We are currently undergoing a process of change in which technological advances are facilitating the democratization of knowledge while at the same time requiring institutions to change existing power relations. The Internet has brought about a rapid expansion of knowledge but also a fragmentation and, especially, a change in the modes of access to information. On the one hand, the boundaries of the monopoly of knowledge are breaking down, while new forces are emerging to restrict it: the enormous amount of information prevents us from enjoying an overview; some political regimes seek to control or censor the network; patents and intellectual property both limit and protect access to certain sectors of knowledge, especially when it is understood solely as an economic reward.

As a consequence, in the age of the internet, museums and art centres have to consider new strategies and structures when it comes to producing, managing and distributing knowledge. To investigate all these questions, Del arte más que del frío analyses the system of relations of the art centre itself and creates a new structure that proposes the rupture of the idea of distance (and therefore of contemplation).

Through audio, video, photographs, objects, wooden structures and documentation, the installation aims to question the reality surrounding LABoral’s real, physical, affective and virtual space based on new parameters for the reassignment of functions.

The project has been selected by Jaime Sordo, President of the Asociación de Coleccionistas Privados de Arte Contemporáneo 9915 and owner of the Los Bragales collection; Benjamin Weil, Artistic Director of Centro Botín; Alicia Ventura, Director of Arte Ventura Management, Valencia and Advisor to the DKV Medical Insurance Collection; Pilar Lafita, Director of Programmes of the Fundación Municipal de Cultura, Educación y Universidad Popular de Gijón; and Karin Ohlenschläger, Artistic Director of LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial.

The jury valued ‘the conceptual basis and the formalisation of a project that is pertinent at a time when museum institutions are going through an identity crisis. In addition to the interest of the proposal, this choice responds to the purpose of the Grant, which seeks to support young artists in their professional beginnings’.

Jacobo Bugarín will spend two months in residence at LABoral to produce his project, which will be presented at the art centre at the end of September.