L'artiste portatif (the portable artist) 2003 - curated by Daniela Franco

The title and part of the curatorial line behind this exhibition are inspired by the La Sociedad Secreta de los Portátiles (also known as The Shandy Conspiracy ). Founded in 1924 in Africa, this Society had amongst its members: Walter Benjamin , Federico Garcia Lorca , Marcel Duchamp and John Scott Fizgerald . In his book Historia abreviada de la literatura portátil (1985), Enrique Vila-Matas describes the requirements to be part of this Society: a great degree of madness (not mandatory for this exhibition), a lack of greater purposes, insolence, a tense relationship with the double-self, sympathy for the darkness and relentless nomadism. Another indispensable requirement was to have a body of work easily transportable, light, and that could travel in a suitcase.

In these days, where each artist travels with a laptop computer à la boîte-en-valise , all references to that which is portable change continuously. The DIY, IKEA, the diplomatic valise, the possibility (through digital media) to "fit" everything from a video to a complete exhibition into a compact disc, all of it sets a new frame of reference to the portable, semi-recyclable art. The complaint of the confused audience has changed from "any one could do it" to "anyone could put it together."

Having the above in mind, artists in this exhibition were invited to send a work of art that could be transported to Paris in a box not exceeding 15 cm x 30 cm x 30 cm and 15 kilos. The work, once displayed, could have any dimensions.

The work proposed by the artists resolves in a very ingenious manner the assignment and transpose the condition of portability to the artist rather than the work.

The catalog for L'artiste Portatif comes -of course- in a self-assambly presentation and includes a new text by the Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas and a set of instructions given by the artists for you to reproduce their work at home.

In the words of Vila-Matas, himself guessing the words of Duchamp : The portable artist or, for that purpose, someone you can easily take anywhere.

Participating artists : Matmos , Wilson Díaz, Sigur Rós + Floria Sigismondi , Böl, Måns Wrange, Gonzalo Lebrija, Natalia Blanch + Guillermo Daghero, Erla Haraldsdóttir , Fernando Palomar, Ediciones «El Chino», Joachim Koester, Vincent + Feria and a special project by Curt Cloninger .