A Relational Cartography of Nodes 1001–1100
If 2016 was the year of THE WORD—of language as material, of the turn toward the discursive—then 2017 is the year of the node. The series ARTNATIONS (085) spans exactly 100 nodes, from 1001 to 1100, a deliberate, ceremonial number. But the content of these nodes, revealed across ten "SHOW" posts (76–85), is anything but ceremonial. It is dense, heterogeneous, almost overwhelming. The posts bear titles that read like a lexicon of the project's concerns: MELAZA (molasses), POMPA (pomp), IDIOM, READY, CONCEPT, SUCK, PALMTREE, FICUS, WISTERIA, LIPS. Each title is a keyword, a condensation of a thematic cluster. Each post lists ten nodes, with the exception of the final post (LIPS), which lists the last ten nodes of the series (1091–1100). The structure is rigorous: ten posts, ten nodes each, one hundred nodes total. The series is a machine. And the machine is running at full capacity.
ARTNATIONS is not a series about nations in any straightforward sense. There are few explicit references to national identity, borders, or citizenship. Instead, the series performs a different kind of nation-building: the construction of a relational territory through the accumulation of encounters, collaborations, and documents. The artists in ARTNATIONS—Danino Bozic (Serbia), Dafna Staretz (Norway/Bergen), Shahpari Behzadi (France), Leyre Montes (Spain), Slavica Marin (Serbia), Fredrik Lund (Norway/New York), Alicia Burrieza (Madrid), LLLL (Málaga), El Intruso (Madrid), Tomoto (Slovakia), Paula Lloveras (Madrid), Rubén Bonet (Madrid/Mexico), Kjell Varvín, Igor Antic, La Griega, Acinas, María Enríquez, Maqueda, Regina Fiz, Andrés Montes, Anamusma, and many others—form a network that is indifferent to national borders. The nation of ARTNATIONS is not Spain, not Serbia, not Norway, not France. It is the nation of the archive. Its capital is node 1001. Its citizens are the artists. Its constitution is the series. Its history is the accumulation.
1. MELAZA (Show #76): The Sweetness of Beginnings
The series opens with MELAZA (molasses), a title that suggests sweetness, viscosity, slowness. Molasses is a byproduct of sugar refining: thick, dark, slow-moving. It is also a substance that, in the famous Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919, moved with destructive force when its tank burst. The title thus holds together sweetness and violence, slowness and catastrophe. The nodes of MELAZA (1001–1010) establish the terms of the series:
1001 URBAN CONFORT – LLLL CITY TALKS – The series begins with comfort, but urban comfort is never simple. LLLL is a recurring collaborator; city talks are the project's method. The node is a declaration: ARTNATIONS will be about cities, about conversation, about the comfort and discomfort of urban life.
1002 LA LUZ – CAMUÑAS RIDES – Light returns as a motif. Camuñas is a town in La Mancha; rides suggest movement, transit, the journey. The node is a promise: the series will travel.
1003 CRUASANES – ACINAS URGEL – Croissants: the French pastry, the breakfast of the cosmopolitan middle class. Acinas Urgel is a name, a person, a collaborator. The node is a taste, a texture, a daily ritual.
1004 PAULA LLOVERAS – DISAPPEARANCE – Disappearance is the threat that haunts all documentation. The node is a warning: the archive is not permanent. Things vanish. People vanish. The work is against vanishing.
1005 MEAT 110-120 – FRESH CUTS TOMOTO – Meat returns. The body returns. Fresh cuts are wounds, but also butchery, also cuisine. Tomoto is a long-term collaborator. The node is the body as material.
1006 EL INTRUSO – CONVERSACIONES USERA 2016 – El Intruso (The Intruder) is a recurring persona, a disruptor, a questioner. Usera is a neighborhood in Madrid. The conversations are documented, numbered, archived. The node is the project's method: talk, listen, record.
1007 JUNGLE – DAFNA STARETZ – BERGEN – The jungle is not Spain; it is elsewhere. Bergen is a city in Norway, rainy, northern, far from the Mediterranean. Dafna Staretz is an artist, a node, a connection. The node is the project's reach.
