Laura Gonzalez

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Art, institutions and the market

Spain is in commotion and the culprit is Art. Miquel Barceló recently unveiled his painting for the UN’s room XX in Geneva. The controversy comes from the fact that it cost €18.5 million, €500.000 of which came from a development fund. Some of the reports I read even accuse the Spanish Government of paying part [...]

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On forgetting and having to learn again

Common knowledge says that you never forget how to bike, or to drive a car, or even ski. These are three things I once learned and completely forgot to the extent that, having had my driving license for ten years, I had to take 22 classes before driving to Arran. I did it quite badly, [...]

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A Wind of Revolution Blows, the Storm is on the Horizon

I can’t wait to go to London at the end of November and see this exquisite show:

We have see nothing yet but roses 2006 detail
Sharon Kivland
A Wind of Revolution Blows,
the Storm is on the Horizon
07.11.08 – 13.12.08
Chelsea Space
Chelsea College of Art and Design
16 John Islip Street
London SW1P 4JU
http://www.sharonkivland.com/
Her work is a fine example [...]

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Destruction of the father, indeed…

74
Charcot was modest. He was only a scientist and not a theorist. Lacan was a guérisseur, through charm and through the verbal. He was not a scientist. He was a con man. Freud and Lacan did nothing for the artist. They were barking up the wrong tree. They don’t help any. I simply can’t use [...]

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More on art’s seduction: Louise Bourgeois

Bourgeois, L. Destruction of the father, reconstruction of the father. Writings and interviews 1923-1997. Cambridge, Mass & London, MIT Press, 1998
Art comes from life. Art comes from the problem you have in seducing birds, men, snakes — anything you want. It is like a Corneille tragedy, where everybody is pursuing somebody else. You like A, [...]

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Cildo Meireles

‘For me the art object must be, despite everything else, instantly seductive.’
Cildo Meireles
Tate Modern, 14 Oct 2008 – 11 Jan 2009

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A sad dream I remembered when I woke up

I dreamt my mother sat next to me at our wedding reception (this did not happen in reality, as 4 close friends were at the top table wit us). While walking in the room towards our seats, my mother whispered in my ear that she disapproved my behaviour, that I was too happy and shouldn’t [...]

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The problem of interpretation

So, S and I went to Research into Practice and delivered our paper. The experience of interrupting each other’s letters and engaging in an encounter with each other and our audience was, aside from seeing a lot of familiar faces and catching up, the best aspect of the conference. R2P is consistently competent but sometimes [...]

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Two impossible films

Click here and scroll down to 1995 and watch Mark Lewis’ amazing “Two impossible films”, a single film of 28 minutes duration. In the film, Lewis has a go at two previously failed film projects: Marx’s Capital (attempted by Eisenstein) and Sam Goldwyn’s idea of filming the complete works of Sigmund Freud. Need I say [...]

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About Me

Laura Gonzalez is an artist and writer. Her practice encompasses drawing, photography and sculpture, and her work has been exhibited in the UK, Spain and Portugal. She has participated in numerous conferences, including Research into Practice (2008), College Arts Association and the Association for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society (2007). When she is not following Freud, Lacan and Marx's footsteps with her camera, she lectures postgraduate students at the Glasgow School of Art.

She is currently immersed in an interdisciplinary project, which investigates psychoanalytic approaches to making and understanding objects of seduction within the fields of fine art, consumption studies and material culture. Her research includes an examination of parallels between artistic and analytic practices, a study of Manolo Blahnik's shoes as objects of desire, a disturbing encounter with Marcel Duchamp's last work, and the creation of a psychoanalytically inspired Discourse of the Artefact, a framework enabling the circulation of questions and answers through a relational approach to artworks. She seeks refuge and inspiration in psycho-geography, especially if it takes her to shopping centres, those mysterious places.