The Man presents Minimal Disasters , an exhibition which in its theoretical approach tends to transform the catastrophe from object to subject of the work, investigating rather than the documentary, sociological and, in a certain sense, spectacular aspect (definitely weakened, as the title indicates) that which Blanchot defined as the disaster writing . The works on display do not limit themselves to recording a catastrophe but tend to take the form of accidents or catastrophes of the visible themselves. A work in some way can only be the writing of a disaster of meaning, a minimal disaster, after all, unless, with Stockhausen, one thinks of the September 11 attacks as the greatest work of art ever created .
The starting point is Thom’s theory on the concept of catastrophe (simplified in the famous phrase: a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon forest can generate a meteorological disturbance in London) following a tragicomic itinerary on the different experiences of catastrophe, understood not only as negativity but also seen as an ironic event, as a joke, a fatality that leaves us more perplexed than destroyed.
The word catastrophe and the word apocalypse have shared a common destiny of distorting their etymological sense to take on negative notes and to evoke only mourning and destruction. But by catastrophe we also mean a continuous, gradual, minimal variation in the conditions of a phenomenon but capable of producing a great effect and a great change. The exhibition does not want to be a dark story that only sees the negative meaning of the term, but also wants to explore different aspects that involve a more analytical vision without becoming cynical, through a language that is sometimes ironic and irreverent.
There is no intention of showing a series of real or simulated disasters, a task already perfectly accomplished by TV and cinema. The catastrophe will be understood rather as a breaking point, as a concatenation of events, as the unstoppable beginning of uncontrolled events, as a turning point or crisis, as a new incipit. We will play with the images of catastrophe as opposed to the disasters of the image, the images of violence and the violence of images. The lens will be focused on individual, daily and environmental catastrophes, always trying to bend the term catastrophe to a concrete reflection, taking away from it that spectacular value that always risks surprising us.
By Fernando Castro Florez, Saretto Cincinelli, Cristiana Collu
Artists: Ángeles Agrela, Lara Almarcegui, John Baldessari, Isabel Banal, Massimo Bartolini, Christian Boltansky, Sergey Bratkov, Alberto Burri, Carlos Capelan, Loris Cecchini, Sarah Ciracì, Gordon Matta-Clark, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Fischli&Weiss, Florentino Díaz, Patrick Jolley , Lucio Fontana, Carlos Garaicoa, Jonathan Hernández, Cisco Jiménez, Mike Kelley, Abraham Lacalle, Peter Land, Armin Linke, Fabian Marcaccio, Armando Mariño, Mateo Maté, Isaac Montoya, Pedro Mora, Adrian Paci, José Alvaro Perdices, Claudio Perna, Reynold Reynolds, Osvaldo Salerno, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Allan Sekula, Ane-Liise Semper, Paul Smith, Robert Smithson, Frank Thiel, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, Eulalia Valldosera, Javier Vallhonrat, Erwin Wurm, Chen Zhen.
