a critical approach to the project 'desacuerdos

8/12/2019 A Critical Approach to the Project 'Desacuerdos'

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A Critical Approach to the Project DesacuerdosAuthor(s): Valentn Roma

Source: Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context, and Enquiry, Issue 33 (Summer 2013), pp. 122-132Published by: The University of Chicago Presson behalf of Central Saint Martins College of Art andDesign, University of the Arts LondonStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/672026.

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Events, Works, Exhibitions: A Critical Approach to the Project Desacuerdos |123

In the early s, particularly in Europe and Latin America, radically different waysof understanding the public function of cultural institutions and their imaginariesbegin to emerge. From a theoretical perspective, this is framed by the development ofNew Institutionalism,1which in Spain would lead to somewhat radical breaks: while mostinstitutions sought to maintain the status quo, a handful of institutions and researchersattempted to challenge the historiographical assumptions upon which the hegemonicdiscourse on art and culture was based.

Looking back upon the programming of Spanish institutions over these years,it is not difficult to discern a clear typological index, in which the remit of institutions,their role in the construction of discourse and even their media coverage are in directrelationship to their budgetary scale and financial model. Tus, museums with art-historical programmes reinforced regional formulae, insisting on a specific kind ofrevisionist project focused on the hallowed myth of the original creator for instance,

the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte ReinaSofa (MNCARS) in Madrid organisedseveral solo exhibitions between and , featuring, amongst others,Rafael Canogar, Luis Feito, Pablo Palazuelo,Gerardo Rueda and Manolo Valds.Likewise, regional public institutions

such as the Instituto Valenciano de ArteModerno (IVAM) in Valencia, the Centro

Galego de Arte Contempornea (CGAC) in Santiago de Compostela, Artium in Vitoria-Gasteiz and the Centro Atlntico de Arte Moderno (CAAM) in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria,presented international artist retrospectives of Markus Lpertz, Richard uttle,Enzo Cucchi, Georg Baselitz and Jiri Georg Dokoupil, amongst many others whichsuggested an attempt to reinstate s expressionism. Privately funded collections,such as Patio Herreriano in Valladolid and Fundaci la Caixa in Barcelona, adopted theform of chronological historical overviews and seamless genealogies, articulated throughnarratives of Spanish artistic pathos and authenticity.2

At the same time, exhibition practices based on outdated approaches to art as spectacle

and national promotion abroad surged in Spain. Examples include the controversial Bienalde Valencia (), which was directed in its three editions by communication andcity marketing guru Luigi Settembrini; the Bienal Internacional de Arte Contemporneode Sevilla (BIACS, ), which started on its much-debated path with the help ofHarald Szeemann; and El real viaje Real / Te Real Royal rip (), an exhibitionorganised by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, curated by Szeemann himself andheld at MoMA PS in New York.

Such was the hegemonic aesthetic mapping in early s Spain: one of a reaffirmationof artistic canons, combined with the emergence of aesthetic trends which assessed thevalue of art according to its relationship to the market, youth and a certain idea of colonialexport. (In fact, even if disguised under new clothes, the idea of art as an export article

has a long history within Spanish public policy, starting with the cultural politics of the

A Critical Approach to the ProjectDesacuerdos Valentn Roma

Ten years aer it was initiated in ,Valentn Roma assesses the influenceof Desacuerdos, an ambitious researchproject on antagonistic art practices

in Spain.

1 See Andrea Fraser, From the Critique of Institutions to an Institution of Critique, Artforum, vol.49,no.1, September 2005, pp.27883.

2 For instance, Cuatro dimensiones: Escultura en Espaa, 19782003 (Four Dimensions: Sculpture inSpain, 19782003, 200304), at Museo Patio Herreriano de Valladolid, and 20 aos de coleccionismo:una visin de futuro (20 Years of Collecting: A Vision of the Future, 2005), at CaixaForum Barcelonaand the Centro Social y Cultural de la Fundacin la Caixa in Palma de Mallorca.

Isidoro ValcrcelMedina, Estructurastubulares(TubularStructures), 1972,installation with100-metre yellowand black scaffoldingtubes. Installationview, Encuentrosde Pamplona', 1972.

