MUSAC opened on 1 April 2005 in the city of León, Spain, with the aim of providing the local community with a venue for contemporary art and of gaining a strong national and international reputation for its collection and public programmes. As a partner institution at Frieze Art Fair 2008, MUSAC challenged the traditional role of institutions at art fairs with the project Intangible Actions, curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio. Rather than acting as merely another agent at the fair, they opted to showcase Dora García’s invisible performance The Romeos; Carles Congost’s project Art Ringtones and Moments of Intensity, an action by Marc Vives + David Bestué. In addition, the space allocated to MUSAC at Frieze was used to distribute free copies of a special edition of FAKE magazine containing art works commissioned for the occasion.
Carles Congost, Art Ringtones
Carles Congost (Olot, 1970) has invented five artists from five regions with emerging art scenes (India, China, Serbia, Iran and Latin America) and composed a welcome ringtone for each, in reference to the warm welcome these regions have received from the international art market. Visitors were able to download the ringtones via Bluetooth at a designated point within the fair.
Dora García, The Romeos
Dora García (Valladolid, 1965) based her project for Frieze on a historic event. A spy for the DDR in Western Germany during the Cold War years revealed in his memoirs that he had used attractive young male agents to seduce lonely female secretaries in Bonn as a means of accessing confidential information. In García’s project for Frieze Art Fair, young male actors established seemingly spontaneous contact with different types of fairgoers, from gallerists and curators to art students and artists. Visitors were made aware of the performances thanks to a large poster displayed at MUSAC’s stand, although the casual observer may never know the outcome of these encounters. García’s aim, however, was to generate a sense of permanent suspicion surrounding every chance meeting that happens at the fair.
Marc Vives + David Betsué, Moments of Intensity
Marc Vives (Barcelona, 1978) and David Betsué (Barcelona, 1980) proposed a series of 15 actions for Frieze Art Fair. Through these actions, the artists explored different forms of behaviour that arise in relation to the dynamics of the art fair. Thus, the fair’s exhibition space and functional facilities (toilets, rest areas, etc.) became the location for establishing a range of dialogues and metaphors for our everyday actions.
FAKE at Frieze
Free copies of a special issue of FAKE magazine, guest edited by Tolo Cañellas, were circulated from the MUSAC stand. As well as containing specially commissioned art works, the project was an extension of the FAKE installation at the MUSAC Showcases, on display in León from September 2008 to January 2009.
