Fondation Miró's Espai 13 Anniversary Show: Grigely, Gordon, Louro

For its 25th anniversary, the Fondation Miró in Barcelona programmed its project-room Espai 13 through a collaboration of its last three curators: Ferran Barenblit, Frederic Montornés, and Mònica Regàs. The exhibition features works by Joseph Grigely, Douglas Gordon, and João Louro. Grigely, deaf since childhood, displays his written conversations on notes affixed to the foundation's bulletin board among regular announcements, and has produced a city-wide poster reproducing a photograph of Joan Miró at a picnic with the word "information" superimposed. Douglas Gordon's Off Screen (1998) projects an image of a curtain onto the same curtain, making the viewer's shadow appear on both; his Untitled (I don't think this is working) (1997) invites viewers to pick up a telephone receiver and hear someone apologizing. João Louro presents Pensée et erreur, a series of large road signs where distance and direction indicators are replaced with cultural information. The curators aimed to reaffirm Miró's vision of the foundation as a research center for contemporary art, opening the space to other locations inside and outside the foundation, and featuring artists like Grigely and Gordon who had never before exhibited in Barcelona, alongside Louro from the new generation of Portuguese artists revitalizing their country's art scene.