Courtesy the artistand Museu d'ArtContemporani deBarcelona



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late Francoist regime in the early s, and continuing well into the s under thedemocratic regime.) It is against the backdrop of the unintelligible clamour produced

by these hegemonic practices that an ambitious project emerged, in : Desacuerdos:Sobre arte, polticas y esfera pblica en el Estado espaol (Disagreements: On Art, Politicsand the Public Sphere in Spain). Its main aim was to reinterpret from a historiographicperspective the narratives that had defined, as a sort of implied canon, the history ofart in Spain over the last forty years. More specifically, it sought to examine the criticalresonance of different artistic practices developed in Spain since the transition todemocracy following Francos death in , and leading up to the present practiceswhich were characterised by challenging, from various positions, the structures, policiesand dominant modes within a Spanish context. Over three years (), the projectbrought together an extensive network of researchers, whose work was publicly presentedthrough a series of exhibitions, seminars, workshops and serial publications (this last

element remains still active today through the publication of thematic volumes relatingto the research focus of the project). Despite their differences, the institutions organising the project Artelekucontemporary art and culture centre in San Sebastin/Donostia; Museu dArtContemporani de Barcelona (MACBA); and arteypensamiento, the programme of publicevents associated with the Universidad Internacional de Andaluca (UNIA); to be joinedby the Centro Jos Guerrero in Granada as a partner in the production of the public eventsand exhibitions that would ensue shared the idea that institutional frameworks shouldbe challenged through critical processes capable of opening them up. Tis was somethingthat understandably placed the three institutions on the fringes and in clear oppositionto the predominant trends of the time. Moreover, being situated in three different geo-

political contexts Euskadi, Catalunya and Andaluca gave them the chance to workin an expanded field, in the manner of a decentralised network, challenging themselvesto develop different presentation formats and analytic methodologies to suit the specificcharacteristics of their respective audiences.3

3 In 2011 the MNCARS in Madrid joined the ongoing editorial project, and in 2012 Arteleku stoppedcontributing to it, which changed the original geographic distribution.

Juan Delcampo,Guernica (Diga 93),

1992, acrylic oncanvas and PVC,340 774cmand 337 765cmrespectively.Installation view,Desacuerdos:Sobre arte, polticay esfera pblica enel Estado espaol'(Disagreements:On Art, Politics andthe Public Spherein Spain'), Museud'Art Contemporani

de Barcelona, 2005.Courtesy the artistsand Museu d'ArtContemporani deBarcelona



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Desacuerdos also took place at a time when political vocabularies in Spain werebeing somewhat reconfigured. Concepts such as humanism, identity politics, collective

action and public space to mention some notable examples were being subjectedto important critical revision. For instance, two editorial projects the critical readerModos de hacer: Arte crtico, esfera pblica y accin directa(Ways of Doing: CriticalArt, Public Sphere and Direct Action, ) and the journal Brumaria, first publishedin Madrid in sought to compile a broad spectrum of artistic and politicalpractices that demarcated forms of antagonism not sufficiently explored up to thatpoint in Spain. Furthermore, the project Representaciones rabes contemporneas(Contemporary Arab Representations, ), directed by Catherine Davidand produced by the Fundaci Antoni pies in Barcelona, Arteleku and UNIAarteypensamiento in collaboration with other European institutions, is a significantexample of an initiative that attempted to rethink exhibition practices, imagining the

exhibition as a space of political and aesthetic confrontation, and to conceive of termssuch as mediation and translation from critical parameters that take them away frommore common complacent uses. In fact, under the directorship of Nuria Enguita Mayo,the programme of the Fundaci pies in the s had already distanced itself fromthe discourse that I have just outlined by combining solo shows of artists with a reducedvisibility in the Spanish context such as Rainer Oldendorf, Victor Burgin, Hans-PeterFeldmann, Asger Jorn and Isidoro Valcrcel Medina with other projects articulatedthrough collective research such as Culturas de Archivo (Archive Cultures, ),Arquitecturas del discurso (Architectures of Discourse, ) and our-ismes:La derrota de la disensin (our-isms: Te Defeat of Dissent, ). On the other hand,collective forms of organisation gathered momentum in the wake of the emergence of

activist movements, such as the anti-globalisation movement. Tis created a breedingground for the articulation of new ideological codes from which to reimagine what weunderstand by culture. Finally, the early years of the new century saw the consolidationof a new generation of researchers, collectives and artists trained over two decadesof democracy.4Having developed their work outside the institutional context, their

