Jan Mot Unspoken Dailies, 2009 16mm film, 66 min., black and white, sound

Unspoken Dailies is a film study about time and silence, the unsaid and the forgotten. Shot in real time, the 66 min. film features actor Diego reading the mentioned script for himself for the first time as the camera rolls. Nothing is being said, but much is revealed in Unspoken Dailies, which as it is projected, becomes a long screen test of the actor, an audio portrait of Mexico City where the film was shot, and an essay about real and cinematic time. - see DVD Unspoken Dailies

Département de Distribution du Musée d’Art Moderne, Section Téléphonique, 2009 telephone

The phone number +32 2 512 0954 that Marcel Broodthaers used for all matters related to his Musée d’Art Moderne project had been in disuse for years until recently when it was put operation again. The telephone number has been added to the ones already in use at Jan Mot, Brussels and it will remain there until further notice. The number itself and its operation constitute a work by Mario Garcia Torres titled Departement de Distribution du Musée d’Art Moderne, Section Téléphonique, 2009. - see Jan Mot newspaper N. 68

JAN MOT BVBA

RUE ANTOINE DANSAERTSTRAAT 190 B - 1000 BRUSSEL / BRUXELLES

TEL +32 2 514 10 10 FAX +32 2 514 14 46 E-MAIL [email protected] BTW/TVA BE 875 839 328

ING 310-1812436-77

Je ne sais si c’en est la cause, 2009 installation with two 35mm slide projections and vinyl record

In this work, The Grapetree Bay Hotel on the U.S. Virgin Islands, is being revisited. It’s a hotel with a troubled financial history that opened in the 60’s and was eventually destroyed by a hurricane in 1989. The young Daniel Buren was asked to create a series of murals for the swimming pool. The murals – created in 1960 and 1965 – witness an important shift in Buren’s work, one series being figurative works in the style of Henri Matisse and Diego Rivera, and the other series experimenting with abstraction, inching towards the stripe paintings for which he is known today. - see DVD Je ne sais si c’en est la cause - see CD ROM Slide Works and Photography

He is a cowboy, my father. He likes the landscape, and everything that entails it. When I knew the atomic bomb lab-town of Los Alamos, NM had been reconstructed in the north of Mexico for a film thirty years after the events, I got stuck with the idea of seeing what could have been left of it. Decades had passed since they built it, but that displacement was exciting enough to drive several hours with the hope of finding it. I asked him to come with me. We got lost at some point in the deserted area, but at the end of the day we finally found the exact point. There wasn’t much to see but debris and a few free standing walls. While hanging out there, my father discovered that the remaining constructions had been made with the stones from that very same hill. They looked heavy but weighed nothing. In an effort to make the discovery some sort of sculptural event I asked him to throw the stone to the air, and I tried to catch it with the camera. I hoped the simple action would be read with that story in mind, 2009 2 black and white prints, framed; 45,85 x 30,65 cm (x2)

- see CD ROM Slide Works and Photography

Il aurait bien pu le promettre aussi, 2009 52 black and white 35mm slides, digital sound, 6 min. 20 sec.

“After I had used subtitling myself for some time, I started thinking about the phenomenom of translating other people’s work. How much inventiveness – or boredom, for that matter – does it take for someone to give a community access to certain information or exposure to certain aesthetic experiences? To what extent is that an artistic venture? After doing some research I found that subtitling laboratory in Tokyo. The piece is a slide show of random pictures I took in Tokyo, along with those I took in the subtitling lab. I recorded my own voice as a soundtrack: whispering, humming, whistling, and singing the song ‘I Promise Every Time’ that Mario Lopez Landa had sung before, which was in my head.” - see DVD Il aurait bien pu le promettre aussi

All That Color is Making Me Blind, 2008 video installation on video wall (16 min., colour, silent) and one separate monitor (30 sec., black and white, silent)

The fictional story of All That Color Is Making Me Blind presents an artist who envisions the downfall of video art as it is being transformed and problematized by commercial television broadcasting. The piece portrays a decade of interventions by artists in television broadcasting, making use of antagonistic techniques also used by experimental video that were debated through the seventies and eighties as valid strategies for the use of video as an art form. All That Color Is Making Me Blind is a video pastiche, a time capsule of both television and artistic inquiry. - see DVD All That Color Is Making Me Blind

My Westphalia Days, 2008 16 mm film, color, silent, 14 min.

