Rosa Barba
The Hidden Conference: About the discontinuous History of Things we see and don't see, 2010

Artist
Rosa Barba

Title
The Hidden Conference: About the discontinuous history of things we see and don't see

Year of creation
2010

Technique and duration
35 mm film, color, light sound, 13:40 min

Year of acquisition
2012

Acquisition of the foundation

"The Hidden Conference: About the Discontinuous History of Things We See and Don't See" (2011, 35mm, 13:40 min.) was filmed shortly after the initiation of Barba's project at the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid and deepens the topic Discussion. Set in an indeterminate location (the depot of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin) and "at an indeterminate point in time (in the future or past)", the film work brings to light a situation that, as the written prologue informs us, has been going on for years exists, but has now reached a certain "degree of urgency". However, the reason for the meeting is no longer known. The camera highlights a disparate group of artworks bathed in a film noir-esque light, revealing fragmented narratives but never finding a connection. Once again, narrative serves as a “mediator, not a solution.” The language is incorporated into a seemingly physical performance, the minimalist soundtrack by Barba's long-time cooperation partner Jan St. Werner fills the works - by Ernst Barlach, Renee Sintenis, Gerhard Marcks and other artists who have fallen into namelessness - with life; Something playful is created through gestures, postures, poses and looks. Far from questioning the archive as a paradigm of failed visions of the future, this secret conference actually confirms its language. The museum's former ambitions to represent a whole are surrounded by pathos, which makes the possibility of salvaging and saving these misplaced fragments of a broken history seem irrelevant.

Lynne Cooke in: "Rosa Barba. White is an Image", Hatje Cantz 2011