4 Following Francos death in 1975, a democratic constitution was approved in 1976 by universal suffrage.

Installation view,Desacuerdos: Sobre

arte, poltica yesfera pblica enel Estado espaol'(Disagreements:On Art, Politics andthe Public Sphere inSpain'), Museu d'ArtContemporani deBarcelona, 2005.Courtesy Museu d'ArtContemporani deBarcelona



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ideas around the necessity to rethink artistic vocabularies and histories from a criticalperspective fit the ideological urgency of the moment. One of the most significant achievements of Desacuerdos was to bring together theefforts of some of these researchers in one project.aking as its starting point JacquesRancires idea that frictions eliminate consensus and enable new ways of thinking andof setting up political positions,5between and Desacuerdos engaged a groupof forty participants in an enormous mission to recuperate, contextualise and reinterpretartistic practices produced in Spain from the s through the early s.6Tis resultedin the creation of a large documentation archive, which can be accessed through theprojects website.7

Te research was organised along three lines of enquiry: , Lneas de fuerza(Force Lines) and Casos de estudio (Case Studies). Te first of these attempted toreread both -inspired struggles and the resistance to a cultural counter-revolution ins Spain by connecting them with the oppositional artistic practices of the early s.Independent cinema, feminism in all its forms, networks of production, experimentalvideo and music, as well as the new political subjects involved in a struggle againstglobalisation, were some of the themes addressed within this analytical context. placed special emphasis on the idea of rupture and consecutive diachronic cuts, threadingtogether a possible counter-dominant narrative. But hovering over this research context wasthe question of whether, by draing a landscape of such clearly interconnected conflicts,the researchers were not also creating an alternative map of legitimisation of these practices.

In contrast, Lneas de fuerza paid attention to a reinterpretative mapping that wasless genealogical and more grammatical: it was structured around three critical paradigms

connected to three historical momentsin Spanish cultural policy-making.rivialisation was the axis from whichto challenge the prevalent myths of

excitement that characterised commonaccounts of the first years of democracy inthe late s. Commercialisation helpedexplore the new relationship betweenart and the economy in the s. Anemblematic example in this category is thecreation of the fair ARCO; set up in Madridin as a means to invent an inexistentSpanish art market, it has since embodiedits epitome. Lastly, very different phenomenawere recapitulated through the term

spectacularisation, which sought to characterise the s from the inflation of biennialsnationally and internationally to the limits placed on the free distribution of culturalproducts within neoliberal economies. In this case, there was the possibility that the threeterms, or conceptual premises, predetermined in excess the outcome of the research.

Finally, Casos de estudio possibly comprised the most traditional historiographicprocesses, which examined specific critical practices and resulted in clearly delimitedauteur-style focuses. Tis research stream analysed a good number of collective artisticpractices active between the end of the Franco era and the first decade of the s.For instance, Jos Daz Cuys and Carmen Pardo investigated the event Encuentrosde Pamplona (Meetings in Pamplona); Jorge Luis Marzo studied the politics of promotionof art in Spain; and Jess Carrillo focused on the digital platform Aleph, initiated by

critic Jos Luis Brea.8

Te ambitious scope ofDesacuerdos and its long

development represented a realturning point in institutionalpractices in Spain, insofaras it crossed over differentinstitutional discourses, givingnew meaning to historicalaspects and practices that werepreviously either overlookedor insufficiently interpreted.

5 Jacques Rnciere, La Msentente. Politique et philosophie , Paris: ditions Galile, 1995.6 For a complete list of the projects participants, see Desacuerdos 1and Desacuerdos 2(San Sebastin/

Donostia, Granada, Barcelona and Seville: Arteleku, Centro Jos Guerrero, MACBA and UNIA, 200405).7 See http://old.arteleku.net/vieja//desacuerdos/index.jsp?ID=163 (last accessed on 7 March 2013).



