Culturgest, THE WAY IT WASN’T

O modo como não foi (celebrando dez anos de castillo/corrales, Paris)

Cao Fei, Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda, Jimmie Durham, Melanie Gilligan, Aaron Flint Jamison, Aglaia Konrad, Louise Lawler, Barry Le Va, Guillaume Leblon, CS Leigh, Nils Norman, Willem Oorebeek, Gabriel Orozco, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Amy Sillman, Joe Scanlan, Haim Steinbach, Oscar Tuazon, Heimo Zobernig

Culturgest, Porto

February 5 – April 23, 2011 / Opening Saturday February 5, at 3pm

When can an independent art space feel it is old enough to revive its own history in the form of a retrospective exhibition? When is it right to think its record of activities deserves a historicizing publication? The answer is ten years. It is the convention that seems to apply here. Ten years is what distinguishes real proof of accomplishment from self-aggrandizing thinking.

Ten years. Let’s celebrate ten years of castillo/corrales then.

The Way It Wasn’t questions the ineluctable establishment of a once-considered-alternative organization. It addresses the illusion of coherence that such a day-by-day endeavor often gains in retrospect, as well as the overblown importance that a small, localized structure can take in the view from afar.

Celebrating in Portugal ten years of trials of castillo/corrales means to show more than there actually is. The Way It Wasn’t draws from exhibitions and projects which did take place in the 29 square-meter Paris-based gallery, and from ones which almost did. Some were only discussed but got postponed. For others, it just wasn’t the right time.

Ten years: 2000-2010, an account of the last decade’s art, society and state of mind, as seen through the life and times, the acts and words, the highs and lows of an independent art space in Paris.

Let’s celebrate ten years of castillo/corrales, already.

A forthcoming companion book to the exhibition compiles ten years of press releases for the exhibitions and events organized at castillo/corrales, Paris, also featuring introductory essays by Michelle Grabner and Anthony Huberman. It will be published by Culturgest, A.R.T. Press, Paraguay Press and Midway Contemporary Art.

A first version of the exhibition The Way It Wasn’t (Celebrating Ten Years of castillo/corrales, Paris) was presented at Midway Contemporary Art in Minneapolis from November 20, 2010 to January, 15 2011. And it was a midwestern blockbuster.
Culturgest Porto — Galeria

Monday to Saturday, from 10 am to 6 pm (last admission at 5.45 pm). Closed on Sundays and Bank Holidays
Edifício Caixa Geral de Depósitos
Av. dos Aliados, 104, Porto – Portugal
Tel (+351) 22 209 81 16
susana.sameiro@cgd.pt
http://www.culturgest.pt/