Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Jorge Satorre
Ciudad de Mxico, Mxico, 1979.
Vive y trabaja en msterdam, Pases Bajos.
Tras desarrollarsecomo ilustrador editorial, el trabajo de Jorge Satorre recupera y
pervierte mtodos propios de ese campo, en donde la comunicacin tcita establecida
entre creador, historia, imagen y lector/espectador sirven de punto de partida
para relacionarse y trabajar con la problemtica de los contextos especficos en
los que basa cada uno de sus trabajos.
Los modos escasos de presentacin que acostumbra utilizar, en donde la combinacin
de dibujo y texto funciona como medio principal, propician un tipo de trabajo que
existe basado ms en las posibilidades de comunicacin oral que en sus elementos
visuales.
Jorge Satorre
Mexico City, Mexico, 1979.
Lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
After several years of working as an illustrator, Jorge Satorre recovers and
perverts the methods of this practice, where the unspoken communication established
between creator, history, image and reader/viewer serves as a starting point to
relate and work with the problem of contexts.
He often utilizes bare-bones modes of presentation where the combination of
drawing and text functions as the main support for story-telling, the discursive
thus taking primacy over the visual elements of the work.
Modelling Standard
2010
57 dibujos en impresin xerogrfica sobre papel bond | 57 xerographic print drawings on bond paper
50 x 35.43 inches each
Edition 1/25, 1
(Inv# B & S1)
*The individual prints that make up this installation were made from original drawings
by Jorge Avia. The original drawings are sold together as a single work entitled
Modelling Standard.
Exhibited:
FormContent, Gasworks, London, United Kingdom. 2010.
Casa Vecina, Mexico City, Mexico. 2010
LABOR, Mexico City, Mexico. 2011.
LISTE 16, Basel, Switzerland. 2011.
Modelling Standard
A project by Erick Beltrn & Jorge Satorre
In the late nineteen seventies microhistory was developed in Italy as a new
historiographic methodology. Its structure is anchored in three basic principles:
the reduction of the scale of analysis, the intensive exploitation of original
sources and the adoption of the explanatory exhibition model, commonly associated
to detective novels since it applies deductive methods through clues. Among the
most significant contributions of microhistory to the historiographic field are:
the interest in the subordinate classes which forces the redefinition of the
historical analysis as a whole, imagination as a legitimate research tool, and
narrative as a guiding method.
Since the project tries to think itself as a conscious process coming from
the deductions of the research, it is difficult to foresee the final outcome.
Nevertheless, the cohesive element of the project is the method of writing the
basic script carried out by taking maps and projections -understood here as an
extension of coordinates- as the departure point.
The title of this project plays with the notion of the Standard Model, which is
the current theory of fundamental particles and their interaction. The attraction
and repulsion between these minimum units of matter is what makes possible the
visibility of all the things in the universe.
One feature of the Standard Model important to us is that, even though it may
seem perfect according to mathematical calculation, it proves to be incomplete.
The Standard Model cannot explain why some particles exist as they do e.g. why
particles have a certain mass. Physicists have theorised the existence of the socalled Higgs field, which in theory interacts with other particles to give them
mass. The Higgs field requires a particle, the Higgs boson, which has not been
observed in any experiment.
This model could work as a metaphor for the importance of looking at internal
dynamics in small scales at sociological and historical levels and, therefore,
the consequences they entail in reconsidering the mechanics of a given analysed
system. Likewise, microhistory works by means of the recollection of hints, like
pieces of a puzzle, tirelessly looking for an ungraspable, complex image or system.
Caballo 1
2010
Lpiz sobre papel | Graphite on paper
29.7 x 21 cm (11.69 x 8.27 inches)
39.6 x 30.8 cm con marco (15.59 x 12.13 inches framed)
(Inv# JS 17)
Selection of a sequence of drawings made up from the memory of spaces in cities he visited,
in which the first activity or contact with the place and its people was dancing.
The title of the project derives from a word which was used in the dancing marathons in
the 1930s in the USA. Thats how they called each competitor who exceeded 500 hours of
continious dancing.
