Acción!MAD16
XIII Action Art Encounter
Museo Reina Sofía once again welcomes the annual Acción!MAD, International Action Art Encounters, to take place in Madrid across different venues throughout November.
This new edition of Acción!MAD presents Charco Exchange España (Pond Exchange Spain), a project in collaboration with Exchange Live Art, whereby Canadian artists “cross the pond” to work with eminent Spanish artists in a process of shared creation. Using action art as their main artistic medium, the artists explore communication through previous long-distance correspondence, which takes shape in a five-day laboratory of creation in Madrid and the public presentation of the project developed.
The presentation of this initiative is organised by its creators, Ana Matey and Isabel León, and features actions from four participating artists –Shannon Cochrane and Martine Viale, from Canada, and the Spaniards Analía Beltrán i Janés and Mario Gutiérrez Cru – in addition to a post-action debate on the experience.
The artists base their practice on performance, which at times materialises in the form of photography, video, installation, objects and texts, and all of them hold political and social interests. For instance, Analía Beltrán i Janés’s reflections on gender, or Mario Gutiérrez Cru’s current concerns over the plight of refugees. Along more abstract lines, Martine Viale approaches the corporeality of space and time, while Shannon Cochrane employs humour to question the very same medium of performance as well as human relations.
Exchange Live Art is a project which encourages work with artists from different backgrounds, careers, cultures and interests. It sets out from the idea of being aware of our differences and how sharing them makes us grow as individuals and, in turn, as a society, thus generating both respect and outlying and conciliatory reflections in the face of closed circles of thought.
Acción!MAD is an independent platform which works to support the creation, dissemination and promotion of action art and performance.
Participants
Martine Viale – Canada (Performance)
Mario Gutierrez Cru – Spain (Performance)
Shannon Cochrane – Canada (Performance)
Analía Beltrán i Janés – Spain (Performance)