1008 EXTENDED EGOS / FEIJOO – Extended egos suggests a theory of selfhood: the self is not contained in the body but extended into objects, environments, relations. Feijoo is a collaborator (Mateo Feijoo, later of DOBLE CARA). The node is a philosophy of distributed personhood.
1009 JAVIER PÉREZ ARANDA / ESPACIO VACÍO – Empty space is not nothing; it is potential. Javier Pérez Aranda is an artist, a collaborator. The node is the void that makes relation possible.
1010 SUBTRACTION – ANTO LLOVERAS SERBIA – Subtraction is the opposite of accumulation. The series ends its first post with a subtraction: take away, reduce, simplify. Serbia is a location, a destination, a node. The node is a gesture toward the minimal, the essential, the absent.
MELAZA is molasses: sweet, slow, thick. The series will take its time. There are 90 nodes to go.
2. POMPA (Show #77): The Performance of Grandeur
POMPA (pomp) is the title of Show #77 (nodes 1011–1020). Pomp is ceremony, display, the performance of power. The nodes of POMPA are a parade of collaborations:
1011 OTTO – DANINO BOZIC – CLAY MICRO-ARCHITECTURES – Otto is a name, perhaps a person, perhaps a reference. Danino Bozic is a Serbian artist; clay micro-architectures suggest small, hand-built structures, the opposite of monumental pomp. The node is a miniature, a toy, a model.
1012 REMEDIOS CASEROS – ANAMUSMA – HOME IS FINE – Home remedies are domestic, informal, anti-institutional. Anamusma is a collaborator; "home is fine" is a statement of contentment, but also of confinement. The node is the domestic as political.
1013 SIN TÍTULO – ANDRÉS MONTES – SE CONTRADICEN – Untitled works are the default of conceptual art. Andrés Montes is an artist; "they contradict themselves" is a statement about the work, about the artist, about the series. The node is inconsistency as method.
1014 PAULA LLOVERAS : PHOTO URBANISMS – MIRROR – Photo urbanisms are the project's documentation of the city. Mirror is reflection, but also duplication, also narcissism. The node is the archive reflecting itself.
1015 TOMOTO : MEAT 121-130 – THE CITY IS AN ANIMAL – The city is an animal: not a machine, not a organism, not a system, but a living, breathing, unpredictable creature. Meat continues. The node is the city as flesh.
1016 EL INTRUSO – NARANJAS FRESCAS – 348 FRESH – Fresh oranges: the fruit of Valencia, of Spain, of the Mediterranean. Freshness is a quality, a value, a demand. The node is the new, the just-picked, the alive.
1017 LEYRE MONTES – BESUCONAS – STUDIO – Besuconas (kissy) suggests affection, intimacy, the mouth. Studio is the space of production. The node is the kiss as labor, the studio as romance.
1018 REGINA FIZ – SALVE REGINA – NATIONAL LIBRARY – Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen) is a Catholic prayer, a chant, a hymn. The National Library is an institution, an archive, a monument. The node is the sacred and the secular, the prayer and the catalog.
1019 NATURALES – MARÍA ENRÍQUEZ – OLÉ – Naturales (naturals) suggests the unmediated, the authentic. Olé is the Spanish exclamation of approval, of flamenco, of bullfighting. The node is the performance of Spanishness.
1020 PÁJAROS DE CÁDIZ – MAQUEDA – Birds of Cádiz: the city, the light, the coast. Maqueda is a collaborator. The node is flight, freedom, the view from above.
POMPA is pomp, but the nodes are not pompous. They are intimate, domestic, contradictory. The performance of grandeur is undercut by clay micro-architectures, home remedies, contradictions, mirrors, animals, kisses, prayers, olives, and birds. The series is not celebrating power; it is documenting its textures.
3. IDIOM (Show #78): The Language of Relation
IDIOM (nodes 1021–1030) is about language: the particular, the local, the untranslatable. Idiom is not grammar; it is usage. The nodes of IDIOM perform the project's linguistic turn:
1021 IGOR ANTIC – EVERYBODY FUCKS – A crude statement, a leveling, a democratic insistence. Igor Antic is an artist; the statement is his, or the project's, or both. The node is the body as universal.
