Josilda da Conceição is delighted to participate in the 40th edition of Art Brussels with a solo presentation of Martín La Roche — 'Legitimate Museum’s Pavilion’.

The ‘Legitimate Museum’s Pavilion’ is a project that consist of an interior architecture of wooden partitioning. The structure is constructed in a similar shape to the Japanese tradition of Shoji, in which grid wooden partitions are wallpapered with rice paper. For ‘Legitimate Museum’s Pavilion’ Martín La Roche wallpapers the partitions with a mix of traditional rice paper and different kinds of recycled paper creating a geometrical pattern. The interior space can be accessed through a sliding door, and inside, a performance is hosted at different moments throughout the presentation of the piece. The recycled papers come from an archive that the artist has collected since 2013, comprising materials related to all the exhibitions he has visited. Every catalogue, exhibition sheet, postcard, or any ephemera related to these shows has been systematically organized in boxes. Now the artist shreds apart the contents of this archive and follows a simple paper making technique to transform it into new paper works. A chance composition is created by the inclusion of bigger paper fragments in the paper-making technique. Some individual pieces of this process can be seen framed next to the pavilion.  At different moments during the fair, the artist presents some of the pieces and the stories of their authors from his museum inside a hat, the Musée Légitime, which gives the pavilion its name.

Martín La Roche (b. Santiago de Chile, 1988, lives and works in Amsterdam) could be defined as a gatherer and storyteller. His interest in devices that contain and transport objects and their memories has led him to the creation of portable collections and publications. For instance, in 2017 Martín initiated the Musée Légitime, a nomad art institution that invites different artists to contribute an artwork small enough or immaterial so it can fit inside a hat while the artist wears it. His practice is also concerned with fibers and other tissues, like paper. His involvement in artist books has led him to be part of Good Neighbour, an artist book platform in Amsterdam, interested in revisiting libraries and seeing books as performative tools. He is currently producing an artist publication with To see the inability to see, an art collective busy with themes such as boundaries, the (an)archive and memory.