Caballo 2
2010
Lpiz sobre papel | Graphite on paper
29.7 x 21 cm (11.69 x 8.27 inches)
39.6 x 30.8 cm con marco (15.59 x 12.13 inches framed)
(Inv# JS 18)
Selection of a sequence of drawings made up from the memory of spaces in cities he visited,
in which the first activity or contact with the place and its people was dancing.
The title of the project derives from a word which was used in the dancing marathons in
the 1930s in the USA. Thats how they called each competitor who exceeded 500 hours of
continious dancing.
Caballo 3
2010
Lpiz sobre papel | Graphite on paper
29.7 x 21 cm (11.69 x 8.27 inches)
39.6 x 30.8 cm con marco (15.59 x 12.13 inches framed)
(Inv# JS 19)
Selection of a sequence of drawings made up from the memory of spaces in cities he visited,
in which the first activity or contact with the place and its people was dancing.
The title of the project derives from a word which was used in the dancing marathons in
the 1930s in the USA. Thats how they called each competitor who exceeded 500 hours of
continious dancing.
Caballo 4
2010
Lpiz sobre papel | Graphite on paper
29.7 x 21 cm (11.69 x 8.27 inches)
39.6 x 30.8 cm con marco (15.59 x 12.13 inches framed)
(Inv# JS 20)
Selection of a sequence of drawings made up from the memory of spaces in cities he visited,
in which the first activity or contact with the place and its people was dancing.
The title of the project derives from a word which was used in the dancing marathons in
the 1930s in the USA. Thats how they called each competitor who exceeded 500 hours of
continious dancing.
Caballo 5
2010
Lpiz sobre papel | Graphite on paper
29.7 x 21 cm (11.69 x 8.27 inches)
39.6 x 30.8 cm con marco (15.59 x 12.13 inches framed)
(Inv# JS 21)
Selection of a sequence of drawings made up from the memory of spaces in cities he visited,
in which the first activity or contact with the place and its people was dancing.
The title of the project derives from a word which was used in the dancing marathons in
the 1930s in the USA. Thats how they called each competitor who exceeded 500 hours of
continious dancing.
Caballo 6
2010
Lpiz sobre papel | Graphite on paper
29.7 x 21 cm (11.69 x 8.27 inches)
39.6 x 30.8 cm con marco (15.59 x 12.13 inches framed)
(Inv# JS 22)
Selection of a sequence of drawings made up from the memory of spaces in cities he visited,
in which the first activity or contact with the place and its people was dancing.
The title of the project derives from a word which was used in the dancing marathons in
the 1930s in the USA. Thats how they called each competitor who exceeded 500 hours of
continious dancing.
Caballo 7
2010
Lpiz sobre papel | Graphite on paper
29.7 x 21 cm (11.69 x 8.27 inches)
39.6 x 30.8 cm con marco (15.59 x 12.13 inches framed)
(Inv# JS 23)
Selection of a sequence of drawings made up from the memory of spaces in cities he visited,
in which the first activity or contact with the place and its people was dancing.
The title of the project derives from a word which was used in the dancing marathons in
the 1930s in the USA. Thats how they called each competitor who exceeded 500 hours of
continious dancing.
Caballo 8
2010
Lpiz sobre papel | Graphite on paper
29.7 x 21 cm (11.69 x 8.27 inches)
39.6 x 30.8 cm con marco (15.59 x 12.13 inches framed)
(Inv# JS 24)
Selection of a sequence of drawings made up from the memory of spaces in cities he visited,
in which the first activity or contact with the place and its people was dancing.
The title of the project derives from a word which was used in the dancing marathons in
the 1930s in the USA. Thats how they called each competitor who exceeded 500 hours of
continious dancing.
The Visit
2010
320 drawings traded to slides
(Variable dimensions)
(Inv# JS 15)
Exhibited:
La verdad divina, LABOR, 2010.
Saint Nazaire es conocida por contar con el astillero que hasta la fecha construye
los barcos ms grandes del mundo. Al final de la segunda guerra mundial, fue
bombardeada y destruida en un 90% y en la dcada de 1950 la ciudad fue reconstruida
casi totalmente.
