Load Gallery Presents Fine Print: An Exhibition of Lumen Prize Finalists Amid Manifesta 15

From September 19 to October 19, Load Gallery, Barcelona's newest and most technologically advanced art space, proudly hosts Fine Print—an exhibition that explores the evolution of poetic expression in art. Coinciding with the bustling Manifesta season, this show aligns with the values of Europe’s Nomadic Biennial, promoting positive change through artistic engagement. Featuring works by two Lumen Prize finalists, Ana María Caballero and aurèce vettier, Fine Print investigates the creation of meaning and value in spoken word and visual imagery.

The themes of memories and dreams—the ‘fine print’ of our lives—take center stage in the projects of Ana and aurèce. By leveraging collective intelligence (the audience) and artificial intelligence, the artists transform their original datasets—poetry and imagery—into new modes of understanding. The resulting exhibition serves as a socially-engaged experiment that transcends genre boundaries and pushes the limits of creative exchange.

aurèce vettier is a project by Paul Mouginot, one of the few artists actively training their own algorithms and networks. The alias itself, generated by an algorithm, symbolizes the artist’s commitment to a collaborative, open, and hybrid approach that incorporates tactile mediums like sculpture, painting, and textiles. His works fluidly transition between web3 and reality, enriching the narrative with personal insights.

The artist will showcase six pieces from the project “le travail des rêves” alongside poems from "we are the trees," among other works.

In "le travail des rêves," aurèce vettier translates dreams into 100 AI-generated low-resolution images, which are then transformed into oil paintings for Bright Moments Paris. Each piece challenges the boundaries between human and AI creativity, inviting viewers to connect with their own memories.

His approach merges intimate, meticulously curated data with powerful algorithms, projecting them into the physical world through artisanal processes such as painting, bronze sculpture, and tapestry. Since 2018, GANs have played a crucial role in aurèce vettier’s practice, enabling him to propose an imaginative realm filled with near-impossible shapes. In late 2021, he began utilizing CLIP+GAN models to generate images from text, further expanding his artistic possibilities.

To create "le travail des rêves", the artist first gathered a dataset — a large volume of photographs from his phone, all holding a sentimental value. The artist then fed this dataset to train a text-to-image CLIP+GAN, which he later used to generate images on a prompt, the resulting visuals resembling his initial photographs. The prompts were real dreams, experienced by the artist. The resulting images were then painted on a canvas, honouring the sensuality of the physical genres, thus, materialising the dreams.

Alongside the digital artworks from "le travail des rêves," collectors can also acquire the corresponding physical oil paintings.

In adition, aurèce will present his poetry, featuring a series of five poems that are part of theVERSEverse project. Each poem begins with the line: “we are the trees.” All poems are inscribed on the blockchain and available for purchase.

Ana María Caballero is a multidisciplinary literary artist with an impressive collection of accolades, including being a finalist in three projects for the latest Lumen Prize—an unprecedented achievement. She is the first woman to win Colombia’s José Manuel Arango National Poetry Prize and the first living poet to sell a poem at Sotheby’s. A strong advocate for contemporary poetry, she actively participates in educational events worldwide.

As part of Fine Print, she will showcase four projects: Fifty Ways of Looking at a Poem, Paperwork, Literal Litoral, and Ultrasonido (Ultrasound).

Fifty Ways of Looking at a Poem celebrates the dynamic relationship between writers and readers. It highlights how readers bring literature to life by marking their personal interpretations. For this work, Ana María invited fifty individuals to read and annotate the same poem, Another Airport Poem, documenting their experiences through handwritten notes. The Load Gallery proudly presents five digital editions from this series, while the physical artworks are exhibited at Vigo Contemporary Art Museum (MARCO) in Vigo, Spain. Each digital edition can be collected and includes final signed prints of Another Airport Poem, inviting collectors to annotate these prints and engage as artists within the collection. Additionally, for the first time, two performance videos from this series will be showcased at Load.

Paperwork is a performance-driven, generative AI collection of digital paper sculptures inspired by individual emotional responses to Ana María Caballero’s spoken-word poetry. For the first time, she introduces physical sculptures as part of this collection. Two artist-owned works, “momento” (Paperwork 87) and “transmute” (Paperwork 97), have been transformed into three-dimensional objects, further exploring the eloquence of paper as a medium. Each piece comes with a special collector’s set that includes videos documenting their creation.

Literal Litoral combines performance, spoken-word poetry, choreography, photography, and blockchain provenance, pushing the boundaries of how poetry can be exhibited and experienced in the digital age. These performative works celebrate Caballero’s strong background in spoken word and the oral tradition of poetry. In these multifaceted expressions, she delivers her poems, Waiting Room and Mammal, through movement, examining the connection between body language and spoken language.

Waiting Room, first presented at Art Dubai 2024 by Gazelli Art House, is drawn from Caballero’s award-winning book Mammal. The narrative explores the complexities of caretaking, with the intersecting Spanish phrase translating to “You, Me, Ours,” playing with the speaker’s intent. The formal structure of Waiting Room prompts reflection on the fluid boundaries between self-care and caring for others.

Mammal serves as both the title poem of Caballero’s new book and a performative work featuring photography by Luis Gaspar. This piece includes an inscription of its text onto the Bitcoin blockchain.

Opening Days:
September 19 - October 19, 2024
Thursday-Saturday

Opening Hours:
16.00-21.00