My Westphalia Days is a short film based on a few lost days in the history of an icon of contemporary sculpture. The conceptual artist Michael Asher has presented, as an artwork, a commonplace caravan at Sculpture Project Munster since its inception in 1977. On 21 July 2007, the caravan disappeared, only to be discovered four days later at the edge of a forest in the outskirts of the city. Mario Garcia Torres has proposed a fiction about these missing days, filming a 30-year-old Mercedes Benz stealing a caravan almost identical to the one used by Asher from the site where it disappeared. - see DVD My Westphalia Days

I Promise..., 2004 - ongoing ink on hotel stationary

Every time the artist spends a night in a hotel he promises –by writing on the hotel's stationary- that he will do his best at being an artist. While being a very personal gesture, the work also documents the artist professional activity throughout the years. - see publication Jeu de Paume

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger, 2007 53 black and white and colour slides

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Stronger is the narrative documentation of a larger project that lead the artist to install a solo exhibition at the former site of Martin Kippenberger’s Museum of Modern Art Syros, in Greece. Just as Kippenberger would have done, Garcia Torres printed a poster that designated the spot again as the Museum of Modern Art, Syros - see CD ROM Slide Works and Photography

Monochronic Film on a Polychronic Story, 2007 black and white 16mm film, silent, 4 min.

A short film that pretends to put together a long list of events represented here only by their date of occurrence. The dates are here most of the dates that the artist has seen written on films. Dates come from fictional or real events.

July 2007, 2007 one scratched black and white negative film on a slide mount image: July 2007, in the same series are August 2007, January 2008, April 2008

A piece of film is worn by the artist in his pocket through a period of time during which the everyday movement makes scratches on it with the intention of creating a seemingly unconscious image. Afterwards it is projected in the form of a slide. The almost black image on view is what would have been created if the piece of film were used to print a photograph. As is impossible to reproduce as it is, what one sees in the gallery is always the positive of its printed representation. - see CD ROM Slide Works and Photography

Transparencies On the Non-Act, 2007 49 black and white 35mm slides

A text displayed over different values of transparencies and opacities that rethinks the relevance that the fictional artist Oscar Neuestern could have today. The only documentation of Neuestern’s career appeared in the form of a text in a 1969 issue of ArtNEWS magazine. In the piece Neuestern’s search for the absolute and his interests in art as a brief existence endeavor are discussed. - see CD ROM Slide Works and Photography - see article by Kiki Kundry, ARTnews 1969

I Am Not a Flopper…, 2007 performance and publication, 40 min. approx.

Allen Smithee is an official pseudonym used by film directors who wish to disown a project. It has been the sole pseudonym used by members of the Directors Guild of America when a director was dissatisfied with the final. For the Frieze Art Fair in 2007, Mario Garcia Torres created a person behind the pseudonym. A monologue was performed by an actor in the form of a keynote lecture, in which the so-called Allen Smithee elaborates on the complex relationships between the public persona of Allen Smithee and his long filmography. - see I’m Not a Flopper stage draft

Following Piece (With Evo’s Sweater), 2007 performance

Following Piece (With Evo’s Sweater) is a remake of Vito Acconci’s influential action, this time defined within the limits of the museum and performed wearing a replica of Bolivian president Evo Morales’ sweater – a built-by-the-press emblem of a different relationship to power, diplomacy and social interactions.

Preliminary Sketches from the Past and for the Future (Stedelijk Museum), 2007 Installation with 5 synchronised slide projections, 100 black and white 35mm slides installation image at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2007

The work is composed of a series of actions privately performed by the artist and a group of extras in the stripped interior of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam while being on renovation. The slides documenting the actions become blueprints for works by Garcia Torres that either already exists or that might be made in the future. - see CD ROM Slide Works and Photography

This Painting is Missing / This Painting Has Been Found, 2006-ongoing a series of 23 paintings, acrylic on canvas, dimensions and installation variable image: This Painting is Missing (left), This Painting Has Been Found (right), exhibition view at Jan Mot, 2007

Of the very long list of paintings made by Ed Ruscha, 23 are missing – or at least their actual location is unknown. Garcia Torres had all the missing paintings remade in their original size, depicting not the original image but its title, year, technique and dimensions. The canvases are then displayed in two variable groups that can only be shown together: the missing paintings and the found ones. As soon as one of Ruscha’s paintings is found, the corresponding canvas in García Torres piece should be transferred from one group to the other.