En 1949 George Bataille public un ensayo filosfico de teora econmica titulado
La parte maldita, el cual fue poco apreciado en su tiempo por el enfoque mstico de
sus planteamientos. En l, Bataille reivindica la importancia del gasto improductivo
en un sistema econmico normalmente ligado simplemente a un proceso de produccin
y consumo. Propone que toda sociedad produce un excedente de bienes que tiene que
ser dilapidado, entendiendo esto como un factor inherente en el proceso evolutivo
de la misma. Durante el desarrollo del libro, el autor analiza diversos ejemplos
como son: los sacrificios humanos en el imperio azteca, el derroche y destruccin
en las guerras, la ostentacin del lujo, el potlacht, la condena de la limosna en
el calvinismo, etc.
El libro antes citado sirvi como base para establecer una serie de conexiones
con la historia de la ciudad. Principalmente con el hecho de que St Nazaire haya
sido fundada a partir de la necesidad de mano de obra para la construccin de
un artefacto tan particular como lo es un barco. Y sobretodo, con el increble
despliegue de energa, organizacin de trabajo y materia prima que se requiere
para construir tal producto, confrontndolo con la paradoja de ser una de las pocas
cosas creadas por el hombre que difcilmente pueden ser conservadas por un largo
perodo de tiempo. A excepcin de contados casos, ya sea por incendio, hundimiento
o desguace, un barco est condenado a desaparecer relativamente pronto.
El trabajo se concret proponiendo una reedicin ilustrada de La parte Maldita.
Las imgenes provienen de una especie de inventario personal de todos lo barcos
construidos en St Nazaire de los que logr encontrar pruebas de su desaparicin.
Las pinturas fueron hechas por Jorge Avia, un ilustrador experto en reas tan
diversas como la novela policiaca y el dibujo cientfico, partiendo de datos y
descripciones encontrados en documentos de la ciudad. La esttica y formato se
inspir en las postales que se acostumbraban imprimir a principios del siglo pasado
cuando un barco era finalizado y parta del puerto.
La produccin del libro se detuvo intencionalmente justo antes ser impreso,
conservando simplemente las placas de offset con el layout de la publicacin. Siendo
as un libro en potencia, manteniendo finalmente la asociacin entre Bataille, St
Nazaire y Satorre, como algo casi personal del artista.
* La part maudite illustre fue realizado a partir de una invitacin del centro de
arte contemporneo Le grand caf en la ciudad de St. Nazaire en Francia a proponer
y desarrollar un trabajo en relacin a la historia del sitio.
Saint-Nazaire is known for having a shipyard that continues to produce the largest
ships in the world. By the end of the Second World War, 90% of the city was bombed
and destroyed and in the 1950s, the city was reconstructed almost in its entirety.
In 1949, Georges Bataille published a philosophical essay on economic theory
entitled The Accursed Share - fairly unappreciated at the time due to its mystical
undertones. In the book, Bataille argues for the importance of expenditure in an
economic system habitually linked to a simple process of production and consumption.
He proposes that all of society produce an excess of goods to be destroyed,
understanding this as an inherent factor in the evolutionary process of society
itself. Over the course of the book, the author analyzes various examples; human
sacrifice in the Aztec empire, waste and destruction in wars, luxury, potlatch,
the condemnation of begging in Calvinism, and so on.
Batailles book served as the basis for establishing a series of connections with
the history of the city. In particular, the fact that Saint-Nazaire was founded
out of the need to support the construction of an artifact as particular as the
boat. And above all, with the incredible burst of energy, labor and raw materials
required to build such a commodity, which ironically is one of the few things
created by man that can hardly be preserved for a long period of time. Except in
rare cases, either by fire, sinking or scrapping, a ship is doomed to disappear
relatively quickly.
The work was conceptualized by proposing an illustrated remake of The Accursed
Share. The images come from a kind of personal inventory of all the boats built
in Saint-Nazaire where the artist could find evidence of their disappearance.
The paintings were made by Jorge Avia, an artist who produces illustrations for
everything from detective stories to scientific drawings based on descriptions
found in documents found in the city. The postcards - printed in the early twentieth
century when a ship was finished and left the port - inspired the aesthetic and
format of the work.
The production of the publication was detained just before printing, conserving
only the offset plates with the layout of the publication. Thus the book is a
potential work, which associates Bataille, Saint-Nazaire and the subjective vision
of Jorge Satorre.