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Te public presentation of Desacuerdos ran in parallel to the development of research,

reflecting its own evolution as well as that of the critical and documentary material that itmade available. Within this, three different periods can be identified. Te research strandsoutlined above were identified during the preliminary research stage, which took placein autumn and winter . It included study days at Arteleku and UNIA, as well as acourse, La lnea de sombra (Te Shadow Line) at MACBA, made up of a series of debatesand round tables which studied specific subjects relating to the development of Spanishartistic modernity. Te second stage involved making many of the critical materialsassembled by the researchers available to the public, as well as proposing criticalinterpretations about them publicly. Tis stage was defined by two exhibitions held atMACBA and the Centro Jos Guerrero, both of which were named aer the project andheld from March to May .9In addition, a small contextual display accompanied the

seminar Mutaciones del feminismo: genealogas y prcticas artsticas (Mutations ofFeminism: Genealogies and Artistic Practices), at Arteleku in April . Tese exhibitionsaimed to display the documentary materials collected during the research process, ina way that both illustrated and reinforced the theoretical diagnostics and the genealogicallines that the project attempted to trace. Such an exercise of translation of a researchproject into the exhibition space is not without difficulties, and at times it was hardto differentiate strictly archaeological operations from critical readings. In addition,the seminars Mutaciones del feminismo and Medios de masas, multitud y prcticasantagonistas (Mass media, Multitude and Antagonistic Practices, Palacio de los Condesde Gabia de Granada, April ) aimed to trace transversal lines of enquiry that couldencompass all the researchers interests. Finally, the publishing strand of the project

Installation view,

Desacuerdos: Sobrearte, poltica yesfera pblica enel Estado espaol'(Disagreements:On Art, Politicsand the PublicSphere in Spain'),Centro Jos Guerrero,Granada, 2005.In the background:Joan Rabascall,Spain Is Different,197577, mixedmedia, dimensions

variable. Photograph:Javier Algarra.Courtesy the artistsand Centro JosGuerrero

8 See Jos Daz Cuys and Carmen Pardo, Pamplona era una fiesta: tragicomedia del arte espaol(Pamplona Was a Party: The Tragicomedy of Spanish Art), Desacuerdos 1, op. cit., pp.1773; JorgeLuis Marzo, Poltica cultural del gobierno espaol en el exterior (Cultural Policy of the SpanishGovernment Abroad), in Desacuerdos 2, op. cit., pp.57121; and Jess Carrillo, Aleph, la web comoespacio de accin paralela (Aleph, the Internet as a Space for Parallel Action), in Desacuerdos 2,op. cit., pp.12343.

9 The exhibition at MACBA was held from 4 March until 29 May 2005, and the one at the Centro JosGuerrero from 9 March until 29 May 2005.



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Eugnia Balcells,Boy Meets Girl, 1978,16mm filmtransferred to video,

colour, sound, 9min,stills. EugniaBalcells, VEGAP,2013. Courtesy theartist and Museud'Art Contemporanide Barcelona



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consisted in the production of the serial publication Descacuerdos, which is ongoing

and has two distinct parts. From until , three eponymous books were published,with the aim of making public essays and documentary materials that were the directoutcome of the research project that had unfolded from until . From onwards, four more publications have focused on specific areas of interest of the project:Cine y vdeo (Film and Video, no., ), Cultura popular (Popular Culture,no., ), Educacin (Education, no., ) and Feminismos (Feminisms, no. ,).10

Te ambitious scope of the project and its long development represented a realturning point in institutional practices in Spain, insofar as it crossed over differentinstitutional discourses, giving new meaning to historical events and practices that werepreviously either overlooked or insufficiently interpreted. Te project drew attention

to a series of critical elements that radically altered the previously inactive Spanish arthistoriography, urging a debate around narratives that had become consensual preciselybecause of their lack of articulation. For instance, in the wake of Desacuerdos anumber of exhibitions focused on micro-historical issues, situations that had beforebeen considered insignificant, and oppositional processes that, until then, were seento be odd and unusual.11

Nevertheless, and perhaps even without meaning to, Desacuerdos also made possiblethe immediate perversion of its own model. Tis was palpable in projects produced byother institutions within the country that were fundamentally exhibition-based, andeither fetishised the document in an uncritical way or moved through a type of revisionism

LSD, Escultura

lesbiana(LesbianSculpture), 1994.Courtesy the artists,Fefa Vila Nezand Museu d'ArtContemporani deBarcelona

10 As of number 6, Arteleku ceased its contribution to the project; MNCARS joined the project withnumber 7. Digital versions of all the publications are available at http://www.macba.cat/es/desacuerdos (last accessed on 2 April 2013).11 For instance, Arte en Olot durante el franquismo y la transicin a la monarqua parlamentaria

(Art in Olot under Franco and the Transicinto Parliamentary Monarchy, 29 April16 July 2006),an exhibition curated by Albert Batlle and Narcs Selles at the Museu Comarcal de la Garrotxa, Olot;and Laboratorios 70: Poticas/polticas y crisis de la modernidad en el contexto vasco de los setenta(Laboratories 70: Poetics/Politics and the Crisis of Modernity in the 1970s Basque Context, 14 May

6 September 2009), a project by Fernando Golvano at Sala Rekalde, Bilbao.



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of epical dimension.12In this way, because of its ambition Desacuerdos set a model that

very few were able to follow to the same level of complexity.

