AUTO-RUINS. Thinks about automobile into the contemporary landscape

The article analyses the evolution of the representation of the automobile inserted in the natural and urban environment in the Contemporary Art, from the appearance of the first cars in the beginning of the 20th century until the present day. The text compares the diverse attitudes and analysis of some representative artists who have used the image of the machine in general and the car in particular in their aesthetic discourse, using as a conductive thread the metaphor of the life cycle (birth, growth, feeding, reproduction and death). It deals with the discovery, the development and the coexistence between human and the automobile and its interpretation as a basic element of the artistic work. The text connects the image of the automobile located in the contemporary industrial landscape utilizing the artist references who have integrated the car in their work inside the natural or artificial environment characteristic of each moment. At the same time, the article goes deeply into the relationship of romantic ruin and natural landscape and the evolution of the industrial and architectural modern environment, through the work of the artists who has used the car as an inhabitant of the landscape.

On the integration of Argentinian activist art at exhibition venues

This article examines the institutional integration of activist art in the aftermath of the 2001 economic crisis in Argentina. Following this aim, we begin with a description of the most significant new groups of activist art in the City of Buenos Aires. Then, we elaborate the position these new groups take up in the field with respect to their dispute with the “light art” from the 90s, and in relation to the mutual accusations over the “trend” of political art. Finally, we analyse the reception of these groups of activist art in art exhibitions in the City of Buenos Aires and abroad, and we reflect upon the institutionalization of these specific and situated aesthetic and political practices.

Sobre la medalla a Godoy de la Real Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País de Valencia acuñada en 1807. Documentos inéditos

Entre los documentos del archivo de la Real Sociedad Econó-mica de Amigos del País de Valencia (RSEAPV)1, se encuentra un con-junto muy interesante concerniente a la realización de una medalla por parte de esta sociedad en honor de Manuel Godoy, Príncipe de la Paz. Es en enero de 1807 cuando la RSEAPV decide nombrarlo miembro protector de esa Real Sociedad y, en agradecimiento a su aceptación y su reciente nombramiento al Grande Almirantazgo de España e Yndias, acuña la medalla sobre la cual presento este trabajo. El estudio detallado de los citados documentos nos permitirá ir más allá de las imágenes re-presentadas en el reverso de la misma, proporcionándonos su correcta interpretación dentro del contexto histórico del momento.

Collaborative artistic laboratories. Transfrontier spaces of cultural production

The appearance of the open code paradigm and the demands of social movements have permeated the ways in which today’s cultural institutions are organized. This article analyzes the birth of a new critical and cooperative spatiality and how it is transforming current modes of cultural research and production. It centers on the potential for establishing the new means of cooperation that are being tested in what are defined as collaborative artistic laboratories. These are hybrid spaces of research and creation based on networked and cooperative structures producing a new societal-technical body that forces us to reconsider the traditional organic conditions of the productive scenarios of knowledge and artistic practice.