TEAM WORK. 30 YEARS OF CGAC: Gaiás Centre Museum of the City of Culture - SANTIAGO, SPAIN
An anniversary is somewhat more than a celebration: it also entails remembering a history, taking stock, reviewing, and re-reading the past in order to gain momentum to address the future. In the case of the CGAC, this exercise of revision also, necessarily, involves acknowledging the work of all those individuals and institutions who, in one way or another, have participated in the planning and execution of its programme, and in the construction of an essential public collection.
Conceived to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the CGAC, Teamwork emphasises precisely the collective effort of those who, over these three decades, have helped to construct and consolidate an essential project for culture and art in Galicia. The intention behind organising these two complementary but independent exhibitions, which will be held simultaneously in the CGAC in the Centro Museo Gaiás in the City of Culture, is to celebrate and showcase the transformational importance of the CGAC as a museum, but also and, above all, as the creator, trustee, and custodian of Galicia’s benchmark public collection of contemporary art. On the one hand, on the limits of the city’s monumental quarter, the building designed by the Portuguese architect, Álvaro Siza Vieira, will house the exhibition titled A Possible History of the CGAC, conceived as a review of the exhibitions, activities, and publications the centre has promoted since its creation. All of this with special attention to the milestones and singular pieces which have shaped its history and, in parallel, the evolution of the artistic setting in Galicia. On the other hand, the exhibition Contemporary Stories from the CGAC Collection proposes a thematic and spatial reading of the collection that will be presented in the Gaiás Centre Museum, designed by Peter Eisenman. This exhibition, curated jointly by Verónica Santos and Santiago Olmo, introduces us to some of the principal problems of the contemporary world through large blocks that address different topics: nature and ecology (Giuseppe Penone, Fernando Casás, Baltazar Torres, Xoán Cerviño), dialogues with space and architecture (Mona Hatoum, Tono Carbajo, Rui Chafes, Leiro, José Pedro Croft, Manolo Paz, Ignacio Basallo), the potential of construction (Marlon de Azambuja, Juan Gopar, Daniel Lara, Kiko Pérez, Jorge Perianes), work (Amaya González Reyes, Patrick Hamilton), feminism and gender discourses (Anna Maria Maiolino, Maria Maria Acha Kutscher, Priscilla Monge, Manal Aldowayan, Sandra Cinto), postcolonial perspectives (Anna Bella Geiger, Ângela Ferreira, Sandra Gamarra), a re-reading of the history of painting (Suso Fandiño, Mar Vicente, Berta Cáccamo, Julia Huete) and art as therapy and as a healer (Mónica Alonso). Each one of these sections and chapters propitiates intersections with others, and the exhibition route facilitates dialogue between the works.
These two exhibitions should be seen as parts of the same project, independent and at the same time complementary, which can, or rather must, be viewed as continuations of each other, without there being any pre-established order or priority. Both help to become acquainted with and understand the CGAC.
Artoworks included:
Just Paper (Group V) and Just Paper (Group IV), 2019, that belongs to CGAC’s Collection