It has now been ten years since Desacuerdos began perhaps a sufficient lapse of timeto assess the project and its effects upon the institutional map with the benefit of hindsight.

In a manner similar to that of other European countries, over the last decade Spanishcultural policy has been to cut back in order to adequately manage scarce economicresources. Shielded under the crisis that started in , populist strategies that severelycompromise the autonomy of (art) institutions, and which leave them in an extremelyprecarious and dependent position, thrive. Consequently, institutional vocabularies

seem to have lost any critical ambition, turning back to the old idea of the conservationof heritage, giving a perhaps disproportionate importance to the display of the collectionswithin their respective exhibition programmes and, in so doing, undermining the creationof new projects.13

In response to this position, and also to underscore the fact that the thematic focusof Desacuerdos has not been exhausted, meaning that it can still evolve and shape itselfto new interpretative prospects, it is important to keep in mind two exhibitions that,born out of Desacuerdos, seem to suggest a possible reformatting of its paradigm; theypresent alternative but equally productive ways of making public processes of criticalanalysis. Te first is Encuentros de Pamplona : Fin de fiesta del arte experimental(Meetings in Pamplona : Experimental Art Aerparty, ), an exhibition

Vdeo-Nou,

Intervenci vdeoa Can Serra(Video Interventionat Can Serra),1977, productionphotograph.Courtesy the artistsand Museu d'ArtContemporani deBarcelona

12 An example of the former is Fuera de catlogo: Arte de accin en Andaluca (Off-Catalogue: ActionArt in Andaluca, 18 April18 June 2006), organised by the Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporneo;

and of the latter, El arte sucede: Origen de las prcticas conceptuales en Espaa (19651980)(Art Happens: Origin of Conceptual Practices in Spain (19651980), 11 October 20059 January2006), at the MNCARS.

13 For example, budget cuts have meant sudden changes in the orientation and direction of art centressuch as Sala Rekalde, Bilbao; the Centro Cultural Montehermoso, Vitoria; and La Virreina Centre dela Imatge, Barcelona.



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curated by Jos Daz Cuys that examined a public event that congregated numerousexperimental artists (both national and international) over eight days in . 14In a countrystill subjected to an over-thirty-year-long dictatorial regime, such public manifestationtested the limits of the compromise between the artistic and the political avant-gardes marking the zenith of experimental artistic practices in Spain, but also their finale.Tanks to an exhaustive task of reconstruction of the political and artistic events thatmarked those eight days, as well as of the context in which they were set, the exhibitionenabled viewers to assess their importance to s Spanish art and politics. he secondexhibition, Ocaa (): Acciones, actuaciones, activismo (Ocaa ():Actions, Performances, Activism, ), curated by Pedro G. Romero, not only placedthe artist Jos Prez Ocaa at the centre of debates around biopolitics and gender, butalso within the context of performative and activist practices, as well as within discoursesaround public celebrations.15Both exhibitions focused on the historical context andaesthetic characteristics of their objects of study, thus effectively distancing themselvesfrom the genealogical programme that defined Desacuerdos. At the same time, the delocalised working methodology of Desacuerdos, basedupon a network of researchers and institutions, seems to have continuity in severalprojects on an international scale. Formed in , the Red Conceptualismos del Sur(Southern Conceptualisms Network) is an international platform for thought, researchand collective positioning created by researchers from Brazil, Chile, Argentina,Mexico, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Spain, who are interested in collectivelydeveloping a set of practices seeking to disrupt the hegemonic politics of exhibition-making, institutionalisation, collecting and interpretation of the archives related toConceptual practices in Latin America.16hrough exhibitions, texts, seminars and onlinedocumentation, this research platform is generating discourses that contest the moststereotypical narratives around artistic practice produced in Latin America from thes onwards.17Aer holding various meetings, seminars and conferences in So Paulo,Rosario, Santiago and Madrid, the Red Conceptualismos del Sur has set up a collaborativeframework with MNCARS to develop projects aiming to transform the policies of culturalpatrimonialisation upon which modern museums are founded [] and to question the

colonial model of collectionism (which follows the rules of the market based on the scarcityof goods).18Besides the fact that some of its researchers also took part in Desacuerdos,there are a number of affinities between both projects, such as the emphasis on the writingof historical narratives through cultural production; the attempt to articulate a critical andcollective voice; and, finally, the interest in questioning traditional museum policies whileat the same time collaborating with institutions.

