“Borrowed Words”, a performance by Oriol Vilanova Interpreted by Tiqui Atencio Demirdjian andFatima Maleki
Borrowed Words is a performance written by the artist and performed by a collector. It is a declaration of unconditional love from an individual to their objects. Borrowed from popular song, theater of the absurd, or surrealist poetry, his sincere words highlight the blindness and sometimes even painful intensity that connects the collector and the collection.
The performance, acquired by the NMNM in 2021, was the subject of an artist’s edition published in six languages in 2020 and a series of performances, both produced by the museum at the Villa Sauber (Fabrizio Moretti and Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, 2019) and at the artgenève fair in 2022 (Safia El Malqui, Mia Rigo Saitta, Anne Shelton Aaron, Benoit Doche de Laquintane, and Francis Carrère). The acquisition and regular activation of this work is part of a holistic approach to the idea of the collection that the NMNM is working to build and convey through some of its exhibitions, publications, and educational programs.
On the occasion of the Art Monte-Carlo fair and the Monaco Art Week, the performance will be interpreted by Tiqui Atencio Demirdjian and Fatima Maleki.
Oriol Vilanova (Manresa, 1980) lives in Brussels. For more than twenty years, he has been collecting postcards, which he finds mainly at flea markets. Classified and catalogued, they become works that question how memory, both collective and subjective, can be constructed, preserved, and even reinterpreted. At the same time, he offers a reflection on the mechanisms of the emergence (and disappearance) of value in the field of art. Recently exhibited at Garage Cosmos, Brussels; Kunstmuseum Bochum; ICA Sofia; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; Nouveau Musée National de Monaco; Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona; CA2M, Móstoles; M Museum, Leuven; and Museo Cerralbo, Madrid, he will represent Spain at the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026.
Free admission, subject to availability
