The Art Tunnel
Over the years I have collected, or rather accumulated, hundreds and hundreds of catalogues. Catalogues that have been sent to me by many artist friends, public and private institutions, art centres, museums, auction houses... It is amazing just how many I have managed to save or hoard. Once I made a sketch to construct a kind of shack using these catalogues, a type of booth. But the project never took off, although the idea became the source of inspiration to create The Art Tunnel. We started building The Art Tunnel with my entire collection of catalogues. But there were not enough of them. The tunnel’s sixteen-metre length quickly devoured them all. As if it was a “black hole” of abyssal space. A few friends, mostly artists, brought me some boxes filled with catalogues from home. But it was still not enough to build the tunnel. So finally we had to visit the storerooms of Artium and the Provincial Council of Alava to acquire more material. It was not difficult, for there was a time, a time during “the cultural bubble” when every artist worth his or her salt had to have a catalogue recording their work. So in this country, in the storerooms of its cultural infrastructures, there are thousands and thousands of catalogues buried under mountains of dust. The Art Tunnel piece is based on these beloved ghost trains that can be found in amusement parks. Because, let’s face it, contemporary art produces 74