Black Round Table

Black Round Table is a documentary video piece that contrasts the utopian work by Gassama, a Barcelona-based Senegalese artist, with the conceptual foundations of Soviet avant-garde and Western modern architecture. Drawing on the aesthetic similarities and social contradictions between both realities, Daniela Ortiz creates a comparative narrative to analyse the precarious, fragmented nature of objects and spaces in the context of the modern-day city.

Accompanying Daniela Ortiz’s installation is an exhibition of a set of original paintings by Gassama.

Daniela Ortiz (Cuzco, 1985), like many migrant artists, was educated on various continents: she studied in her native country, at the University of Barcelona (where she obtained her bachelor’s degree), and, most recently, she attended SOMA in Mexico City. Daniela’s work has been shown in many group exhibitions in Spain, Peru and the United States. In 2010 she was awarded a grant by the Sala d’Art Jove exhibition space to publish her book 97 Housemaids. She is currently working on the project Habitación de servicio, funded by the Guasch Coranty Foundation, and developing La clase de sexualidad que nunca tuve (The Sexuality Class I Never Had) for the Espai d’Arts Roca Umbert in Granollers, together with the collective ORG.ia. She is also preparing a new project, Mano de obra, for the upcoming show at the Joan Miró Foundation’s Espai 13. She has taken part in workshops led by artists Santiago Sierra, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Rogelio López Cuenca and Raimond Chaves. She has also attended seminars led by Marcelo Expósito and Beatriz Preciado as part of the MACBA’s Program of Independent Studies (PEI), as well as seminars led by Cuauhtémoc Medina and Mariana Botey on the Campus expandido at MUAC in Mexico City.