Other projects in Europe have adopted similar models. For instance, the collaborationamongst institutions that was so relevant to Desacuerdos finds a parallel, if at aninternational rather than national scale, in LInternationale.19Created in , it definesitself as a transinstitutional organisation that promotes the collective use of collectionsand museum archives within its network, which includes the Moderna galerija in

Ljubljana, SAL in Istanbul and Ankara, MNCARS, MACBA, the Van Abbemuseumin Eindhoven and the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst in Antwerp (M HKA). In terms

14 Jos Daz Cuys initiated this project as a researcher involved in Desacuerdos. The exhibition washeld at MNCARS from 28 October 2009 until 22 February 2010. See Encuentros de Pamplona 1972:

fin de fiesta del arte experimental(exh. cat.), Madrid: MNCARS, 2009.15 Pedro G. Romero contributed to the curatorial direction of Desacuerdos on behalf of UNIA

arteypensamiento. The exhibition was held at La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, Barcelona, from26 March until 24 May 2010; and at the Centro Cultural Montehermoso in Vitoria, from 19 October2011 until 15 January 2012. See Ocaa: 19731983: Acciones, actuaciones, activismo(exh. cat.),Barcelona: Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2011.

16 Red Conceptualismos del Sur, Manifiesto instituyente (Instituting Manifesto), available athttp://www.museoreinasofia.es/redes/presentacion/conceptualismos-del-sur_en.html (last accessedon 8 March 2013).

17 Examples of such accounts include the seminal exhibition Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin,

1950s1980s, organised by the Queens Museum of Art, New York (28 April29 August 1999);the schematically forward-looking publication Copiar el Edn: arte reciente en Chile(ed. GerardoMosquera, Santiago: Toms Andreu y Claudia Pertuz Ediciones and Publicaciones Puro, 2006);and Olivier Debroise and Cuauhtmoc Medinas exhibition La era de la discrepancia: Arte y culturavisual en Mxico 19681997 (The Age of Discrepancies: Art and Visual Culture in Mexico, 19681997, Museo Universitario de las Artes y las Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico,17 March30 September 2007).

18 See http://www.museoreinasofia.es/redes/presentacion/conceptualismos-del-sur/conceptualismos-museo_en.html (last accessed on 8 March 2013).

19 See http://internacionala.mg-lj.si/index.php (last accessed on 8 March 2013).



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20 See http://www.formerwest.org/Front (last accessed on 8 March 2013).

Translated from Spanish by Lupe Nez-Fernndez.

of the scope of its historiographic research, Desacuerdos can also be compared toFORMER WES,20a six-year long research project initiated in and organised bybasis voor actuelle kunst (BAK) in Utrecht, which explores antagonist artistic practicesthat appeared aer , following the geo-political reconfiguration of Europe promptedby the fall of the Berlin Wall. Like Desacuerdos, FORMER WES articulates its researchthrough a network of collaborators oen external to the institution, and makes its resultspublic through conferences, publications and exhibitions, although again its internationalscope makes it even larger in scale and arguably more ambitious conceptually. Within the current Spanish context a context characterised by the self-absorptionof most institutions, almost exclusively concerned with their own financial problemsand conditions of survival there is a risk that the critical narratives put forward byDesacuerdos might become only a pause, a hiatus in the articulation of a critical interactionbetween museums and antagonistic practices, or perhaps even a hiatus absorbed aspart of hegemonic institutional narratives. However, if freed from its exemplary role that is, if conceived as an exercise permeated by profound dissonances and open to newinterjections that avoid its petrification into a closed model then Desacuerdos andthe historiographic paradoxes that it charted might continue to generate critical formatsand to contest hegemonic and consensual narratives of artistic and political history.

a critical approach to the project 'desacuerdos

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