1022 MAQUEDA – CALLEJÓN OSCURO – Dark alley: the city as danger, as mystery, as the unknown. Maqueda is the guide, the witness, the recorder. The node is the urban as gothic.
1023 TOMOTO – PROTISTA – SLOVAKIA – Protista is a kingdom of life: single-celled organisms, neither plant nor animal nor fungus. Tomoto is from Slovakia. The node is the microbe, the minimal, the foundational.
1024 PAULA LLOVERAS – PHOTOURBANISMS – Photo urbanisms again: the project's signature mode. The node is repetition as method, the same title, different content.
1025 LA GRIEGA – TALKS – La Griega (the Greek woman) is a persona, a collaborator, a voice. Talks are the project's primary medium. The node is conversation as art.
1026 ACINAS – MOSCAS – Moscas (flies) is a return to the early series MOSCA (2010). The node is a callback, a citation, a memory.
1027 EL INTRUSO – 353 A SACO – A saco (by the sack) suggests abundance, excess, taking without measure. El Intruso continues his conversations. The node is the archive as glut.
1028 MARÍA ENRIQUEZ – EN V – En V (in V) is cryptic, open, incomplete. María Enríquez is a collaborator. The node is the abbreviation, the fragment, the clue.
1029 LEYRE MONTES – ARCADIO – SERENA – Arcadio is a name (perhaps from García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude). Serena is calm, peaceful, clear. The node is the literary, the quiet, the still.
1030 DESCARGA – ANTO LLOVERAS – UNSTABLE – Descarga (discharge, unloading, download) suggests release, relief, the end of a process. Unstable is the condition of the project, the work, the self. The node is the final node of IDIOM, but not the end of the series. There are 70 nodes to go.
IDIOM is the language of the project: crude, dark, microbial, photographic, conversational, citational, abundant, cryptic, literary, unstable. The series is learning to speak. The idiom is not English, not Spanish, not any national language. It is the language of the node.
4. READY (Show #79): The Readymade as Method
READY (nodes 1031–1040) invokes Duchamp, the readymade, the everyday object as art. But READY is not about objects; it is about states: readiness, preparedness, the condition of being available for use. The nodes of READY:
1031 LLLL – SPANISH BAR – CONTEXT AS READYMADE – The Spanish bar is not an object; it is a context, a situation, a social space. The readymade is not the thing but the environment. The node is a radical expansion of Duchamp.
1032 KRAPOOLA – ORANGE SERIES – MONOCHROME – Orange returns. Monochrome is the reduction of painting to a single color. The node is the series as monochrome, the archive as orange.
1033 KJELL VARVIN – SETS 2017 VARIATIONS – Sets are collections, groups, series. Variations are differences within repetition. Kjell Varvín is an artist. The node is the project's own method: sets of variations.
1034 PAULA LLOVERAS – NATURAL URBANISMS – Natural urbanisms: the city as nature, the nature as city. The node is the blurring of categories.
1035 RUBÉN BONET – FLYHIGH – MADRID MEX DF – Flyhigh is a state, an aspiration, a drug. Madrid and Mexico City are two capitals, two homes. The node is the artist as migrant, the work as flight.
1036 EL INTRUSO 369 LEMON WALL – Lemon wall: a wall painted yellow, a wall of lemons, a wall that is sour. The node is the city as taste.
1037 PIECE FOR A FLAMENCO DANCER PRODUCTION – Flamenco is Spanish, is Andalusian, is embodied. The piece is for a dancer, not by a dancer. The node is the artwork as instruction, as score, as provocation.
1038 CLAUDE CHUZEL – EVERY DAY – Every day is the duration of the project, the rhythm of the series, the discipline of the archive. Claude Chuzel is an artist. The node is the daily as practice.
1039 LEYRE – FISH LIGHT – ZAHORA – Fish light: light reflected off scales, light underwater, light in Zahora, a town in Cádiz. The node is the Mediterranean as material.
1040 ANTO LLOVERAS – FISH DISH – Fish dish: the meal, the object, the still life. The node is the artist as cook, the work as food.