A Brief History of Jimmie Johnson’s Legacy, 2006 video, color, sound, 5 min. 45 sec.

A video essay that takes as a starting point the story of Jimmie Johnson -according to the narrator of Jean- Luc Godard’s A Band Apart, Johnson had the record of visiting the Louvre in 9 min. and 45 sec. Through the video museum politics and behaviors as well as spontaneous artistic gestures are discussed while a new museum visiting record is proposed at the Museo Nacional de Arte in Mexico City. - see DVD A Brief History of Jimmie Johnson’s Legacy

11 Years Later / 11 Minutes Later, 2006 29 color 35mm slides/47 color 35mm slides image: 11 Years Later (left), 11 Minutes Later (right)

11 Years Later: A re-enactment of the conceptual activities of Auggie Wren, the main characters of Wayne Wang’s and Paul Auster's Smoke. Wren would take a picture of the same spot in Brooklyn (his own cigar store) every day at the same hour, an action continued by the artist on the same film location, today a check-cashing place. The pictures taken by the artist are displayed in a slide show featuring a slightly altered version of Auster’s script. 11 Minutes Later: A fictional continuation of Augie Wren’s previous conversation dealing with repetition, sameness, the everyday. The work offers a possible ending to the previous Brooklyn story, dealing with a repeated image of Niagara Falls taken this time by different people through the years. - see CD ROM Slide Works and Photography

What Happens in Halifax Stays in Halifax (In 36 Slides), 2004-2006 50 black and white 35mm slides, 9 min.

A narrative documentation of a class reunion gathering some of the students that realized a secret piece by Robert Barry as part of David Askevold's Project Class in the fall of 1969 at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, Halifax. Along with the description of the aftermath of Barry’s piece, the work discusses different notions of memory and loyalty in our cultural imaginary. - see CD ROM Slide Works and Photography

Saying Goodbye to Ships (With Evo's Sweater), 2006 (right) 5 c-prints, 17,8 x 12,7 cm (x5) Saying Goodbye to Ships (With Evo's Sweater) (Virgin Islands version), 2006 (left) 1 c-print, framed, 17,8 x 12,7 cm

The series of photos document the remake of a piece with the same title by John Baldessari with the difference that the artists is wearing a replica of an Evo Morales’ sweater. The President of Bolivia has been criticized for not using suits, a critique to which a Bolivian company responded by putting replicas of one of Morales’ sweaters on the market. - see CD ROM Slide Works and Photography

The Kabul Golf Club: Opened in 1967, Relocated in 1973, Closed in 1978, Reopened around 1993, Closed Again in 1996 and Reopened in 2004, 2006 (image left) metal kinetic sculpture, 90 x 90 x 90 cm Today… (News from Kabul), 2006 (image right) graphite on wall

One Hotel Stationary (Speculative Prop), 2006 (image left) 2 linotype prints on paper, framed, 28,8 x 20,5 cm (x 2) Share-e-Nau Wonderings, 2006 (image right) 22 sheets of thermo paper, 26,7 x 21 cm each

A group of works related to Alighiero Boetti’s One Hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan, composed of a film treatment in the form of short notes hypothetically faxed to Boetti by the artist; a couple of speculative film props, and an updated remake of a piece by the Italian artist, now contaminated by the contemporary political situation of that country. In 1970, Italian artist Alighiero Boetti made a performance, the title of which – Today is March Friday March 27th, 1970 – was simultaneously written with both hands, in an ordinary and a mirrored writing. In 1974 he made the same action that this time read: The body always speaks in silence. Repeating Boetti's gesture, Garcia Torres changes the Italian artist’s text for the first sentence of the latest news from Kabul. Every time the work is installed, the most recent information from the Afghan capital defines the content of the piece.

