[1] We closed FRÁGIL. Guillermo Espinosa told us that they were closing down La tetería de la abuela for good. It must have been summer or autumn 2017 and there, on Espíritu Santo street in Madrid, almost reaching the little square, FRÁGIL had been happening for the last few decades. Perhaps the longest-running independent space in Madrid, we liked to say. It was happening exactly in the display case next to the door – and we say there because in the bar that now occupies the premises, that micro-space that was once an exhibition space is still there. The display case was almost a metre wide, half a metre deep and a metre and a half high, divided into two in the upper third by a painted wooden strip, just like the ones that surrounded the entire glass structure. The conditions of this space, plus 50 euros of production and an open bar of beers for artists and curators, were the framework: the basic invitation from which the proposals were deployed, which of course often overflowed. Artistic practices, when they are minimally contextual, always start from a framework, but surely in independent projects the game with the basic conditions is even more decisive. A game that is not only playful –which is also– but refers to the relaxation and distortion of pre-existing logics. We carried FRÁGIL during its last year. The closing caught Clara Montoya’s work inside. Thank goodness Guillermo took it to his house, right next door, safe. He had been one of the curators who had carried FRÁGIL in previous stages and continued to look after it from a conceptual distance and physical proximity: he gave us the archive material he had, along with tips and tricks about the place and he saw each of the interventions we programmed. There weren’t that many either. Three to be exact: in addition to Clara Montoya’s Antípodas, which opened a virtual hole in the floor of the display case to connect the ground of Malasaña with the sky of New Zealand; In this last stage of FRÁGIL we presented Symphonie ST00036435 by Rosell Meseguer, a part of his Archivo OVNI where flying saucers dedicated to espionage projected in the last room of the bar what was happening in the street; and El futuro queda detrás by Ignacio García Sánchez, the showcase of an archaeological museum that –now or still does not exist. The experience with these three artists reconnected us with the rhythms and care of independent production. We came from there, we had both begun to experiment with what it was like to curate in collectives –Catenaria and Calipsofacto– with self-managed projects, but after a few years of institutional work some things are forgotten. Both from those first projects and from FRÁGIL we learned about the times and ways of doing independent work, much more connected to life. And that is how independent projects are inherited, they pass from one hand –and head– to another, sometimes with phases of rest. Some programmes disappear for a while and suddenly re-emerge with new perspectives and conditions, closely connected to life stages. Other projects, however, have an abrupt end, such as FRÁGIL. Much of today's cultural production works by projects and these, as the philosopher Boris Groys explains, are governed by temporal logics that do not always coincide with the vital rhythms of those who promote them. That is, one conceives a project and begins a dialogue with an institution that, in the best of cases, decides to support it and include it in its future programming. Irremediably, between the time you have designed the project and it has ended up being developed, several months or even years have passed, during which life goes on, things change and some permeate towards the project and others do not. There is always a gap between people, projects and institutions. This gap can cause a vital arrhythmia that affects the cultural world and the people who inhabit it. However, independent projects often manage to function with other logics and for a time the rhythms of life and projects are in tune. One of the most valuable things about experiences such as El Postalero or FRÁGIL is that they unfold when the promoters want and can, they take a break when the driving community needs it and move on to another if that is what has to be the case. The fragility of this type of spaces is great and they are usually subject to the vital moment of the people involved, but things happen when we want them to.

 

 

 

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