* La Part maudite illustre was the result of a residency from the contemporary art
center Le Grand Caf in Saint-Nazaire (France) where Jorge Satorre has to produce
a site-specific work.
Temporary intervention at the Dolmen of Funtanaccia on the island of Corsica. The work
consisted of building five paper stones produced in minute detail, imitating the texture
and shapes of the rocks configuring the Dolmen of Funtanaccia, which is near the place where
I was staying. One morning, the last one of my sojourn on the island, I placed the five
paper stones on top of and around the megalith, changing their position every so often,
simply to observe them. I was the only one who witnessed the action. No documentation was
made that day.
Three months later, in Mexico, I decided to do my utmost to remember what the Dolmen looked
like surrounded by my five false stones, and then I made a detailed drawing. The other
drawing accompanied by text is all I managed to remember during one day in connection
with my sojourn in Corsica. The small images inside the circles represent experiences,
the ovals are dreams I had on the island and the rectangles are artistic and literary
references.
Before my decision not to meddle in the history of the island, I tried to intervene only
in my perception of the place. And the drawing I made is not the Dolmen of Funtanaccia
but my Dolmen.
National Balloon
2006
46 dibujos y 13 diapositivas en bucle | 46 drawings and 13 looped slides
21 x 30 cm (8.27 x 11.81 inches)
(Inv# JS Carpeta 3)
17-05-06
2006
290 dibujos insertos en Ergo Sum y edicin de 20 cuadernos de 290 pginas. Impresin
xerogrfica, encuadernacin manual | 290 drawings inserted in Ergo Sum and edition of 20
books of 290 pages. Xerographic printing, manual bookbinding.
Dibujos: 29.5 x 21 cm c/u (Drawings: 11.61 x 8.27 inches each)
(Inv# JS Carpeta 6)
Work made for the publication Ergo Sum, a project by artist Erick Beltrn. To a
certain degree, Its initial structure, which evolved as the work progressed, observed
the classical sections of a newspaper. I was assigned the sports section.
Precisely at the time when I received the offer to collaborate, the polemical
information about the supposed fixed matches in the Italian football competition
during the 2004-2005 season came to light, implicating major teams such as Juventus,
AC Milan, Fiorentina and Lazio. Around the same dates, the Barcelona and Arsenal
teams were preparing to compete in the final of the 2006 Champions League.
My work consisted of representing that match in drawings, respecting the way in
which the team managers plan the different movements and convey them to their
players just before they enter the pitch. This recording was extremely detailed,
from the first minute of the match till the last, and the drawings show the whole
trajectory of the ball, the actions of the players involved in each move, the
fouls, offsides, cautions and goals.
The idea for this project is based on an action performed by Gordon Matta Clark in
1976 entitled Windows Blow Out, which consisted in recovering, almost theatrically,
this referential work through the construction of three windows, made to measure, to be
installed in an old abandoned house near the town of Skibbereen in West Cork, Ireland,
where I was invited to carry out a site-specific project. The windows were installed and
then stones were thrown against their panes, after which the windows were removed leaving
the house in its original condition.
By recreating the original act I recovered and assimilated Matta Clarks simple procedure
and his endeavour to replace the model of a visually oriented artwork with a model based
on the world of labour where processes acquire a fundamental importance. The way this
piece on which I base my proposal has survived is particularly to the point. Im referring
specifically to the legendary aspect the work has acquired from the combination of
features such as the spectacular nature of the action, the absence of witnesses and the
scarce documentation and information preserved of the event.
During the last decade the district of Poblenou in Barcelona has been affected by a wild
urban plan where hundreds of factories and buildings have been demolished to be replaced
by luxurious residential and commercial complexes.
Between the year 2003 and 2005 my studio was located in one of the more affected zones
of the district. While collective of artists organized themselves to pronounce altogether with neighbor communities, I decided to carry out a series of personal actions.
One of them was Important Work that consisted in recovering from a demolished house near
of my studio one of it wood beams and, during approximately a month, I fragmented it in
a slow way. I registered the process with a series of drawings.