Moonwalk Lesson (Rigo Style), 2006 38 black and white 35mm slides

Contrary to what is commonly assumed, the Moonwalk (or Slide Step) was not invented by Michael Jackson in the early 1980’s. There are at least a couple of known inceptions before the time, one of them attributed to the popular Mexican singer Rigo Tovar (1946-2005) who incorporated it to his stage dancing in the early 1970’s. Moonwalk Lesson (Rigo Style) is a slide show documenting a group of art students teaching to each other the dancing step following Rigo Tovar’s pace. - see CD Rom Slide Works and Photography

Moonwalk (At Rigo’s Pace), 2006 light fixtures, 30 cm x 140 cm. approx.

A lighting sign similar to those used on stage by Rigo Tovar, following the rhythm of a song by the Mexican singer.

Some Places I Have Seen Before Moving to L.A., 2005 8mm film transferred to 16mm film, black and white, silent, 5 min. 53 sec.

A probable road movie that visits a collection of sites through Los Angeles which have been used either on conceptual art works or as locations for popular movies based in that city: Johnnie’s Coffee shop appearing in Ethan and Joel Coen's The Big Lebowsky; Golden Voice Recordings house previously hosting A. Ruppersberg's Al's Grand Hotel, and the frog rain corner used for P. T. Anderson’s Magnolia. - see Compilation DVD

One Minute to Act a Title: Kim Jong Il Favorite Movies, 2005 16mm film, black and white, silent, 3 min.

A film in which actors play charades, guessing the North Korean dictator's favorite Hollywood movies. In the frame only the actor mimicking a title is seen while his co-stars guess the film off camera. Three minutes, one-take film. - see Compilation DVD

Carta Abierta a Dr. Atl, 2005 Super 8 Ektachrome film transferred to video, English subtitles, color, silent, 6 min. 26 sec.

A missive written to Mexican painter Gerardo Murillo "Dr. Atl" (1875-1964) displays the raw footage of the Barranca de Oblatos, where it was considered to construct a new branch of the Guggenheim Museum. The work addresses the many implications of this specific scenario while dealing with the use and abuse of the image, specifically landscape, historically and nowadays. - see Compilation DVD

The Remains of an Animation, 2004 video animation, black and white, silent, 60 sec.

The title indicates that the line appearing on screen is a leftover of another work which is an animation. It works as the minimal effect that a drawing in animation could have. The succession of the images creates a movement through the slight variations in the line’s position. - see Compilation DVD

Sing Like Baldessari, 2004 video, colour and sound, 14 min.

Karaoke version of John Baldessari’s Sentences On Conceptual Art - see Compilation DVD

Until It Makes Sense, 2004 video animation, black and white, silent, 60 sec.

A traditional animation consists in the slightly altered repetition of a series of actions displayed in a successive manner in order to produce meaning. Until It Makes Sense is the result of the almost absurd gesture of persistently writing the same title sentence. Although seemingly unproductive, the short narrative pretends to stands as a straightforward test over one’s own artistic practice. - see Compilation DVD

Shot of Grace with Alighiero Boetti Haircut Style (Brussels), 2004 34 black and white 35mm slides

Tiro di Grazia con Taglio di Capelli alla Alighiero Boetti (Como), 2004 36 black and white 35mm slides

Shot of Grace with Alighiero Boetti Haircut Style (Los Angeles), 2004 32 black and white 35mm slides

“The artist repeats the same action 36 times: in each photograph we see him running towards the back of the image, or its vanishing point, in a failed attempt to escape the shooting of his camera as if trying to avoid being co-opted by the system in which the work happens to be located – an act frustrated beforehand since the perverse consideration of the shot of Grace consists of shooting someone who is already prey of death.” - see CD ROM Slide Works and Photography (excerpts)

Historical Reposition (Lamelas-Broodthaers), 2002 video, black and white, silent, 54 sec.

‘This is a video that David Lamelas and Marcel Broodthaers conceived in the late sixties but never got to do. Being in Berlin where it was supposed to be taped, I made the piece along fellow artist Stefan Bruggeman. It ´s called Historical Reposition (Lamelas-Broodthaers) and it’s a very simple video where the two protagonists walk towards the camera. I happened to talk to Lamelas in NY early that year and he told me they made sketches for the piece which was supposed to be done when he came back to Europe after going to America. When back in Berlin, Broodthaers was already in bed and they could never realize it. Most of the time I try to evade creative decisions and deposit them into prevailing structures or persons so, I guess it could be interesting for me as an exercise to ask people to think in a work of mine and consider the possibility of making it happen.’ - see Compilation DVD