EVERYDAY UTOPIAS at La Centrale électrique

La Centrale électrique, the European Centre for Contemporary Art of the City of Brussels, presents until September 23, 2007 her 5th exhibition:
"Everyday Utopias", a very special selection by Curator Glòria Picazo, director of the Centre d'Art la Panera.

This diverse and questioning exhibition on young Spanish art wants the public to reflect on our society arousing emotion, interpellation, adhesion or rebuttal. Paintings, photos, videos and installations lead the visitor into a whirlwind of ideas, which can provoke or bring about just the opposite.

The Collection of the Centre d'Art la Panera, started in 1997, brings together important work of young artists, representative for the evolution and research of Contemporary Spanish Art.

With the support of la Generalitat de Catalunya, Institut Ramon Llull, Instituto Cervantes, Catalan Institute for Cultural Industries-Brussels and the Spanish Embassy-Brussels.

This collection of contemporary Spanish art has gradually been put together from acquisitions made during the five editions of the Biennal d’Art Leandre Cristòfol, which has been celebrated in the city of Lleida since 1997. Since the beginning, this biennial - which Catalan and Spanish artist can only access by invitation - has aimed to offer a panoramic view of Spanish art, based on a reduced selection by young artists whose professional careers had already deserved special attention at the time they were invited to participate.
In addition to offering the city of Lleida this artistic programme and making it appealing to selected artists, this biennial has also had an added objective: to create a contemporary art collection that in some way would guarantee the setting up of what is today’s Centre d’Art la Panera.

Artistic activity in the city of Lleida between 1997, the year of the first edition of the biennial, and 2003, the year in which the new contemporary arts centre opened, enabled the creation of a breeding ground, which would act as the base for the future arts centre, as well as extending the potential audience interested in contemporary creativity. But perhaps its main objective was to create a public collection of contemporary art for the city that was both unique and meaningful within Catalonia’s artistic panorama.

After 10 years of continuous work, the collection offers a broad vision of what has happened in Spain since 1990 until today, with work from 42 artists, completed with a significant section dedicated to mono-channel video and another section that brings together special publications and artist books. The almost 100 works that currently make up the collection offer themes that have been crucial in the development of art over the last two decades: the current limits on painting and its reconsideration based on non-painting; the blurring of the lines between art, architecture and design; drawing as an original language, updated in today's world through video and new technologies. At the base of all this lay two essential reflections: the analysis of the introspective processes made by the artists and the reflection of the artist about the other. In short, the transformations of the individual in relation to the community or, put another way, the individual faced with the socio-political.

With each new presentation of the collection, the aim is to prefer new dialogues among the works that cause different assessments to arise and unexpected relationships, but full of content, in an attempt not only to show and think in exclusively artistic terms, but so that the works of art enable us to rethink the world and offer us the opportunity to critically position ourselves before it on the basis of creative experience.

Thanks to Glòria Picazo, Director of the Centre d’Art la Panera

Info:

Everyday Utopias
Collection of the Museum of Art of the city of Lleida
13/06 > 23/09/2007
La Centrale électrique / De Elektriciteitscentrale
European Centre for Contemporary Art
Place Sainte-Catherine 44 - 1000 Bruxelles

ARTISTS:
Antoni Abad, Ignasi Aballí, Ana Laura Aláez, Martín Azúa/Gerard Moliné, Txomin Badiola, Jordi Bernadó, David Bestué/Marc Vives, Neus Buira, Cabello/Carceller, Daniel Canogar, Javier Codesal, Jordi Colomer, Carles Congost, Ricardo Comanda, Patrícia Dauder, Alicia Framis, Martí Guixé,
La Robot, Miquel Mont, Julia Montilla, Juan Luis Moraza, Marina Núñez, Javier Peñafiel, Alberto Peral, Marta Petit, Concha Prada, Fernando Renes, MP & MP Rosado, Francesc Ruiz, Montserrat Soto, Eulàlia Valldosera