Artist Teacher Associates Programme 2014-2015 Curator Brief
Hello Artist Teacher Associates! My name is Laura Robertson and I have been challenged to set you a
brief. I would like you to explore a very special Spanish word: ‘duende’.
Musician Nick Cave calls it “the eerie and inexplicable sadness that lives in certain words of art.”
Flamenco singer Manuel Torre noted: “All that has dark sounds, has duende.”
Poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca put it: “The duende is a force, not a labour; a struggle, not
a thought.”
For me, it’s in the music of Max Richter or Cat Power, in the poetry of Simon Armitage or Ted
Hughes. I see duende in the paintings of Monet and Twombly. It’s in Darren Almond’s 2005 Turner
Prize video, ‘If I Had You.’
But what does duende mean to you?
Your challenge is to make a portfolio of work, over the next six months, that explores this word.
Your research can be in the form of journals, notebooks, sketch books, drawings, photographs, a
website or blog, or any other appropriate work; your artwork can be in any appropriate media (for
example, painting, film, sound, textiles, drawing, sculpture, installation etc.).
You will submit four high res jpegs (or equivalent) of a completed artwork, along with a 400 word
artist statement, by Wednesday 1st April 2015. A number of these artworks will be selected for a
special online exhibition.
The aim of this Artist Teacher Associates brief is to:
a) evidence an ability to develop an advanced level of contemporary art practice;
b) evidence the development of an advanced critical and theoretical engagement with the
idea of duende, through contemporary art practice;
c) and to focus on the various ideas and strands of research – emerging from the word
duende -- towards the development of an advanced contemporary art practice.
Your first show and tell task, deadline Wednesday 26th November 2014, is to prepare a short
illustrated presentation (no more than 5 minutes please) in which you offer a snapshot of your body
of work on the theme of duende so far. So:



What does duende mean to you?
How have you explored duende in your work (for example, medium, context, research and
references)?
And give one example of one contemporary artist that explores duende in their work. Why
and how do you think they evoke duende?
Good luck!
Laura Robertson is Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of arts criticism and cultural commentary
magazine The Double Negative. She is a freelance writer (a-n, Creative Tourist, The Guardian); a
part-time tutor of Fine Art BA Hons, Critical and Professional Practice, at Liverpool John Moores
University; an ambassador for the creative and digital sector at Liverpool Vision; a member of the
Visual Arts in Liverpool Steering Group; and is also Lead Co-ordinator of the Arts Council-funded
#BeACritic campaign. Laura is a former Director of The Royal Standard: an artist-led gallery,
studios and social workspace in Liverpool.
http://www.thedoublenegative.co.uk
Reading / Research / Inspiration List On The Concept Of ‘Duende’
Online essays
Hail, Hail, Rock'n'Roll: Laura Barton, The Guardian, Friday 14 March 2008
'I've long been a devotee of that particular, inexplicable sadness that lurks within so many great
songs - but I never knew it had a name'
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/mar/14/popandrock4
Nick Cave's Love Song Lecture
http://everything2.com/title/Nick+Cave%2527s+Love+Song+Lecture
Theory and Play Of The Duende: Federico García Lorca
Translated by A. S. Kline © 2007 All Rights Reserved.
http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/LorcaDuende.htm
Selected Biography: Federico García Lorca http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/federicogarc%C3%ADa-lorca
Reflections n The Duende by Raphael L pez-Pedraza -- An examination of The Theory and Play of
the Duende by Federico Garc a Lorca
http://www.jungatlanta.com/articles/Duende.pdf
Artists/Exhibitions
Turner Monet Twombly: Later Paintings
Tate Liverpool: Exhibition, 22 June-28 October 2012 http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tateliverpool/exhibition/turner-monet-twombly-later-paintings
Turner Prize 2005 artist Darren Almond, If I Had You 2003
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/turner-prize-2005/turner-prize-2005artists-darren-almond
Katie Paterson, Earth–Moon–Earth (Moonlight Sonata Reflected from the Surface of the Moon)
http://www.katiepaterson.org/eme/
Music
Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight. Taken from 'Max Richter: The Blue Notebooks', 12 songs, 47
mins
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVN1B-tUpgs
Poetry
Simon Armitage, The Not Dead, 2008
Channel 4 documentary in full: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvA3K-tC6t8
Rufus Sewell reads "9/11: Out Of The Blue" by Simon Armitage - 1/4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yacjArDnRbY
Ted Hughes, Crow: From the Life and Songs of Crow (London: Faber & Faber, 1970)
http://www.thetedhughessociety.org/crow.htm
Jan Kochanowski, Laments (1580) Seamus Heaney and Stanislaw Baranczak translation.
Christopher Reid, A Scattering (2009), Arête Books
Other
Susan Sontag, On Photography (1977)
http://www.susansontag.com/SusanSontag/books/onPhotographyExerpt.shtml
Regarding the Pain of Others (2003)
Philosopher Alain de Botton gives his top five reasons why art is such a vital force for humanity. Are
we wrong to like pretty pictures? Why is some art painful to look at? Can art heal your feelings of
urban alienation? http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/video/2014/sep/10/what-is-art-foralain-de-botton-guide-video
In Praise of Melancholy http://thephilosophersmail.com/virtues/in-praise-of-melancholy/
Magazines, Modernity and War, ed. Jordana Mendelson. Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia,
Madrid, 2008
Death, Todd May (2009), Acumen Publisihing. The Art Of Living series.