Jorge Satorre
Mxico D.F., 1979
Exhibiciones individuales
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
Exhibiciones colectivas
2013
2012
2011
2010
Estevez)
Programa Bancomer-MACG-Arte Actual. Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil. Mxico
DF (comisariado por Ruth Estevez e Itzel Vargas)
2009
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
Trabajos en publicaciones
2011
2009
2008
2007
2006
2004
Premios
Marcelino Botn. Espaa. 2010-11
Cajasol. Espaa. 2009-10
Arte e investigacin. Centro Cultural Montehermoso Kulturunea.
Vitoria, Espaa. 2009-10
Programa Bancomer-MACG-Arte Actual, Mxico DF. 2009
Primer premio. Premio Injuve. Espaa. 2007
Beca de formacin en el extranjero. Ministerio de Cultura de Espaa.
2007-08
Fondos para creadores en residencia. Departamento de Cultura de la
Generalitat de Catalua. Espaa. 2007.
Barcelona Produccin. La Capella. Barcelona. 2006
Primer premio. Modalidad proyecto. Premio Miquel Casablancas.
Barcelona. 2006
Primer premio. Cuarta Bienal de VI. Espaa. 2004
Colecciones
Frac des Pays de la Loire. Francia
Fundacin / Coleccin Jumex. Mxico
Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporneo de la UNAM. Mxico
Museo Amparo. Mxico
De Bruin-Heijn Collection. Holanda
Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo. Espaa
Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). Tasmania, Australia
Davis Museum. Estados Unidos
Jorge Satorre
Mexico city, 1979
Forthcoming exhibitions
XII Bienal Internacional de Cuenca. Ecuador (curated by Manuela Moscoso and
Jacopo Crivelli)
Una mquina desea instrucciones como un jardn desea disciplina. Frac
Lorraine. Metz, France (cur. by Catalina Lozano) (Solo)
Solo exhibitions
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006
Group exhibitions
2013
2012
2011
2010
2008
2007
2006
2005
2004
Grants
2010-11
Marcelino Botn.
2009-10
Cajasol grant for art visual projects. Spain.
Art and research. Centro Cultural Montehermoso Kulturunea. Vitoria, Spain.
2009
Programa Bancomer-MACG-Arte Actual, Mexico City
2007-08
Beca de formacin en el extranjero. Ministerio de Cultura de Espaa.
2007
First prize. Premio Injuve. Spain.
Fondos para creadores en residencia. Departamento de Cultura de la
Generalitat de Catalua. Spain
2006
Barcelona Produccin. La Capella. Barcelona.
First prize. Project modality. Premio Miquel Casablancas. Barcelona.
2004
First prize. Fourth Vic biennale. Spain.
Collections
Frac des Pays de la Loire. France
Fundacin / Coleccin Jumex. Mexico
Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporneo de la UNAM. Mexico
Museo Amparo. Mexico
De Bruin-Heijn Collection. Holland
Centro de Arte 2 de Mayo. Spain
Museum of Old and New Art (MONA). Tasmania, Australia
Davis Museum. United States
Saint-Nazaire
Jorge Satorre
The Indirect Gaze
Curator: Sophie Legrandjacques
After being developed during his tenure as an editorial illustrator, Jorge
Satorres work recuperates and perverts the methods proper to that field,
wherein the tacit relationships established between creator, story, image and
reader/viewer serve as a point of departure for relating to and intervening
in the places where his work develops.
Jorge Satorres way of working, rooted in an evident enjoyment of narrative,
comes from historical and oneiric inquiry, detective work and poetic rereading. The artist lays claim to the freshness of the experimental, foregrounding the research process and effort that it involves. His usual modes of
presentation (drawings, videos, performances) work by suggestion: tools for
recovering a memory rather than faithful documents that would allow an event
or the history of a place to be retraced. They function as subjective attempts
at interpretation and which afford a kind of work that exists based more in
the possibilities of oral communication than in its visual elements.
His drawings and films are thus considered as hybrid receptacles, emotionally
very highly charged, weighing up the phenomena of migration (of populations,
of objects) and mutation (functional and symbolic) that regulate our world.
In Saint-Nazaire Jorge Satorre will renew with his 2010 residence and exhibit
a particular group of works closely tied to the geographical context and the
relationship between the port and its past.
