JORGE SATORRE. RÍA.
Jorge Satorre, detail from ‘Decorar el agujero (Altkirch)’ (2021) in the exhibition ‘Black Jacket, gray sweatshirt’, CRAC Alsace, Altkirch. Courtesy of the artist, LABOR, Mexico City and CarrerasMugica, Bilbao. Photo: Aurélien Mole.
Curated by: Latitudes.
In February 2025, the Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M) will present Ría, the first monographic institutional exhibition devoted to Jorge Satorre in Spain. His artistic practices address unmapped and ‘minor’ history by either examining the intangible heritage of customs and the transmission of stories or by getting involved in more formal approaches through the production methods of the traditional trades, as well as their places, stories and workers.
Initially emerging from his interest in developing a career as an illustrator of publications, Jorge Satorre’s artistic inquiry has kept up a steady interest in experimenting with the boundaries of the different disciplines associated with drawing, although it is increasingly connected to a sculptural practice in dialogue with the contexts where his work is produced and displayed. His recent projects tend to entail acts of transformation and subversion that emerge from elementary actions like shaping, printing, forging, casting or breaking—operations applied to the materials which he views as an intrinsic part of the process to gradually distance himself from the place where the ideas originate. Just as hands and tools intertwine in Satorre’s work, so do the intimate and industry, the functional and improper use, anecdotes and archetypes and recollected events and the imagination.
Ría encompasses works produced between 2013 and 2025, a phase that Satorre views as an adjustment process of the distance between the forms and references that comprise his work. It also entailed some degree of introspection, leading him to question the scale of personal experience in relation to the broader cultural, political or social backdrop. In this sense, he uses an oscillation in scales between the specific and the general, the close and the distant, and inner life with what public exposure entails.
His first monograph will be published on the occasion of the exhibition, which will include essays written by Daniel Garza Usabiaga (independent curator, Mexico City) and Elfi Turpin (Director of FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine, MÉCA), as well as a conversation between the artist and Latitudes—the exhibition curators. Instead of focusing on individual works or themes, the publication will be organised around Satorre’s solo exhibitions in the past fifteen years, but in reverse chronological order. The bilingual Spanish-English edition will be designed by the artist and editor Gabriel Pericàs in conjunction with Satorre and co-published by the CA2M Museum and Caniche Editorial.
JORGE SATORRE
Jorge Satorre (Mexico City, 1979) lives in Bilbao. His work has been exhibited individually at museum and galleries like Veste noire, sweat-shirt gris, CRAC Alsace, Altkirch, France (2021); Chamarra negra, sudadera gris, CarrerasMugica gallery, Bilbao (2020); Pancha, the Colorful Bird and the Shining Snake, REDCAT, Los Angeles (2018); Los animales muertos, Museo Tamayo, Mexico City (2017); Un tema moral moderno, decorar el agujero, LABOR gallery, Mexico City (2017); Emic Etic?, Artspace, Auckland / Enjoy Public Art Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (2013); The indirect gaze, Le Grand Café, Saint-Nazaire, France (2010); and Modelling Standard with Erick Beltrán, FormContent (2010), among others.
As a curator, he has organised the group exhibition Café con leche, piña, huevo con jitomate, cebolla y cilantro [White coffee, pineapple, eggs with tomato, onion and cilantro] (CarrerasMugica gallery, Bilbao, 2022–23); the Alberto Pel solo exhibition called Redonda, Redonda (Tecla Sala, l’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Barcelona, 2021); and Modelling Standard (Galería Joan Prats, Barcelona, 2011) with Erick Beltrán.
LATITUDES
In 2005, Max Andrews (Bath, 1975) and Mariana Cánepa Luna (Montevideo, 1977) founded Latitudes, a curatorial office headquartered in Barcelona that works internationally in contemporary artistic practices.
Latitudes has curated the exhibitions Panorama 21. Apuntes para un incendio de los ojos [Panorama 21. Notes for an Eye Fire] (with Hiuwai Chu, 2021) and José Antonio Hernández-Diez: No temeré mal alguno [I Will Fear No Evil] (2016) at MACBA Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona; Cosas que las cosas dicen [Things Things Say] (2020) and Joan Morey. COLAPSO [Joan Morey. COLLAPSE] at Fabra i Coats: Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona; 4,543 miles de millones. La cuestión de la materia [4.543 Billion. The Matter of Matter] (2017) at the CAPC Musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux; and Composiciones [Compositions] Barcelona Gallery Weekend for (2015 and 2016). Latitudes served as the Guest Faculty in the curatorial residency ‘Geologic Time’ at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada (2017), and was part of the jury and tutorial team of three seasons of ‘Barcelona Producció’, Centre d'Art La Capella (2016–2020).
Between 2016 and 2022, Latitudes published the online project ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ produced by KADIST, recounting twenty encounters in one day between and artist and a curator. Other publishing projects include the first monograph on the artist Lara Almarcegui: Projects 1995–2010 (Archive Books, 2011), the live publication of ten weekly tabloids throughout the duration of the exhibition The Last Newspaper (New Museum, New York, 2010), and LAND, ART: A Cultural Ecology Handbook (Royal Society of Arts/Arts Council England, 2006).
Max Andrews is a writer who has contributed to the magazine Frieze since 2004 and worked with Artforum since 2024. Mariana Cánepa Luna was the secretary of the board of Hangar Centre de Producció i Recerca Artística, Barcelona (2015–2019). Since 2023, they have both been active members of the Gallery Climate Coalition and of the Founding Committee of GCC Spain.