JdlC

Casa Margherita - February 4-9, 2025

Without images or fixed objects, Spoken Word Gallery presents a traveling program of exhibitions created solely through spoken word. Without necessarily being a performance or a reading, each intervention has a hybrid nature where the guests' words become the work itself.

In the rooms of Casa Margherita – a domestic space that has been the center of literary gatherings and events – Galeria Hablada will present two live events (with Mexican poet Luis Felipe Fabre and American writer Catherine Lacey), a children's workshop dedicated to storytelling and taught by Mexican writer Jazmina Barrera, and an installation of pre-recorded readings by a selection of Mexican and international artists and writers close to Juan de la Cosa.

Participants:
Paul Becker, Abraham Cruzvillegas, Charlie Godet Thomas, Tatiana Lipkes, Brenda Lozano, Daniel Saldaña París, Alan Sierra.

A series of prerecorded texts are available by texting a telephone number.

You can listen to the recording HERE!

Documentación de la lectura y mesa redonda en Antifaz, CDMX, Septiembre 2021

La Espera es una apropiación, un plagio y un trabajo de reescritura que toma como punto de partida la icónica obra de Samuel Beckett, Esperando a Godot. Trasladada a una ubicación remota en el campo mexicano, esta obra se sitúa dentro del contexto del narcotráfico en México, que ha causado una cuenta inusitada de muertes y desapariciones forzadas. En esta reinterpretación, dos madres esperan y buscan a sus hijas e hijos desaparecidas/os, a quienes creen víctimas del crimen organizado. Después de buscarles en ríos, pozos, terrenos baldíos y fosas clandestinas, exhaustas y sin respuestas, las madres deambulan un proceso de espera que es crónico y existencial.

/

Documentation of the reading and round table discussion at Antifaz, CDMX, September 2021

The Wait is an appropriation, an act of plagiarism and rewriting that takes Samuel Beckett’s iconic play Waiting for Godot as a foundation. Situated in a remote location in the Mexican countryside, this work occurs within the context of the war against drugs in Mexico, which has brought about a grim amount of deaths and forced disappearances. In this reinterpretation, two mothers await and search for their missing daughters and sons, who they think have fallen victims of organized crime. After searching for them down rivers, wells, waste-lands and mass graveyards, exhausted and lacking answers, the mothers dwell in the process of waiting which is at once chronic and existential.

Zoom documentation of the book launch of A Table Made Again for the First Time: On Kate Briggs’ This Little Art.

The editors (Paul Becker and Francesco Pedraglio) interviewed Kate Briggs and presented pre-recorded contributions by John Douglas Millar, Sharon Kivland, Mila Lanfermeijer, Victor Santamarina, Pau Ardid and Ana Navas.

Bob Kil and John of the Thing would like to invite you for an evening of reading and performance on the occasion of BUT BOB - a new book written by Bob Kil, published by John of the Thing.

With: Jessica J. Díaz, Alan Sierra, Francesco Pedraglio, Bob Kil

Wednesday 26 February. 8 p.m.

Bacal
Av. Baja California 158
Roma Sur
CDMX

Jessica and Alan and Francesco but Bob is generously funded by Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe

/

Bob Kil y Juan de la Cosa te invitan a una noche de lectura y performance en ocasión de PERO BOB - un nuevo libro escrito por Bob Kil y publicado por Juan de la Cosa.

Con: Jessica J. Díaz, Alan Sierra, Francesco Pedraglio y Bob Kil

Miércoles 26 de febrero - 20 h

Bacal
Av. Baja California 158
Roma Sur
Ciudad de México

Jessica y Alan y Francesco pero Bob es realizado gracias al apoyo del Departamento para la Cultura y Europa del Senado de Berlín.

44 texts. 44 daydreams. And like daydreams, the writings seem to happen in silence. There are dialogues, yes. Questions and answers. But they are muted, even typographically. And there are also the structures put forth by each sentence, like utterances with a grammatical economy of their own. So this is also a book of breaths. Salivas. Swallowings. Done and gone. Still, once the breathing is allowed to happen again and again, a clear voice surfaces.

‘BUT BOB’ is the first book of short stories by artist Bob Kil and is something of a Scirocco room in its own right: a well-calibrated appliance apt to embrace the existing living conditions and help us surviving them, allowing a breathing space to carry on breathing, talking.