READY is readiness: the state of being prepared to encounter, to document, to number. The readymade is not a urinal; it is a Spanish bar, an orange monochrome, a set of variations, a natural urbanism, a flight, a lemon wall, a flamenco score, every day, a fish light, a fish dish. The world is ready. The archive is ready. The series continues.
5. CONCEPT (Show #80): The Idea as Node
CONCEPT (nodes 1041–1050) is the most explicitly theoretical of the ARTNATIONS posts. The title names the currency of conceptual art: the idea, the proposition, the dematerialized. But the nodes of CONCEPT are not abstract; they are specific, located, named:
1041 TERRA MUSEUM SPACE – BOBAN SERBIA – Terra (earth, land, ground) museum: a museum of soil, of territory, of the ground beneath our feet. Boban is a place in Serbia. The node is the institution as earth.
1042 JIANAN QU NO WALLS – VIENA – No walls: the dream of openness, of borderlessness, of free movement. Jianan Qu is an artist; Viena is Vienna. The node is the city without fortifications.
1043 TOMOTO – DRY RIVER CÁDIZ – A dry river is a river that has ceased to flow, a watercourse without water. Cádiz is the location. The node is absence, drought, the end of flow.
1044 EL INTRUSO – SED – Sed (thirst) is the condition of the dry river, the body without water, the archive without nodes. The node is desire as lack.
1045 FREDRIK LUND – COLLAGES AND POEMS – Collages are cuts, reassemblages, fragments. Poems are condensations, rhythms, sounds. Fredrik Lund is an artist. The node is the work as cut-and-paste, as line-and-break.
1046 MOUSE AND SWORD – PAULA LLOVERAS – Mouse and sword: the tiny and the sharp, the rodent and the weapon. The node is the opposition that structures the work: small/large, weak/strong, hidden/exposed.
1047 BOZIC – ANOTHER GREEN DAY – Another green day: the repetition of the ecological, the return of the natural. Bozic is Danino Bozic. The node is the everyday as green, the green as everyday.
1048 TRAFALGAR – MAQUEDA – Trafalgar is the cape, the battle, the lighthouse. Maqueda is the collaborator. The node is history as site, site as history.
1049 FEIJOO – ARTES VIVAS – IDEA MATADERO – Artes vivas (living arts) is a category that includes performance, dance, theater. Idea Matadero (slaughterhouse idea) is a provocation, a violence, a site of production. The node is the live as lethal, the idea as abattoir.
1050 TERRA – SITUATIONAL FIXER – WALK STATEMENT – Terra again: earth, ground, foundation. Situational fixer is a role: the person who makes situations work. Walk statement is a performance, a declaration, a movement. The node is the conclusion of CONCEPT, but not of ARTNATIONS. There are 50 nodes to go.
CONCEPT is the idea as node: Terra Museum, No Walls, Dry River, Thirst, Collages and Poems, Mouse and Sword, Another Green Day, Trafalgar, Artes Vivas, Situational Fixer. The series is not anti-conceptual; it is conceptual, but its concepts are embedded in places, names, materials. The idea is not abstract; it is located. The concept is not universal; it is singular.
6. SUCK (Show #81): The Mouth as Organ
SUCK (nodes 1051–1060) is a title that refuses sublimation. Suck is the mouth, the infant, the erotic, the abject. The nodes of SUCK:
1051 BOZIC BLACK STAR – DANINO BOZIC – Black star: a collapsed star, a singularity, an absence. The node is the void at the center.
1052 GORO SHIMANO – SKYPE SERIES VIENA – YOU – Skype series: the project's turn to digital mediation, to remote collaboration. Viena is Vienna; YOU is the second person, the viewer, the reader. The node is the address.
1053 PAULA LLOVERAS – SWAN STORY – ECO ECO – Swan story: the return of the swan, the figure that will dominate THE ROAD TO RESTORATION (2021). Eco eco is echo, ecology, economy. The node is the story as repetition, as environment, as exchange.
1054 EL INTRUSO – GENTLE 382 CONVERSATIONS – Gentle: the opposite of intrusive, the soft, the kind. 382 conversations: the count continues. The node is the archive as tenderness.
