Toni Giró IN RESiDENCE at the School Josep Serrat i Bonastre

First exercise: from plane to volume

The first stage of the residence is organised around a number of exercises proposed to explore and experiment with some of the themes around which Toni Giró’s artistic practice revolves. The first action is to work between plane and the volume, using easily modellable black foil material, which is placed on the pupils’ faces.

Second exercise: touch and sight

This exercise entails creating a drawing based on touching an object that we have not seen. The drawing is then compared with the object and with a drawing made with the object in view. Accordingly, the exercise highlights the lack of correspondence between the visual and the non-visual. 

Third exercise: the unknown text

Work on texts is also important in Toni Giró’s artistic practice. Text study, intervention and collages are among the exercises found in El text desconegut [The Unknown Text], which is displayed in the classroom.

Fourth exercise: said and done

The fourth exercise brings together and condenses all the previous activities. Idiomatic expressions, and the lack of correspondence between the figurative and the literal meanings of the text. The work focuses on research and study of several idiomatic expressions in order to transpose them onto photographic images that the pupils had already prepared and recreated. The resulting photographs, accompanied by the idiomatic expressions, are exhibited in busy areas at the school.

Arrangement of materials in the classroom and at the centre

Parallel to all these exercises, work continues on the idea of assembling and exhibiting the materials generated as an essential element in the design of the project. In each case, disused bookcases are found and adapted, display cases are “activated”, materials are displayed in the lobby or on notice boards in the classroom and so on.

Taking an existing object at the school as the starting point: the pencil cases

A number of pencil cases found at the school generate a small exercise involving objects, the relationship between them, the relationship that we can establish if we arrange them next to each other. A proposal for individual work is made and, after a number of preparatory sessions, a session is devoted to portraits of the pupils and their intervened pencil cases, and these are exhibited in display cases in the corridors at the school.

MACBA

Guided tour of Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA), designed in cooperation with the museum’s educational service and linked to the creative process.

On public sculptures: the project begins

Identification of the starting point for the final project: public sculptures in the neighbourhood. Study of their features, gestures, shapes, plinths. This preliminary work serves to map the sculptures installed in the public space near the school. Work begins by locating and identifying the works that the pupils are already familiar with, after which, in a second stage, they prepare to discover new sculptures.

Approximations and reappropriations

Work on collages based on black and white photographs of selected sculptures. This work on collages continues over several sessions, encouraged by talking to Toni Giró and by the dialogue with the material created by other pupils.

The plinth near the school

Parallel to the work on sculptures, the group explores and studies a sculptural ensemble installed near the school. Several sessions are devoted to generating hypotheses, its possible history and function and so on, while new uses are also attributed to it.

Exploration of a selection of sculptures

The last stage in the residence focuses on studying a selection of public sculptures. In several sessions and various outings, the pupils explore the sculptures, documenting and measuring them. At each approximation, organised into small work groups, the pupils copy their volumes using strips of black foil. 

Performance

A full day session to perform the final action. A route is designed, jobs are allocated and movements are timed to plan an action involving several of the works the group has studied. On May 19, a procession formed by the pupils and teachers, along with Toni Giró create the performance, which is both recorded on photographs and filmed.

Presentation

The presentation takes place at 7.30 pm on May 30 in the courtyard of the Frederic Marès Museum. The pupils and Toni Giró present the various parts of the installation: the wall of collages, the landscape of skins and volumes, and the video of the performance.

The presentation is attended by schoolmates and families, teachers, representatives from Barcelona City Council’s Institute of Culture and Barcelona Education Consortium and members of the Council for Culture, as well as other people linked to the world of culture.

Actions linked to the project

- Visit to MACBA (24/2/2017)

A visit to the Barcelona Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA) is organised, with a route designed specifically in cooperation with the museum education service and linked to the creative process that the group is developing.
http://blocsenresidencia.bcn.cat/serratibonastre1617/index.php/2017/03/07/visita-al-museu-macba/

 

- The plinth near the school (12/4/2017)

The final stage in the project focuses on study of the neighbourhood and local public sculpture. Something resembling a plinth is found and studied near the school. This feature becomes a recurring element throughout the subsequent development of the project.
http://blocsenresidencia.bcn.cat/serratibonastre1617/index.php/2017/05/02/quina-funcio-tenia-la-peanya-del-costat-de-linstitut/

 

- Outings to document and study public statues near the school (several sessions). Outings to discover, document and appropriate public sculptures around the school and to plan the final action and filming.
http://blocsenresidencia.bcn.cat/serratibonastre1617/index.php/2017/05/26/hem-fet-un-recorregut-pel-barri-observant-algunes-escultures/

 

- Visit to the Frederic Marès Museum (30/05/2017)

The pupils make a visit to study the exhibition spaces and decide how to assemble the show, agreeing the final decisions as to how to arrange the elements on the table.