Spring is over us, bodies move

When April comes and Metàfora returns to the theme of Body and Limits, we know that spring has finally come! Everyone enjoys the soft weather and “let’s their hair down” with performance and wild experimentation.

Below is an overview of the classes offered during Block 5, 2021-22.
The classes are supplemented by Tutorials, Paint and Sculpture Lab (technical consultations), Presentations and Discourse Reviews, among other activities.

Scheduled classes for Block 5

Every Studio Block offers a series of programmed classes in different tools & techniques, covering common techniques within graphic expression such as painting as well as 3 dimensional work.

Frottage and collage for big scale abstract paintings (Piotr Perski)
In his own art practice, Piotr Perski often explores the technique of “frottage”, among others in an ambitious project at the cathedral of Barcelona. This playful technique leaves space for lots of inspiration to large scale drawings and paintings.

Sculpture in Architecture (Oriol Texidor)
This class is an introduction to the idea of transforming the space with the additional input of the utility, both in art and architecture. In this workshop the student can learn the basic tools to develop an architectonic planning by taking a critical understanding of the space, thinking and drawing initial sketches, technical drawings through the Dihedral Representation System, building a maquette and presenting a final planning of a project for a specific space.

Screen Printing (Oriol Texidor)
In this workshop students learn the whole process for a screen printing edition, from preparing the photolith, coating the screen, exposing it to the light, developing, registering the support and printing. We will print on paper but also on different supports such as canvas, t-shirts, wood, glass or metal. Advanced students will learn the CMYK technique! Usually we end up with a “Printing Market Exchange” among all the participants.

Life Drawing classes (Piotr Perski)
Over the academic year this class is a weekly ongoing event, and Piotr makes the most of this different dynamics to help students to develop their own expression and language in drawing.

Every week we expose the student to different currents in Recent Art History. This class is obligatory for students on the Foundation program and open to all students. It is necessary to have passed this class to access the 2nd level of Metàfora’s Training Program. These lectures at encouraging students to build a personal discourse informed by what is happening today in Contemporary Art.

The Trivial and the MeaningfulBody and Limits, Exploring Performance (Recent Art History, Helena Pérez)
The late 1960’s and early 1970’s brought with them a raise of political awareness in most layers of Western society. Feminism, Civil Rights and later movements such as LGBT.

This workshop is designed to push our intermediate and advanced-level students out of their comfort zone and work with materials and reflection processes which they normally do not engage in. The workshops can be everything from “The Materials I work with, the Ideas I investigate” to “Contemporary painting, even for those who do not paint” and are meant for push the discourse and investigation of the student into – perhaps – unknown territory. The class is obligatory to all 2nd and 3rd year students. If there are extra places, students from the Foundation Program can attend.

Performance (Laura Llaneli)
In this module students are encouraged to experiment with the body in all its facets: through examples of artist who work with time, space and context, students test their own and others limits.

This weekly debate group is designed for students on 2nd and 3rd level. The contents of this space varies from block to block, sometimes more theoretical, other times more practical. There may be some readings involved. The class is obligatory to all 2nd and 3rd year students.

Time and Space (Marc Larré)
Marc Larré is a well established artist who works with video, installation and objects. This seminar part from his personal practice helping students produce new work and think differently.

This class is a natural transversally themes follow up to the first year of Recent Art History. The weekly sessions are dedicated to transcendental areas or recent critical theory in visual arts, such as Aesthetics, Postcolonial Theory, Queer perspectives, Feminist and post-feminist thought, Semiotics in Visual Art, Psychoanalysis & the Subject. The class is obligatory to all 2nd and 3rd year student.

Future: Utopia, Dystopia (Rubén Verdú)
To frame is to take responsibility, that is, to decide what to include or to exclude, to point towards something or to cut it off. As artists we are constantly confronted with a conguenation of choices which require a political stance. Contemporary photography and moving images are mediums that explore matters of framing and rhythm, but also hybrid proposals which also include installation, performance and sculpture face similar choices. Artists and thinkers such as Hito Steyerl or Boris Groys will be a starting point to think towards our responsibility in our making-processes.

Visiting Curator, Group visits (Gisela Chillida)
In order to get to know the work and discourse of our students, curator Gisela Chillida meets with the students in small groups every Friday thought block 5 and 6. These meetings are the preparation for the curatorial project of Metàfora’s Open Studio exhibition at the end of June.

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