Lecture | Lara Almarcegui: "Built and Un-built Utopias"

Vortrag im Rahmen der Vortragsreihe
“Built and Un-built Utopias - The Politics of Conversions”
veranstaltet vom Institut für Kunst und Architektur im Wintersemester 2010/11

DEMOLITIONS, EMPTY LOTS, WASTELANDS

Lecture | Lara Almarcegui
Date | Monday January 10th, 2011, 19:00h
Location | Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Schillerplatz 3, 1010 Wien, Room 211a

The work of Spanish artist Lara Almarcegui is concerned with the planned and unplanned use of urban space, focusing on rediscovering abandoned or overlooked sites. She has spent weeks revealing the ‘memory’ of a market that was going to be demolished in San Sebastian (Restoring the Gros Market some days before its demolition, 1995) and in 1997 renovated a train station, turning it temporarily into a free hotel (Hotel Fuentes de Ebro, Zaragoza). In 2004, she performed an ‘invisible archaeological’ inspection: excavating the floor of the Sala Montcada, Barcelona, and restoring it to its original state, all before the opening of her exhibition. Now she is working in projects consisting in preserving wastelands undeveloped for many years.

Lara Almarcegui, (Zaragoza 1972)
The work of Spanish artist Lara Almarcegui often explores neglected or overlooked sites, carefully cataloguing and highlighting each location’s tendency towards entropy. Her projects have ranged from a guide to the wastelands of Amsterdam, to the display - in their raw form - of the materials used to construct the galleries in which she exhibits.
Recent group exhibitions include Portscapes, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam (2010), Radical Nature, Barbican Art Centre London, (2009), Athens biennale (2009), Taipei and Gwuangyu Biennale in 2008, Sharjah Biennale (2007) Momentum, Nordic Festival of Contemporary Art, Moss (2006), The 27th São Paulo Biennial, San Paulo (2006) , the 2nd Seville Biennial, Seville (2006), (Public Act) Lunds Konsthal, Lund (2005). Solo exhibitions include Secession, Vienna and Ludlow 38, New York (2010), Ruins in the Netherlands, Gallery Ellen de Bruijne Projects, Amsterdam (2008), the Malaga Centre of Contemporary Art, Malaga (2007), the FRAC Bourgogne, Dijon (2004) and INDEX, Stockholm (2003). She is represented by Gallery Pepe Cobo in Madrid and Gallery Ellen de Bruijne in Amsterdam.