Wednesday, 5 October, 2016 - 13:45
A public symposium coordinated by the artists Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum, on the implications of exhibiting the original artefacts from a contested archaeological discovery in a Museum of Contemporary Art.
In 2016 the artists submitted a formal loan application to the Basque Government, in order to mount an exhibition of ancient Roman potshards with inscriptions at Artium, the museum of contemporary art in Vitoria-Gasteiz. These artefacts, discovered at the archaeological site Iruña-Veleia, were the subject of an ongoing controversy, as they were suspected to be the product of an elaborate forgery. Inscribed with what is alleged to be the earliest recorded writing in the Basque language, they have never been exhibited in public and are currently under custody of Bibat, the archaeological museum of Alava, pending legal verdict on the question whether fraud has been committed.
To exhibit the pieces in the museum of contemporary art would require a physical displacement of only 400 meters, yet produce a radical change in discursive context. The authorities denied the request, as anticipated, so the artists invited several guests to reflect on the case and on the absence of the artefacts in the museum. The symposium has been devised as an encounter between artistic, scientific and political sensibilities. Each contributor presented a perspective on the archaeological evidence that moves beyond the false-authentic binary, and invites us to reflect on the implication of the public in the institutional processes that determine the fate of their own material culture.
Read more
Thursday, 25 August, 2016 - 14:16
The "Libro de los Plagios" (Book of Plagiarism) is a booklet that has been printed for distribution during an exhibition of a series of large charcoal drawings, and which mimics the style and content of a book originally published by the Basque sculptor Jorge Oteiza in 1991, which has gone out of print.
Read more
Thursday, 25 August, 2016 - 11:27
A series of charcoal drawings, based on the images from the "Libro de los Plagios" (The Book of Plagiarism). This book was published in 1991 by the Basque sculptor Oteiza, as an indictment of what he perceived to be a flagrant plagiarism of his work.
Read more
Wednesday, 20 April, 2016 - 10:59
May 2016. Interinstitutional working group in Azala Espazioa and Artium, Basque Museum-Center for Contemporary Art
On the 5th and 6th of May, a working group will be convened to study and discuss the legal, ethical and social ramifications of exhibiting the polemical archaeological discovery from the Iruña-Veleia site in Basque Country in Artium, Basque Museum for Contemporary Art.
When these artefacts were denounced as a forgery, they became entangled in a legal process that has been ongoing since 2008. As a result, they have never been exhibited to the public, and are currently under custody of Bibat, the archaeological museum of Vitoria-Gasteiz. To display them in the museum for contemporary art requires a displacement of only 300 meters, but involves a radical change in discursive context.
Taking the hypothetical collaboration between the two museums as a starting point, the working group will discuss how the confrontation between artistic, scientific and political sensibilities may be oriented towards a narrative that overcomes the false-authentic binary, and how to involve the public in the institutional processes that determine the evolution of their own material culture.
Read more
Wednesday, 20 April, 2016 - 10:02
We have been invited to present our work in the "BIdeOtik Program. Responding to other audiovisual narratives.", organised by Azkuna Zentroa and Itxaso Díaz in Bilbao. The screenings will be preceded by a workshop at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Basque Country in the morning.
26 April 2016, 9:00 - 13:00 Workshop at the Fine Art Department of the Basque University
Recent works as well as fragments from films such as "Les Maîtres fous" by Jean Rouch will be taken as a point of departure to discuss the subversive potential of strategies of mimicry, falsification and reproduction.
26 April 2016, 19:00 Azkuna Zentroa, Alhóndiga Bilbao
Screening and discussion of two videos: "Work in Progress", in which the labourers from the rubber industry in Markina-Xemein are hired to reproduce hundreds of little modernist sculptures from Oteiza's "Chalk Laboratory"; and Últimas Palabras", in which an actor rehearses the final statement made by an ex-commander from the military junta in Argentina who has been condemned to a life sentence for crimes against humanity.
Read more
Tuesday, 12 January, 2016 - 12:50
We are presenting two of our latest projects at the San Telmo Museum, as part of the cultural programme of Donostia - San Sebastián European Capital of Culture. The first is a Basque premiere of "Nire ama Roman hil da", our project on the controversial graffiti that were found on ancient potsherds at the archaeological site of Iruña-Veleia. A thousand drawings that have never been exhibited before will be displayed alongside a video in which experts attempt to decipher the mysterious inscriptions.
Also new is our reprise of Jorge Oteiza's Book of Plagiarism, "Libro de los Plagios", which has been out of print for decades. Fourteen large charcoal drawings based on images from the book accompany a small publication in which we pick up where the original author has left off in his reflections on ways to lean on other people's work.
Read more
Friday, 8 January, 2016 - 21:36
Still on until 14 February 2016, an exhibition at Rib, a new space in Rotterdam.
With works by:
Read more
Thursday, 15 October, 2015 - 12:14
JOEY RAMONE is very proud to host the 1st solo exhibition in the gallery by artist duo Iratxe Jaio & Klaas van Gorkum. The exhibition which occupies both gallery and project spaces opens on Saturday 31 October 2015 from 5-8pm and runs till Saturday 12 December.
Of Mortgages and Marriages is a storyboard for a movie that was never made. It consists of a series of drawings, traced from sources such as maps, real estate brochures, mortgage advertisements, wedding pictures and family snapshots; research material from an investigation that the artists Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum made into the large-scale urban expansion of a mid-sized city in the north of Spain. It is accompanied by two videos, Showroom and Helicopter, each using a different cinematographic technique to traverse the city and its symbolical spaces.
Read more
Thursday, 15 October, 2015 - 12:04
We are doing three talks on our work in Bilbao next week:
"Últimas Palabras. Art and the violence of speech"
October 20, 2015 from 12:00 to 13:30
IMPORTANT: due to high number of inscriptions, the location has been changed to Sala Turing, first floor of the ESIDE-Engineering building of the Deusto University
Reservation required
The Chair in Leisure and Knowledge of the Institute of Leisure Studies at the University of Deusto is pleased to invite you to a seminar with Iratxe Jaio and Klaas van Gorkum. Following the presentation of the video "Últimas Palabras", there will be a discussion with the artists about the critical capacity of art: What should be the place of art in the face of the rhetoric of power? Can one expect moral or political effects from the encounter between the public and art?
Conversation with Jaime Cuenca
October 20, 2015 from 18:150 to 19:15
In the context of postgraduate studies "Disfrutar las artes" at the Deusto University
Conference at the University of Basque Country: "Todo lo que digas" (Anything you say)
October 22, 2015 from 11.00 to 12.30
Graduate Hall of the Faculty of Fine Arts of the University of Basque Country in Leioa
In this conference several works will be discussed in which the artists have taken the judicial process as a performance which stages and choreographes conflict.
Read more
