Terra non descoperta, 1991. Installation. 3 light boxes with colour transparencies and 15 mirrors with golden frame. 117 x 640 x 70 cm. Unique edition. |
Escalera al cielo, 1991. Installation. Light box with colour transparency and 5 mirrors with golden frame. 167 x 130 x 70 cm. Unique edition. |
Terra non descoperta, 1991. Light box with colour transparency. 48 x 48 x 10 cm. Unique edition. |
Alfredo Jaar has participated in numerous international exhibitions, with the Venice Biennale (Aperto 86), the Sao Paulo Biennale (special guest 1987), Documenta 8 (Kassel, 1987), and “Magiciens de la Terre” (Paris, 1989) standing out particularly. In Spain, he has taken part in the exhibition “To Be or not to Be” in the Centre d´Art Santa Mónica in Barcelona, as part of the Spring Photographic. This exhibition is his first individual one in Spain.
This show entitled “Terra non Descoperta” refers to the discovery of America 500 years ago but with an approach that differs radically from the celebratory joy with which the festivities are prepared today for 1992.
The artist refers to the fact that now, 500 years later, Latin America continues being “undiscovered” and exploited. In a recent essay, the critic Adriana Valdés wrote: “The work of Alfredo Jaar does not mourn for lost identities, nor is it a collection of founding utopias: his space is not the past, which establishes mourning, nor the future, which proposes a utopia. His space marks a critical intervention that has its place in the instant present of each installation. From there, he questions the place of the spectator in that present moment. And found in his installations are the typical features of the present: the elusive image, the multiplicity of possible options, the benefit of bewilderment”.