Romancero Books is pleased to invite you to A conversation with Esther Gatón and Darya Diamond about the art book Emil Lime as part of the Women's History Month.
A conversation with Esther Gatón and Darya Diamond about the art book: Emil Lime
Emil Lime is a book made in parallel to the homonymous show held at CA2M Madrid in 2023, by Esther Gatón. The palindromic title, whose spelling is the same both forwards and backwards, invokes Gatón’s interest in popular spectacles relating to an attraction to instability, fear, and adrenaline, and the ways in which these emotions manifest themselves both in the visitor’s body and in society at large.
The book collects various materials that nurture and shape Gatón´s artistic practice. She invited Fredy Massad, María Fernanda Ampuero and Darya Diamond, who, together with curator of the show Cory John Scozzari, wrote specific texts in response to the work and its concerns. In addition, Emil Lime includes collages made with Gatón´s phone pics, sketches, sporadic notes and preparatory drawings.
• 𝘈 𝘙𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘙𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘤𝘰𝘯, by Argentinian architect and critic Fredy Massad analyses architectural excesses committed in the Spanish territory during the mid-2000s. The essay differentiates "monumentality" from "icon", rethinking the latter's capability of reviving locality, and social urban value.
• 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘴, by Ecuadorian writer and journalist María Fernanda Ampuero, is a fictional and poetic text inspired by the disembarkation of the caravels in Latin America. It combines the horrified voices in visions of what the apparition of boats might have unleashed.
• 𝘌𝘹𝘤𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘳 𝘔𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘩𝘪𝘱 by American artist and writer Darya Diamond, describes her living conditions in a shelter, where she also works. Bringing together personal anecdotes and theoretical references, she speaks of the "intertwining of the self and the place, utility and adaptation, the horribly divine energy of the mothership." (Quote)
Cory John Scozzari wrote 𝘉𝘭𝘶𝘦 𝘓𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵, on the making of the show with Esther. His text makes sense of the crossovers and amazements of the process, sharing their one-year subjective trip and multiple encounters.
Finally, there's a conversation between Cory John and Esther, written during the installation days of the show in Móstoles, Madrid. That was the first time they were able to see the motorized sculpture, swinging and vibrating in space.
Bilingual Spanish/English, hardcover and colour printed, made in collaboration between CA2M Museum Madrid and WIELS Brussels.
This book was produced in collaboration between CA2M Madrid and WIELS Brussels.
Design by Olivier Bertrand. Editorial coordination: Jonathan Franz. Translations by María Enguix and George Hutton.
Esther Gatón (b. Valladolid 1988) works across sculpture, writing and film. Her practice sets in motion various conceptual interests and forms, including the construction of ambiguous environments, amateur science, visual artifice, orality and cacophony as fields of mutual nurturance, and the crossovers between femininity and machinery. She works in articulating them, together, feminising the processes, transmitting vulnerable and co-regulated modes of existence. Her work is haunted by the pop aesthetics of late capitalism and the economic boom and crisis, that took place in Castille (South of Europe) while she was a teenager.
In 2022 Esther completed the residency at WIELS in Brussels and in early 2023, started abierto, a non-profit project for encountering diverse artistic practices in small and intimate contexts, in SE London. Her work has been exhibited in institutions such as CAPC Bourdeaux, CA2M, MUSAC León, Matadero Madrid, La Casa Encendida, Patio Herreriano Valladolid, Navarra University Museum, Fabra I Coats Barcelona, c3a Andalucía, Laboral Gijón and TEA Tenerife; and galleries and project spaces such as The Ryder Intersticio, korai Cyprus, Nordés Santiago, Luis Adelantado Valencia, Irène Laub Brussels, The Watch Berlin, Elba Benítez & Schneider Colao Madrid, Cibrián Donostia-San Sebastián, Verão Lisbon, South Parade London and Crisis Lima, among others.
Gatón studied fine art at Saint-Luc Liège Belgium, the University of Barcelona, and Goldsmiths London, and holds a PhD rated cum laude from the Complutense Madrid. She has worked as an Honorary Collaborator at the UCM and as a lecturer at Master Landa. She has given talks at Gelatina, Feria Arco, TAI, InJuve, and CAAC Seville. Her writing has been published at the University of Alicante, Materiales Concretos, Nero, A*Desk, and Urbanomic. Recent awards include Circuitos, Sant Andreu, Injuve, Ayudas Comunidad of Madrid, London Art Council, a-n Bursaries, Veepee, Generaciones, and Guichet Ouvert. Her work is represented by Cibrián, in the Basque Country, Spain.
https://esthergaton.net/
Darya Diamond (b.1991) is a Mexican-American artist working in print, sculpture, audio and film. She explores literal and symbolic figurations of the body as a primordial workplace. Her practice is ritually and theoretically rooted in methods of reproduction regenerating and renegotiating the promise of transactional intimacy, care, and invisible labour. Cast sculptures and personal surveillance footage provide rich material landscapes from which to re-appropriate, re- contextualise and exhibit ethics of care.
The nexus of her research is grounded relational ecosystems and the contradictory subjectivities involved in sustaining and maintaining bodies, minds, capitalist production etc. How is the body a site of mutual aid, power, pleasure, and labour?
Her work has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions in London, Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Beijing, Brussels, and Budapest. Diamond completed a h a fellowship at the School of Commons and the University of Zurich where she researched and wrote about sex work, ecosystems of care, and fictional erotic divination. Diamond was selected for Bloomberg’s New Contemporaries Award in 2021. She received her MFA from Goldsmiths University of London, and her BA from Hampshire College in Massachusetts. She is currently represented by Sebastian Gladstone Gallery in Los Angeles.
https://daryadiamond.com/
Romancero Books CIC is an online bookstore and a cultural platform based in London promoting literature from Spain and the Latin American countries. The Festival of Queer Literature in Spanish in London which third edition ended last November is one of their well-known projects, others included Romancero Talks in collaboration with the Cervantes Institute London, or the book clubs with Battersea Spanish and the Cervantes Institute London www.romancerobooks.co.uk
Copies of EMIL LIME will be available for purchase at the end of the event.