februari 2014

The Margins of the Factory at ADN Platform in Barcelona

Solo exhibition, curated by Latitudes, at ADN Platform, Sant Cugat del Vallès, Barcelona, Spain, 25 January–30 April 2014

The Margins of the Factory presents two recent projects by the Rotterdam-based duo Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum that are motivated by their interest in art's relationship with labour. Each explores sculptural form and manufacturing processes from the perspective of artists who have not usually made objects. Jaio & van Gorkum undertake what are in part sociological investigations by documenting the local, marginal effects of the displacement of manufacturing industries over the last two generations with the emergence of the global market. Emerging from the artists' personal history and implicating the direct effects of their own vocation as well as work they ask of others, the projects are moreover complicit in asking what kind of industriousness brings value and what political life objects might have.

The exhibition opening features a performance by British “avant-folk” musician Nathaniel Robin Mann, developed in collaboration with Jaio & van Gorkum around the raw footage of Work in Progress and the tradition of work song.

Oi Pello Pello

Door Klaas op 4 februari, 2014 - 09:48
For the opening of the exhibition "The Margins of the Factory" at ADN Platform, Nathaniel Mann performed his rendition of the famous traditional Basque song "Oi Pello Pello". Nathan sings it to raw footage from "Work in Progress", showing men and women at work in the Lea Artibai region in Basque Country, where they trim rubber parts destined for the global automobile industry. While singing, he manually assembles a device which broadcasts his prerecorded voice to a transistor radio, with which he then performs a breathtaking duet.