Ritual of the bread and ashes. In memoriam Victor Grippo
Essay, Documentary
Duration: 20 min
Spanish Language
English subtitles
Original format: HD
Projection format: Blu-Ray, DCP 2k 1:85 Stereo
Production: Alicia Chillida Ameztoy © 2016 Spain
Philadelphia Museum of Fine Arts © 2017
Direction and production: Alicia Chillida
Realization: Benito Macías
Editing: Benito Macias
Sound design and mixing: Benito Macías
Post-production and Deliveries: Benito Macías
Ritual del pan y las cenizas. Ritual of the bread and ashes. In memoriam Victor Grippo, links together objects, words, dialogues and ways of thinking. A film diary by an art curator who considers art in terms of everyday reality to interpret the work of one of the Latin American conceptualism pioneers. The first action is to build an oven in the neighbourhood of Romerillo, in the context of the XII Biennial of Havana. With this act, we recall the work “Construction of a popular bread oven”, 1972, made by the Argentinian artist Victor Grippo, in collaboration with Gamarra and Rossi. This work was censored and destroyed the very next day, in a central square in Buenos Aires. The film is a reflection of the panoramic images by the artist, the only document of the action. In parallel to the construction of the oven, a plaque is placed as a second action at the cemetery where the remains of the artist rest in Havana. A human landscape of transient communities, gathered under the bread and ashes, through the political meanings of Cuban society in which it happens. Alchemical gestures on primary objects that reveal the value of everyday life, turned into tools of social action.
Shot at the XII Havana Biennial and presented at Casa de América, Madrid, 2016
Director Bio
Alicia Chillida is an art historian and independent curator. Since 1987 he has developed his work, both in the public and private spheres. For eleven years he worked for the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, being Head of Exhibitions at the Palacios de Velázquez and Palacio de Cristal Madrid between 1995 and 2001. During those years he curated specific projects with artists such as Ilya Kabakov, David Hammons or Lawrence Weiner; and retrospective exhibitions such as Annette Messager, Günther Förg, Anselm Kiefer or Franz West.
In 2002, she was the curator of the Spanish Pavilion at the Sao Paulo Biennial with the artist Rogelio López Cuenca and curator of the Sicilia-Morente La Luz que se Apaga project – a painting exhibition and flamenco concert – at the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, Holland. She is invited as curator-in-residence by Apexart, New York and continues to work as an independent curator on international projects, such as the collective exhibition Landscape & Memory, held at La Casa Encendida, Madrid, during the spring of 2003, which traveled to CAAM in 2004.
He directs for two years (2004-2006) the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, CAAM, in the Canary Islands, Spain.
In 2007 he created a platform for research, production and editing of contemporary art projects: MUSEO INVISIBLE, where he currently inscribes his work. It curates and produces the exhibition and performance of flamenco rap by Maria Nordman, La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Mireya Masó: Time of Change for the Center d`Art Sta. Mònica, Barcelona, who travels to Montevideo, Uruguay; Project Tierra curator, an interdisciplinary exhibition, held in 2011 on the occasion of the opening of Alhóndiga Bilbao. He has recently curated and produced the Lothar Baumgarten exhibition Los Aristocratas de la Selva and the Reina de Castilla for Fundación Botín, Santander. In Havana, Cuba, he curates and produces the Carlos Pazos exhibition and film %22Los Nuevos Llopis%22 with the collaboration of AECID and Obra Social Caja Madrid. In 2012 he held the first retrospective, dedicated to the small format, of the painter Gonzalo Chillida, for KM, San Sebastián, Donostia. In July 2013 he is the curator of the retrospective of the Argentine Victor Grippo, CGAC of Santiago de Compostela, which will travel in 2014 to Muac, Mexico, DF and the Luis Ángel Arango Library in Bogotá.
Biografía del realizador
Benito Macías (Oviedo, 1985) is a filmmaker and anthropologist who works with cinematographic language from the sociological imagination.
As a professional he has collaborated for more than 15 years on different projects with filmmakers and artists, mainly as a producer, editor, sound designer and distributor. In 2014 he founded Teorema Films, a film production and distribution company dedicated to auteur cinema. His projects are in permanent dialogue with different contexts and disciplines where the base of experimentation and ethnography reformulate different forms of work.