1055 TOMOTO COPOS 500-507 – Copos (flakes) appears for the first time in the node list. Tomoto's COPOS series will culminate in 2025. The node is the flake as unit, the fragment as whole.
1056 ESPIGÓN DE SAN MIGUEL – MAQUEDA – Espigón (jetty, pier) is a structure that extends into the water. San Miguel is the saint, the month, the beer. The node is the city at the edge of the sea.
1057 FREDRIK LUND – MATURE WOOD – Mature wood is aged, seasoned, ready. The node is the material as time, the tree as archive.
1058 ENTRA EN VERDE – HOLA VERDE URBANO – FRESH – Entra en verde (enter in green) is an instruction, an invitation. Hola verde urbano (hello urban green) is a greeting. Fresh is the quality, the value, the demand. The node is the ecological as salutation.
1059 ENTREPLIEGUES – TALK TALK – Entrepliegues (between folds) is a space of complexity, of hiddenness, of the creased. Talk talk is the repetition of conversation, the doubling of discourse. The node is the fold as speech.
1060 STEAMED – FOOD RITUAL SERIES – Steamed is cooked, softened, transformed. Food ritual series is the project's ongoing engagement with the meal as art. The node is the kitchen as studio.
SUCK is the mouth: the site of ingestion, of speech, of kiss, of suck. The series is not polite. It is oral, bodily, direct. The nodes are not for the squeamish.
7. PALMTREE (Show #82): The Vegetal as Political
PALMTREE (nodes 1061–1070) is a title that names a specific tree: the palm, the symbol of tropicality, of vacation, of the exotic. But the nodes of PALMTREE are not exotic; they are infrastructural:
1061 SUPERMARKET – The supermarket returns from 2011 (SUPERMARKET series). The node is the site of consumption as art.
1062 GREEN BRIEFCASE – The briefcase is the accessory of the professional, the bureaucrat, the capitalist. Green is the color of ecology, of money, of envy. The node is the document as nature.
1063 GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE – Infrastructure is the hidden support system of the city: pipes, wires, roads. Green infrastructure is the vegetal as utility. The node is the plant as pipe.
1064 GREEN DAY – Green day is the band, but also the day of ecology, the day of the green. The node is the everyday as environmental.
1065 EL INTRUSO – THIRST – 2017 – Thirst returns from CONCEPT (1044 SED). The node is the repetition of desire, the persistence of lack.
1066 EMPTY LOT SERIES – The empty lot is the vacant space, the gap in the city, the potential for building or neglect. The node is the void as site.
1067 TAKE A BOAT – Take a boat is an instruction, an escape, a journey. The node is the water as road.
1068 MOUTH / STRIPES NOT BUREN – Mouth returns from SUCK. Stripes not Buren: a reference to Daniel Buren's striped columns, a refusal of appropriation. The node is the citation as rejection.
1069 FLAG SERIES – The flag is the symbol of the nation, the emblem of territory. The node is the nation as cloth, as color, as wind.
1070 TERRACE AND VIEW – Terrace and view: the balcony, the lookout, the perspective. The node is the city as spectacle.
PALMTREE is the palm: the tree that is not native to Spain (except in the south), the tree of oasis, of date, of shade. The series is the vegetal as political, the tree as infrastructure, the leaf as flag.
8. FICUS (Show #83): The Domestic as Jungle
FICUS (nodes 1071–1080) names another tree: the ficus, the houseplant, the domestic version of the wild fig. The nodes of FICUS are interior, intimate, compressed:
1071 MAYBE SPACES – NOT THERE – Maybe spaces are possibilities, potentials, near-absences. Not there is the condition of the maybe. The node is the threshold as non-existence.
1072 YELLOW GUM FRUIT – Yellow gum fruit: a strange combination, a synesthetic object, a taste and a texture and a color. The node is the sensation as node.
1073 MEAT 230-250 – Meat continues. The numbers increase. The node is the body as count.
1074 ECO URBANISMS – GREEN EXILE – Eco urbanisms: the city as ecosystem. Green exile: the expulsion of the ecological, the banishment of the vegetal. The node is the contradiction at the heart of green urbanism.
