What lies behind the staging of "Whispers, Hubbub and Paradoxes. Attempts towards a politics of enunciation"?

Just because the Santa Mònica isn’t exhibiting, doesn’t mean the space stops: it whispers, makes a hubbub, and transforms. Whispers, hubbub, and paradoxes. Attempts towards a politics of enunciation is an exhibition that is built precisely in this interval, in the time in between, or rather in the space of questions and not so much of answers.

Beyond everything that the project invites us to think about, when observing the photographic archive of the installation during the three weeks prior to the inauguration, the exhibition reveals itself, not only as what we see during visiting hours and throughout the exhibition period, but also as everything that precedes and sustains it, in its traces and insinuations.

Arriving at an opening often makes us think that the exhibition we are going to see is just beginning at that very moment. But entering into this space we want to emphasise what makes it possible to reach this usually hidden moment in exhibition processes: the assembly, the dirt, the tools, the timing and the choreographies of the collective work, because showing them is also turning them into the subject and discourse of the exhibition.

The works that come together are not born here for the first time: they are already produced pieces, with their own biographies, that arrive at the Santa Mònica loaded with stories, contexts, statements and struggles; their entry into the exhibition space, however, is not a simple transfer: it is a new process.

The curatorial coordinators have opted to give the artists time and space so that they can remake, relocate and readapt the pieces to the specific architecture of the centre, in which each work goes through the workshop again, even if the workshop in this case is the Santa Mònica itself.

During the weeks of assembly, what dominates is not the polished image of the finished room associated with the neatness of the museum, but all the hubbub: dusty cloths, coiled cables, ladders everywhere, occasional visits from artists who return to adjust a height, rewrite a text or retouch an image that accompanies their work. In this “meanwhile”, the assembly process reveals itself as an extended choreography, in which many more people participate than those who sign the works: technicians, assemblers, mediators, translators, maintenance and cleaning staff. The supposed “white cube” is then shown in its real condition: a space with cracks, stains, remnants of adhesive tape with instructions and holes from other exhibitions.

In this context, the assembly tools are not simple instruments prior to the opening, but form part of the material traces of the exhibition. Some occupy the exhibition space for days, others leave signs that remain once they have disappeared. We could think of them as extensions of the works themselves, as prostheses that have made their appearance possible in this place and at this time.

There is also everything that is not seen behind the pieces: the structures that support a screen, the supports for the hanging textile pieces, the cable gathered behind each installation, the software configuration of the interactive works... While the exhibition narrative usually presents the piece as an autonomous and self-sufficient object, pointing out what holds it up is crucial in the case of Whispers, hubbub, and paradoxes. Attempts towards a politics of enunciation, since this support is the physical and symbolic frameworks that allow a story, a body or an image to be expressed.

This is especially evident in the case of audiovisual works. Many of the pieces are televisions, projectors, screens: when they are off, do they exist? What does it mean to be present in an exhibition if the image does not circulate, if the sound does not resonate? These deactivated pieces remind us that every enunciation device needs energy, maintenance, attention and care. 

When we enter the rooms, we may no longer find the ladder or the drill, nor the half-empty glasses of the assembly crew, nor the turned-off screens. But, if we pay attention, traces of it will remain. This exhibition under construction reminds us that all politics of enunciation also involve making visible – or, at least, thinkable – the fabric of practices, bodies, and times that allow these other narratives to occupy the centre of the exhibition space.