Juan de la Cosa / John of the Thing

Book launch and live reading by Bob Kil

7pm Aeromoto
CDMX

With the generous support of the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe

The event looks at the idea of translation as a performative practice that is always both representation and continuous creation. Translating as caring, yes… but also as a peculiar and subjective form of storytelling, as the act of retelling the same story in another form, another language, another syntax, and in doing so, make it again and anew. An attempt to put these ideas in practice, the event proposes a choral reading (both in English and Spanish) encompassing extracts from four different Juan de la Cosa / John of the Thing’s titles: Luis Felipe Fabre, Paul Becker, Jesper List Thomsen and Bob Kil.

8 November 2018 - GASWORKS

Published in English and Spanish, BASE BASE is the first book-length collection of texts by Danish artist Jesper List Thomsen, as well as the third title in Juan de la Cosa / John of the Thing editorial activity.

BASE BASE brings together the works #LOVEOFGOD; 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 and Blackbirds. Arranged non-chronologically, the three pieces span a seven year period with Blackbirds written specifically for the publication. Each text, by way of its own method, positions List Thomsen’s body in relation to an event; a hotel room in LA, the avenues of Manhattan, the political reality of the present. He moves through, collects, but rarely interprets these varied topographies.

On the occasion of its launch at Gasworks List Thomsen will be reading from the book.

/

Publicada en inglés y en español, BASE BASE es la primera colección de textos del artista Danés Jesper List Thomsen, así como el tercer título en la actividad editorial de Juan de la Cosa / John of the Thing.

E libro reúne los textos #LOVEOFGOD; 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12 y Blackbirds. Organizadas de forma no cronológica, las tres piezas abarcan un período de siete años, con Blackbirds escritos específicamente para esta publicación. Cada texto, a través de su propio método, posiciona el cuerpo del artista en relación con un evento; una habitación de hotel en Los Ángeles, las avenidas de Manhattan, la realidad política del presente. Colecciona, se mueve atreves, pero raramente interpreta estas diferentes topografías.

Con motivo del lanzamiento de BASE BASE en Aeromoto, Jesper List Thomsen estará leyendo del libro.

A table made again for the first time

For Bureau des Réalités, Juan de la Cosa presents A table made again for the first time, a project structured around three events, each one focusing on a potential take on the idea of translation, both on the written page and the exhibition space. From its canonical definition as a journey from a language to another, to its metaphorical reading as a tie between mediums, all the way to its sociological interpretation as a lens capable of displaying the hidden mechanisms of a culture, translation seems to be in a moment of fervour. As such, and thought the work of the invited artists and writers, A table made again for the first time aims at opening a space for further discussions on and around the topics of what a translation could be and do.

Sunday 9 September 2018, 5pm, Bureau des Réalités

Spoken World Gallery with Marie Lund

Within Bureau des Réalités space, Marie Lund will present the third exhibition of this series. A partial transcript of the event will be taken live by Eleanor Ivory Weber.

Tuesday 11 September 2018, 6 pm, La Loge

Screening of 24 Portraits by Alain Cavalier

In cooperation with Etablissement d'en face, Juan de la Cosa / John of the Thing and Bureau des Réalités screen and discuss a selection of Alain Cavalier’s short documentaries 24 Portraits (1987/1991). 

A series of sketches about handwork trades and vernacular traditions, these portraits look at women’s labour focusing on rare and disappearing crafts that recall traditions long lost. Through the documentary medium, Cavalier observes the tools, the hands and the environment of those women asking questions while minutely and delicately observing their work, somehow proposing an odd balance between manual labor, speech and image making.

Wednesday 12 September 2018, 6pm, Bureau des Réalités

Reading by Jesper List Thomsen followed by a reading and a discussion with the writer and translator Kate Briggs

Published in English and Spanish, BASE BASE is the first book-length collection of texts by Danish artist Jesper List Thomsen, as well as the third title in Juan de la Cosa/John of the Thing editorial activity.

An essay that is also a novel and a memoir, Kate Briggs’ This Little Art is a layered book that ultimately celebrates the delights and complexities of reading, writing and living with/through translations. Starting from her experience of translating Roland Barthes’s lecture notes, Kate threads various stories together to produce a portrait of her craft as an intensely relational activity. A recurrent image in the book: Robinson Crusoe’s effort to “make a table for himself for the first time”, which became the conceptual motive behind Juan de la Cosa’s project as well as its title.