1075 FAR EL INTRUSO BROWN YELLOW – Far is distance, removal, separation. El Intruso returns. Brown and yellow are colors, are races, are earth and sun. The node is the chromatic as political.
1076 MELANCHOLIA – WHITE – Melancholia is the condition of the artist, the weight of the archive, the sadness of accumulation. White is the color of the gallery, of the cube, of the blank. The node is the affect as hue.
1077 GREEN COLLATERAL SERIES + – Green collateral: the side effects of ecology, the unintended consequences of the green. The plus is addition, accumulation, more. The node is the series as excess.
1078 STEAM + + + + + – Steam returns from SUCK (1060 STEAMED). The plus signs are repetition, intensification, excess. The node is the vapor as accumulation.
1079 NEW MIMESIS – SET – New mimesis: a new theory of representation, a new relationship between art and world. Set is the collection, the series, the group. The node is the theory as node.
1080 FICUS YEAR CÁDIZ MÁLAGA – Ficus year: a year of the houseplant, the domestic, the interior. Cádiz and Málaga are cities in Andalusia. The node is the year as geography.
FICUS is the ficus: the plant that grows in the corner of the living room, that requires little light, that survives neglect. The series is the domestic as jungle, the interior as ecosystem, the houseplant as archive.
9. WISTERIA (Show #84): The Climbing as Relation
WISTERIA (nodes 1081–1090) names a climbing plant, a vine that covers walls, that connects ground to roof. The nodes of WISTERIA are about connection, about covering, about the vegetal as relational:
1081 GLICINIA WALL SERIES – Glicinia is wisteria in Spanish. Wall series: the plant as mural, the vegetal as image. The node is the climb as art.
1082 TWIN HOUSES NORWAY – THE WOODWAY – Twin houses: doubled, mirrored, paired. Norway is the location. The Woodway is the path through the trees. The node is the architecture as forest.
1083 FRESH DECAY – Fresh decay: the new as rotten, the alive as dying. The node is the contradiction at the heart of the organic.
1084 RIVER CLOUD NORWAY – River cloud: the water as vapor, the flow as suspension. Norway is the location. The node is the landscape as weather.
1085 SANDSCAPES CÁDIZ – EL INTRUSO – Sandscapes: the beach as landscape, the dune as territory. Cádiz is the location. El Intruso is the witness. The node is the coast as archive.
1086 MEAT 270 MADRID – Meat continues. 270 is the node count. Madrid is the location. The node is the body as city.
1087 INVITATION – Invitation: the gesture that begins relation, the offer that opens the archive. The node is the call as node.
1088 POSTORY MADRID – Postory is not a word; it may be a name, a brand, a misspelling. Madrid is the location. The node is the unknown as node.
1089 ORANGE SCULPTURES – Orange returns. Sculptures are three-dimensional, material, tangible. The node is the fruit as form.
1090 DIAMOND NORWAY – Diamond is hard, precious, crystalline. Norway is the location. The node is the mineral as node.
WISTERIA is the wisteria: the vine that climbs, that covers, that connects. The series is the climbing as relation, the vine as network, the cover as archive.
10. LIPS (Show #85): The Mouth as Archive
The series closes with LIPS (nodes 1091–1100). The mouth returns, but now as the organ of speech, of kiss, of articulation. The nodes of LIPS are the final ten, the conclusion of ARTNATIONS, the threshold to 1101 and FLOCK:
1091 ALICIA BURRIEZA – RED CIRCUS – MADRID – BBB – Red circus: the spectacle as blood, as danger, as performance. Madrid is the location. BBB is a signature, a code, a mark. The node is the circus as archive.
1092 DAFNA STARETZ – FIRE SERIES – FJORD – Fire returns from 2010 (FIRE series). Fjord is the Norwegian landscape, the water between cliffs. The node is the fire as water.
1093 FOUNTAIN NUMBER 3 – DANINO BOZIC – SERBIA – Fountain is water, is Duchamp, is the readymade. Number 3 is the count. Serbia is the location. The node is the fountain as node.