An astronomical method for detecting planets beyond the solar system called
the indirect gaze provides the title of the exhibition, as well as of one
of the included pieces. Since such planets are so far from Earth, they could
until very recently only be discovered by studying the subtle variations in
luminosity of stars oscillating nearby. Satorre uses this reference to explain the ways he has approached situations in which he has had to interpret
a place totally unknown to him.
The exhibition includes a review of some of the artists most relevant work,
as well as the continuation of a work in progress and two new projects. One
of them, La part maudite illustre functions as the axis of the group of
work presented. Following a period of research in the citys archives, he
gathered information with which he created a personal inventory of the ships
constructed in St Nazaire and that have now disappeared. Based on this documentation, a scientific illustrator painted each of these ships in detail,
describing the moment at and way in which they disappeared. These images
were then used in an illustrated reprint of Georges Batailles book La part
maudite (The accursed share) that was proposed by the artist. This process
was detained just before printing, based on the idea of a book that remains
only as potential. The offset plates, together with the paintings, constitute
the final presentation of the piece.
Jorge Satorre, Mexico City, 1979. He lives in Mexico and Amsterdam. His work
has been presented in individual shows at: Centro Cultural Montehermoso,
Vitoria (2010); galera Xippas, Paris (2008); Process Room / Irish Museum of
Modern Art, Dublin (2007) and La Casa Encendida, Madrid (2006). He is currently completing a residency at Gasworks, London (project with Erick Beltrn
for FormContent in September).
LE GRAND CAF, Centre dart contemporain, Saint-Nazaire (F)
Place des Quatre zhorloges, 44 600 Saint-Nazaire France T + 33 (0)2 44
73 44 00 F + 33 (0)2 44 73 44 01 grand_cafe@mairie-saintnazaire.fr www.
grandcafe-saintnazaire.fr
9 Oct 2010
Jorge Satorre and Erick Beltrn: Modelling Standard
Review by Maggie Grey
A poster press release at the door to Modelling Standard provides the first
clue that FormContents latest exhibition might emphasise the content side of
things. It proclaims the starting points for Jorge Satorre and Erick Beltrns
collaboration as Carlo Ginzburgs concept of the micro-history, and sciences
Standard Model used to explain interactions between sub-atomic particles.
Cerebral stuff, but its not at the expense of the visuals. The at-a-glance
effect of Jorge Avinas comic-like illustrations, which form the physical
content of the exhibition, is eye-catchingly energetic and intricate, and well
matched to the complexity of the shows ideas. On top of a wealth of pictorial
detail, every image harbours words and phrases. Difficult ones: apophenia,
cognitive neuroscience, Naegely-Franceschetti-Jadassohn Syndrome. I decided rather quickly that I should take a little longer over my visit than
planned.
Satorre and Beltrn installed this exhibition in front of an audience, hastily pasting up the paper sheets while constructing and explaining the narratives between them. Their footprints still muddy the occasional image, and
I found myself wishing I could have attended. It might have helped navigate
the resulting, bewildering detective plot of references, presented as a
sort of comic book drawing-board. It features a murder (Sherlock Holmes vs.
Fantmas - a story in which Holmes is the victim), and aspects of detective
investigation: definitions of the perfect crime, notes on the discovery of
the fingerprint and of a physical condition which leaves certain people without one. Fantmas, the perfect villain (so elusive that people do not believe
he exists) is evoked alongside sheets that highlight the fallibility of human
recognition. A host of further scientific and academic theories addressing
the physical, societal and psychological details of our lives are also thrown
into the mix. Fittingly, the main protagonists of the plot are famously great
minds Freud, Morelli and Arthur Conan Doyle all feature.
I cannot profess to have followed much of this investigative narrative.
Perhaps the artists at the opening reached a more concrete conclusion than
I was able to puzzle out. Perhaps it doesnt matter: one illustration claims
that the processes of investigation are as important as results. The show illustrates the idea that history should be taken as a set of clues rather than
a series of facts, and that how we interpret these depends on how closely we
look and from what angle. There are some memorable insights to that effect,
my favourite being a comment on scale illustrated by a man battling a foe
whose atoms fly apart to avoid any blow: A model is a metaphor depending
on the scale you are reading, different particles appear. Form is a choice of
scale. Look closely enough at anything and the best part of it becomes the
space between its atoms.