a large structure in the museum's central hall. A habitable space that invites public participation; a platform, meeting point, and reflection within the framework of the exhibition.
Luis Camnitzer will present his text-work El museo es una escuela (2009–2014), a site-specific installation that changes depending on its location on the facades of different art institutions. First exhibited in Buenos Aires at La Ene in 2013, Camnitzer's installation will be on loan to Malba for one year. The complete text of the work reads: “The museum is a school: the artist learns to communicate, the public learns to make connections.”
Exhibition presentation text by Gala Berger, Sofía Dourron, Marina Reyes Franco, and Santiago Villanueva, here.
About La Ene
The new Museum of Contemporary Art Energy —La Ene— was founded in August 2010 as a form of constructive criticism of the art system in Buenos Aires. La Ene is located on the first floor of a commercial gallery that houses several art galleries, design and architecture studios, artists' workshops, clothing stores, and art bookstores.
Within this framework, we decided to create a “new museum” for the city that, based on the precepts of new museology, would be critical of its surroundings. La Ene is a space that promotes the circulation of local and international works and artists who are little known in the city, with a specific emphasis on Latin America.
By creating projects for our space, we can broaden the possibilities for debate on contemporary art and together create a new institution. Over the past four years, we have carried out an institutional critique project by creating a new space for discussion, exhibition, and exchange of knowledge and connections both within and outside the country.
La Ene runs four programs in parallel:
1) Educational. Includes training workshops, talks by guest artists and curators, as well as the Latin American Art History Conference.
2) Projects. These are developed jointly with guest artists and managers to create a long-term project.
3) Exhibitions. Program showcasing local and international artists.
4) Residency. It welcomes artists, curators, and other cultural actors.
To date, we have held 34 exhibitions, both at La Ene's headquarters on Santa Fe Avenue and at venues and events in Colombia, Brazil, Canada, and Puerto Rico. These exhibitions also include the recent touring of our collection, which began at the Darling Foundry in Montreal and continued at MACRO in Rosario and Malba. This year, we will continue to welcome residents, with participating artists from Argentina, Italy, Peru, Brazil, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Puerto Rico. This group of artists and curators will join the more than 40 residents that La Ene has already welcomed and supported in conducting research, developing projects, and exhibiting their work to the local scene. This year, continuing the effort begun in 2012 and in line with our interest in participating in the development of thought and reflection on contemporary art in Latin America, we will once again hold the Latin American Contemporary Art Conference, this time at the Museo del Libro y de la Lengua at the end of November. This event aims to be another opportunity for contemporary art producers and academics interested in its current practice and recent history to come together.