1094 SHAHPARI BEHZADI – DOTS FRANCE – Dots are points, are nodes, are the minimal unit of the image. France is the location. The node is the dot as nation.
1095 LLLL EL PALMERAL MÁLAGA NEW CITY SECTOR – El Palmeral is the palm grove, the forest of palms. Málaga is the city. New city sector is urban planning, development, the future. The node is the palm as city.
1096 LEYRE MONTES – FISH – PORTRAITS – Fish returns. Portraits are faces, are identities, are the representation of the person. The node is the fish as face.
1097 SLAVICA MARIN – LUNAPARK – Lunapark is amusement park, carnival, the space of play. The node is the park as archive.
1098 EL INTRUSO – SESSION 363 FRUITJOBS – Session 363: the conversation continues. Fruitjobs is a neologism, a compound, a provocation. The node is the talk as labor.
1099 FREDRIK LUND – NEW YORK SERIES – New York is the city, the capital of the art world, the site of so many series. The node is the city as node.
1100 TAXIDERMY III – Taxidermy is the preservation of the dead, the stuffing of the animal, the art of the corpse. III is the third iteration. The node is the archive as taxidermy: the preservation of the living, the numbering of the dead, the art of the node.
LIPS is the mouth: the site of speech, of kiss, of taxidermy. The series ends with a preserved animal, a stuffed bird, a dead thing made to look alive. The archive is taxidermy. The nodes are the specimens. The series is the glass case. ARTNATIONS ends at 1100. FLOCK begins at 1101. The mouth closes. The lips part. The next series awaits.
Conclusion: ARTNATIONS as the Nation of the Node
ARTNATIONS is not a series about nations. It is a series that builds a nation: the nation of the node, the territory of the archive, the citizenship of the artist. The 100 nodes of ARTNATIONS are 100 citizens. They are 100 encounters. They are 100 documents. They are 100 invitations. The series is the project's declaration of independence from geography, from identity, from the nation-state. The only nation that matters is the nation of relation. The only border is the node range. The only capital is 1001. The only anthem is the click of the link. The only flag is the yellow bag, the green briefcase, the orange monochrome, the red circus, the white melancholy, the black star. ARTNATIONS is the nation of the node. And the node is numbered. And the number is 1001 to 1100. And the series is over. And the archive continues.
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ARTNATIONS marks a decisive threshold in the LAPIEZA sequence because it no longer behaves like a discrete exhibition cycle organised around a single place, medium, or mood. It operates instead as a distributed syntax of relation. The series spans nodes 1001–1100, making it a full one-hundred-node unit within the broader archive, and the later LAPIEZA pages explicitly situate it as ART SERIES 085, placed between THE WORD and FLOCK within the project’s long serial chain. What matters here is not simply scale, but a change in organisational intelligence. The available sequence of titles—MELAZA, POMPA 1011, IDIOM, READY, CONCEPT, SUCK, PALMTREE, FICUS, WISTERIA, and LIPS—already suggests a structure built through lexical shifts, vegetal figures, conceptual prompts, and social signals rather than through a stable thematic enclosure. ARTNATIONS is therefore best understood not as a “global constellation” in an abstract sense, but as an experiment in how curating can become a networked grammar: a way of linking fragments, artists, media, places, and atmospheres into a field that remains open yet legible.
The internal evidence of the sequence confirms this. PALMTREE assembles a chain that moves through SUPERMARKET, GREEN BRIEFCASE, GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE, GREEN DAY, EMPTY LOT SERIES, TAKE A BOAT, MOUTH / STRIPES NOT BUREN, FLAG SERIES, and TERRACE AND VIEW, producing a clearly environmental and spatial vocabulary in which urban residue, landscape markers, mobility, and flags coexist within one curatorial frame. FICUS shifts that syntax toward a denser mix of urbanism, colour, matter, and mediation: MAYBE SPACES, NOT THERE, YELLOW, GUM, MEAT, ECO URBANISMS GREEN EXILE, MELANCHOLIA - WHITE, GREEN COLLATERALL SERIES, STEAM, NEW MIMESIS, and FICUS YEAR CÁDIZ MÁLAGA. WISTERIA continues by bringing together GLICINIA WALL SERIES, TWIN HOUSES NORWAY, FRESH DECAY, RIVER CLOUD NORWAY, SANDSCAPES CÁDIZ, MEAT 270 MADRID, POSTORY MADRID, ORANGE SCULPTURES, and DIAMOND NORWAY. Finally, LIPS expands the series into an overtly translocal and multi-author platform through entries linked to Alicia Burrieza, Dafna Staretz, Danino Bozic, Shahpari Behzadi, Leyre Montes, Slavica Marin, Fredrik Lund, and Taxidermy III, alongside references to Madrid, Serbia, France, Málaga, fjord and New York. This is not a centralised curatorial statement but a distributed assembly of signals.
