Acto I: La Eterna Adolescencia, Álvaro Urbano

A hybrid between travel chronicle and studio process notebook, this artist book tracks the construction of a failed modernist fantasy in the island of La Palma and the hallucinogenic properties of wild plants that grow across the Canary Islands. The publication enacts the physical experience of the multimedia installation anchored in TEA, Tenerife Espacio de las Artes, often dizzying and entangled, the different texts ramble across the banana plantations, now transformed into touristic hotspots among the fertile volcanic backdrop. Just as the botanic sculptures crafted by Urbano, the book is an exercise in appearance and apparition, using the Canary archipelago as a platform to reflect on the value of ruins as material memory.

This book is published as a companion of the exhibition Acto I: La Eterna Adolescencia by Álvaro Urbano, curated by Gilberto González at Tenerife Espacio de las Artes from 29.09.2023 to 18.02.2024.

Based in Berlin and founded in 2011, BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE is a small independent publishing house — a community of artists, graphic designers, authors, curators, cultural workers, craftsmen and craftswomen; specialising in artist books that are conceptualised as a part of an artwork or as the artwork itself.  They attempt to play with the format of the book and reflect its medium;  all of their books are produced in close collaborations with the artists themselves. Working in the long-standing tradition of alternative publishing practises, their focus is on collaborations with younger, not yet established artists or artists from outside of North America and Western Europe; from outside of an eurocentric discourse.

BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE translates to ‘good day, good afternoon, good night’ in Portuguese. The name conveys the idea that books can become an integral part of our everyday life – regardless of the time of day.

Measures: 21 x 15 cm
Pages: 136
Binding: Softcover