CIRCA: Caribbean Epicenter for Contemporary Art
The phenomenon of the big art fairs that in the last decade changed the rules of the market, and gave an unusual attention to collectors, influenced the rise of CIRCA International Art Fair in San Juan, Puerto Rico. But it is the vision of its organizers that comprehend the role of fairs in non hegemonic centers that has had the potentiality to convert CIRCA into the Caribbean epicenter of the contemporary market.
In its fifth edition CIRCA began an alliance with Art Beijing -Platform China Contemporary, Main Trend Gallery and PIFO New Art Gallery were exhibitors-; it made its “CIRCA Labs”, an experimental zone with passages connecting different arts, stronger.
Far from the usual aspiration of expansion, the fair was reduced to 40 exhibitors; a decision that corresponds to the vision that the small fairs in peripheral places – in terms of the hegemony that privileges North American and Europe- can bring new dynamics to contemporary art. But in an intimate environment there is space for works from four continents; the possibility of direct contact with new local talents in the solo shows, and of seeing from up close the production of emerging artists that have crossed frontiers like Sofía Maldonado or Melvin Martínez; as well as artists with a long trajectory like Arnaldo Roche Rabel, Rafael Trelles or Antonio Martorell. But a central aspect was the vision of the unconventionality that is emerging in Latin American and that widens the globalization of Latin-American art.
Circa’s open space
This year, thanks to Pablo Blow de la Barra’s vision, the Circa Labs will function as an observatory of brand new galleries that generate less conventional contemporary art practices in Latin America. Surrounded by the illusion of being in an open space –thanks to the atmosphere of the tropical gardens (artwork by Radanés “Juni” Figueroa) and Chemi Rosado’s piece - 56 días a la lluvia (56 Days of Rain)- the tenants where these key galleries will exhibit their projects were installed.
The Peruvian gallery Revolver (Lima), cofounded by the artist Giancarlos Scaglia, who knows that we must transcend the physical space of the gallery and create an articulate web with the world, did not show artists that it represents like José Veramatos and Juan Salas, but brought the installation C oyoterías, a reinterpretation by the Mexican artist Yoshua Okun of the legenday performance by Joseph Beuys, that includes a human “coyote” (a paid “guide” to cross the frontier). Preteen Gallery, the international gallery that Gerardo Contreras put together from Hermosillo, México, surfing the web, showed some of the artists that participated in Younger than Jesus, of the New Museum of Nueva York, like Bea Fremderman. Besides the Monclova projects, also in Mexico (with sculptures by José León Cerillo that went from one side to the other in the container) participated Diablo Rosso, from Panama, who brought videos by Johnathan Harker and paintings by Cisco Merel, a reflection of the chaotic urbanizing frenzy, or by Raquel Cochez, who confronts her own obesity.
Ultraviolet projects “a multidimensional platform of the esthetic platform” based in Guatemala reproduced the piracy of selling video art with produces cds. In the “solo” spaces Jorge Diaz’ reproduced electronics that were keyed. These replicas were made with materials like plastic and ceramic, and were chained, duplicating the mechanisms against insecurity in the island. Corográfico is formed by a group of urban Puerto Rican “grafitters”- Smoke, Esco, Rimx and others- who have made images of San Juan’s walls travel all the way to Tokyo. Roberto Nieves, one of the founders and director of CIRCA made sure to invite these and other Puerto Rican artists that are not represented by galleries like Marcial Feliciano Ramos, Roberto Márquez Jorge and Omar Velázquez, the Colombian artist Alex Rodríguez who installed a re-appropriation of the image of Tom Vanderbilt, author of the book Traffic about the urban chaos.
A sharp project: the installation of the Colombian artist Carlos blanco, with White balloons floating towards a needle floor. At the stands other Colombian artists could be appreciated: assisted sound sculptures from Icaro Zohar, works from the Laconia series by Johanna Calle about censure, “beyond-functional” objects Gabriel Sierra, and Joel Grossman, who takes over- digitally- the history of art and transports it to a new medium and a sense of sight “massaged by the cyber world.
Like the curator Adriano Pedrosa says, the art of that country has notable potential, just like today’s Argentina. Mauro Giaconni, Pablo Accinelli, Tomás Espina are examples of this. The appropiations are an interminable vessel: the Spaniard Pedro Barbeito imagines what masters like Picasso or Matisse would do with a computer…and does it. Photography continues to reaffirm its power: proofs of this are the pieces by Nicola Costantino, and Luis Barba, or the ones by Christian Schoeler, and Charwel Tsai. Proof that painting doesn’t die but extends its narratives, reincarnated in volumetric materials or mizes with video, are pieces by Fabian Marcaccio and Rolando Cladera, as well as the parallel exhibition curated by Paco Barragán ¡ Cuando una pintura se mueve…algo debe estar podrido!(When a paninting moves, something has to be rotten!) at the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico, where the Cuban artista José Bedia also showed his work. Conceptual art is reinvented as well. There were conceptual pieces by Grimanesa Amoros about the perseverance of the obsession with surgeries and Morten Viskum brings the question game about art to the idea of painting “with a dead hand”.
