Midway Contemporary Art, THE WAY IT WASN’T

Lutz Bacher, Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda, Leon Golub, Aaron Flint Jamison, Owen Land, CS Leigh, Nils Norman, Willem Oorebeek, Amy Sillman, Joe Scanlan, Sturtevant, Oscar Tuazon, Heimo Zobernig

Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis

November 20, 2010 – January 15, 2011 / Opening Saturday November 20, 7pm

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 ten years of trials of castillo/corrales in Minnesota 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.

The Way It Wasn’t combines some of the artworks, positions, and statements which have made castillo/corrales over all these years, including elements from Doomsday CelebrationRed FlagsBreaking Point: Kathryn Bigelow’s Life in Art, and the three biennial summer exhibitions titled Hello Goodbye Thank You, but also from projects such as 1992The Robert Musil ShowGaston in Mexicoor Notorious CS Leigh, and from some of the many events held at castillo/corrales’ bookstore Section 7 Books.

Ten years: 2000-2010, an account of this 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.

MIDWAY CONTEMPORARY ART
527 Second Avenue SE
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55414
t. 612-605-4504
www.midwayart.org