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BLOG
-New blog entry for February 2010 on the silence of
immigrants to Catalonia when faced with xenophobic comments from out of Catalan
nationalist political circles. In Spanish, click this
link
EDUCATION
-I recently led a workshop on urban space and public intervention
for the students of ABK Maastricht, through the independent art school
Metáfora, Barcelona. Ephemeral Urban Intervention: A Slice of
Barcelona is part of the International Workshop. From November
13-17 in Barcelona.
I frequently guest lecture and do seminars for this school, which
also has the best degree-granting art therapy program in
Spain.
-Currently I am teaching Design Analysis and Criticism
I at the Escola Eina,
Barcelona. The course includes a module on analysis, where we brought in concept
lattices to analyze design problems, a module on criticism, including a project
of critical tagging of the public space, and a section on design and rhetoric.
The final part of the course was dedicated to specific traditions or tendencies
in design criticism, such as functionalism, sustainability, elite design and
feminism.
Students are contributing to a blog where they engage design,
culture and other issues both critically and analytically: www.agoradisseny.blogspot.com.
-In the summer of 2009 I taught a summer session Humanities
course at Emily Carr University
, Vancouver, Canada. Held from July
6 to August 19, 2009, the course dealt with food politics, hunger and
agricultural models, and also examined questions of taste dominance in
gastronomy and its relation to geopolitics. "The Geopolitics of Food:
Hunger, Culture and Contemporary Dietary Ideologies" looked as
well at regional and local food and diet ideologies in the Vancouver
context, in light of recent research.
-"The Perfect Host" (L'amphitryon parfait),
a Jeffrey Swartz workshop that delved into the concept of the "host" in
relation to contemporary art. From February 2-5, 2009, at the Haute École d'Art (HEART) de Perpignan,
France.
The workshop dealt with the presence of the artist together with
the artist's work, an attention to details, the creation of codes and languages
for specific "occasions", concern for the aesthetic and social experience
of the spectator-receiver, the mediation of pleasure, and the desire to see
the spectator participate in the definition and completion of the work. All
these factors bring contemporary artists closer to the world of the
host. What does it mean in the present day to speak of the artist as host,
or the host as
artist?
I engage some of these issues in a text on designer Martí Guixé
and his food designing, soon to be released by Corraini, Mantova,
Italy.
PROJECTS
-Thought for Food: A Gastronomical Reading
Room . A project by Jeffrey Swartz for a reading room on food and gastronomy.
In artist Kristina Lee Podesva's public
project Vehicle, at
Langara College, Vancouver, Canada. From January 13th to February 10th,
2009.
The
Jeffrey Swartz project Thought for Food was installed inside the
ephemeral module-container that Podesva has designed for her artist's residence
at Langara College, the first project of the recently begun Centre for Art in Public Spaces.
See
the short video produced for the exhibition: The Art of
Eating
(Nails).
PUBLICATIONS
Just
Published:
-a reflection on the image of Barcelona's Raval neighbourhood as
constructed from the perspective and values of the Eixample. "An
Inner Colony: Barcelona's Raval in the Terms of the
Eixample", was
written for the catalogue commemorating the 10th anniversary of the
gallery La Xina Art, Barcelona. Released in April, 2009. See link for full text
.
-"Abstinence", a short text for the book-catalogue by
Miralda, Power Food LEXIcom , after his
exhibition Power Food in late 2008 at Artium, Vitoria, and in
Palma de Mallorca in early
2009.The book is
distributed by
Actar.
An article on Miralda and his project
appeared in the cultural supplement Babelia of El
País, on March 7,
2009.
Texts Pending Publication:
-a version of the text indicated below, "Space-Run Artists", will appear in the
journal of MIT Leonardo
in February, 2010.
-a text on the
possibilities of a critical gastronomy, "A Host for Critical Gastronomy: Martí Guixé’s Food
Designing", in the context of a book on designer Martí Guixé's
food-designing work. To be released in April, 2010 by
Corraini, Mantova,
Italy
-I am currently
working on critical pieces to be published in 2010 for Art Etc,
the Indian publication out of Calcutta, for Fillip, the
magazine from Vancouver, and for an independent publication on the work of
Barcelona-based team Asunción +
Guasch.
Recent
Publications:
- " The Tourism Debate beween Seekers and
Receivers", introductory text to the central dossier of
the journal Barcelona Metropolis, no. 72, dedicated to tourism. The
revista came out in the summer of 2008. The article is also available in Spanish
and the original Catalan through
this link to the journal webpage.
Jeffrey
Swartz was the guest editor of the central dossier on tourism, the city and the
many debates surrounding it in the present day. Swartz is member of the
editorial board of Barcelona Metropolis, published by the City of
Barcelona.
-
catalogue text for the exhibition by Jo Milne, all
a wibble wobble, at Galeria Trama, Barcelona, May-June,
2008.
-
Space Run Artists,
magazine
publication
I
contributed a piece on artist self-initiative and social dynamics in the city of
Barcelona to Issue 7 of Vancouver critical art publication Fillip,
launched February, 2008, in Vancouver. The article is now available online
through the above link.
A
version of the text will be published by the journal of MIT Leonardo in
2010.
-
Scenografies, catalogue
essay
Recent
work by Noguero was seen in Escenografies at the Espai Zero of
the Fundació Suñol,
Barcelona, from February-April, 2008. I contributed the publication essay for
Noguero's first Barcelona solo show in 15 years, with the title "José Noguero's Freeze-Frame Baroque".
- Between India and the West, magazine
publication
The late
2007 issue of Papers d'Art (no.
92), features a J. Swartz essay on East Indian sculpture and its
complicated western reception, in the light of José Noguero's long sojourn
in the country and 2006 exhibit in
Alicante.
- Unfolding Youth: Salvador Cidrás'
Critical Analysis, catalogue
essay
Published in May, 2007, the catalogue of the Salvador Cidrás
exhibition held in the winter of 2006-07 at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo
Unión Fenosa, in La Coruña, Spain. I contributed the catalogue essay, which
reviews Cidrás' work since the early 90s and comments on the shift in his
approach in recent years, as seen in this exhibit.
CURATORIAL
-Documentary film series on Lagos, with
the exhibition 419, or 'The Spanish
Prisoner'
In
April, 2008, Centre d'Art Santa Mònica presented a series of documentary
film on the cultural, social and urban reality of Lagos,
Nigeria.
-419, or 'The
Spanish Prisoner', from
February to May, 2008.
The exhibition project on the Nigerian e-mail scam known as 419,
with a documentary section by curator Jeffrey Swartz and a video installation
by Catalan artist Pep Dardanyà, was shown at Centre d'Art Santa Mònica,
Barcelona, after travelling to Vic and Girona.
A full overview of the documentation
to be exhibited and internet
links related to the show have been posted here. A more complete press
release from the previous venue in Vic is available here
.
A
video of 419 expert Brian Wizard talking on YouTube about the world of email
scamming.
A
video of the exhibit in Girona can be viewed on YouTube.
The article published in the Spanish daily El País on November
23, 2007, can be found here.
-Since May 2007
I've got a blog with articles on cultural politics
in Barcelona, Catalonia and Spain, recently updated: http://barcelonacultureblog.blogspot.com/.
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BARCELONA
CULTURE STUDIO
Information
Barcelona Culture
Studio is the personal project and web page of Jeffrey Swartz. You can find here
information on my professional activities as critic, curator and cultural
educator.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
jmswartz_2000@yahoo.com .
Jeffrey Swartz , Winter 2010
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Exhibits and Activities