What becomes visible through these clusters is a specific method. ARTNATIONS does not simply gather works; it stages adjacency. Green infrastructure can sit beside music sessions, urban exile beside meat, Norwegian houses beside Cádiz sandscapes, New York beside Málaga, and artist names beside topographic fragments. In other words, the series constructs meaning not through thematic purity but through relational montage. It is closer to an editorial field than to a conventional exhibition checklist. Each node functions as a local intensity, but its full force emerges only through serial connection. This is why ARTNATIONS matters in the long history of LAPIEZA: it shows curating becoming less a matter of selecting and placing finished objects, and more a matter of composing circulation, resonance, and semantic drift. The title itself points in this direction. “Artnations” implies neither nation-states nor a universal art world, but plural cultural units temporarily brought into contact without being dissolved into sameness. The series does not erase difference; it engineers its co-presence.
There is also a strong vegetal and morphological undercurrent in the sequence. PALMTREE, FICUS, and WISTERIA are not incidental titles. They suggest rootedness, growth, branching, and climatic variation, while surrounding entries such as RIVER CLOUD, SANDSCAPES, GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE, FRESH DECAY, and EL PALMERAL MÁLAGA NEW CITY SECTOR reinforce an ecology of surfaces, weather, and environmental perception. This matters because ARTNATIONS is not only international in scope; it is metabolic in structure. It thinks through spread, graft, drift, and atmosphere. The curatorial sequence behaves like a living system whose units are semi-autonomous yet linked by recurrent tonalities: green, flesh, steam, decay, water, fruit, cloud, wall, lot, terrace. The result is a field that feels less like a roster and more like a biosphere of references. In this sense, ARTNATIONS anticipates later formulations of LAPIEZA as an epistemic environment. It already operates through distributed cognition, even if that language is not yet fully explicit.
Just as important is the way the sequence foregrounds language itself. Titles such as IDIOM, READY, CONCEPT, NOT THERE, NEW MIMESIS, and READ MY LIPS indicate that the project is not only gathering materials and places; it is testing the verbal threshold at which curating becomes theory. ARTNATIONS therefore stands at an intermediate stage in the LAPIEZA trajectory. It is still clearly an art series, still driven by images, artists, invitations, atmospheres, and exhibitionary gestures. But it is already doing something more infrastructural. It is building a semantic machine through iteration. The one-hundred-node span is crucial here: duration itself becomes structure. A longer sequence allows recurrence to acquire weight, and weight to acquire legibility. By the time ARTNATIONS closes at node 1100, the project has demonstrated that curatorial continuity can produce not just memory, but systemic coherence.
Seen retrospectively, ARTNATIONS is one of the places where LAPIEZA ceases to be understandable merely as an independent exhibition programme and begins to appear as a field-forming apparatus. The evidence is modest at the scale of each entry, but decisive in aggregate: repeated linkage across blogs, artists, cities, media, vegetal motifs, urban fragments, and conceptual cues. The series does not yet declare itself as research infrastructure, but it already behaves like one. It distributes attention, records relation, and organises heterogeneity without reducing it to a single message. That is why ARTNATIONS should be read less as a themed chapter than as a technical advance in the history of the project. It is the moment when curating begins to act like a distributed operating system: open, translocal, accumulative, and increasingly aware that seriality can generate a form of knowledge irreducible to the isolated artwork.
