Cifo Art Space, Miami

In addition to this, the Grants and Commissions Program has awarded for the second time since it was created, the Achievement Commission, which distinguished on this occasion the prestigious career of the pioneer of Argentine conceptualism, David Lamelas.

Viewpoint 2011 includes works by all the artists, with the exception of Tania Bruguera, who will present a performance in the institution’s headquarters the following year. The title of the exhibition makes reference to this duality inherent in all creation, which arises from the physical displacement of the work from a private ambit to the exhibition space, or from the transition of a work that abandons the intimate and original dialogue with its creator to begin a public dialogue with the viewer.

This type of transition is particularly interesting in proposals that focus on the social space, and in which the utilization of documentation strategies aimed at minimizing the creator’s subjectivity is fundamental.

The work of David Lamelas and Alicia Villarreal positions itself precisely in this enclave.

Time as activity (1969-2011) has accompanied David Lamelas for practically the whole of his trajectory as an artist. In fact, we might well refer to a sort of self-portrait or a travel notebook, for each of the cities portrayed by Lamelas − who left his native country in 1968 − embodies the nomadic condition which is typical of contemporary society.
Lamelas resorts to 16-milimeter films and photographic shots from which he tries to strip away all subjectivity. He is interested in the elimination of any trace of aesthetic preference or aspiration, eluding in his investigation the distortion the media produce through their stereotyped version of each city.

Lamelas’s photographic and film recordings are conspicuous for their anodyne character: nothing essential appears to be happening. The precise recording of time imposes a sense of objectivity that highlights the area of spatial-temporal displacements on which this series is based, and which intensifies when the concepts explored in these works are perceived.

Also with an emphasis on objectivity and documentation, Alicia Villareal features La enseñanza de la geografía (The teaching of gography), 2011. This multimedia installation resorts to memory and to tactics of historical repositioning as methods of collective reflection on society and on the utopian projects which have been aborted. Basing the point of view in a school, Villarreal incites the students to carry out a critical revision of the environment where, in a symptomatic way, the Ochavagía Hospital stands out as evidence of the urban weft of failed promises of social welfare that characterizes the 1960s, not only in Chile but in a considerable portion of Western society.

While Lamelas and Villareal’s proposals are based on time as a significant conceptual element that makes it possible to discern the spatial coordinates, in the case of the works presented by Marcius Galan and Laura Belém, the exploration and intervention of space prevails. Marcius Galan’s enigmatic sculptural forms, heirs to Brazilian Concretism, interact with the notions of boundary and transgression. Galan appropriates ordinary objects which, subjected to an unusual relationship, force us to revalue the perspectives of our relationship with space. In 3 Secciones (2011), he plays with light as prevailing material, creating the impression that glass sheets subdivide the vertical axis of the gallery at different angles. However, we are witnessing a subterfuge created by the artist. The perfectly passable space is the fruit of an elaborate trompe-l’oeil that invites us to reflection.

The same interest in activating the unexpected in the viewer is dominant in Laura Belém’s proposal, Sculpture Garden II, which features a rectangular area completely covered with marble powder on which curious geometric structures that evoke an instantaneous wink at the Brazilian concrete tradition are displayed. The whimsical sculptures have been created using cigarettes. The ephemeral and the transitory replace in this way emphatic traits characteristic of modern art, such as perdurability and eternity. Marble powder, a noble material associated for centuries to sculpture, and on which this sui generis garden now emerges, emphasizes the turn-of-the-period relationships implicit in the work.

The works of Fritzia Irizar-Rojo, Amalia Pica, Begoña Morales and Antonio Vega also play with the sense of expectation, each of the artists resorting to very different strategies. In the case of the installation presented by Vega, Murmuros (2011), we find ourselves before a sort of confessional booth in which the tabloid press echoing the news of torrid murders currently customary in Mexico has replaced the image of possible absolution. Kneeling on cushions and with the chin against the wall − this is the only way to catch a glimpse of the hidden anamorphic notices the artist has surreptitiously placed in the newspapers − we discover ourselves paying homage, through this scrutiny, to the growing mass of anonymous people who die on a daily basis.

Also addressing areas of silencing and concealment, we find Fritzia Irizar-Rojo’s work, Untitled (Selectiveness-Collectiveness). A sort of gallery or room which retracts itself like an accordion is zealously guarded by locks that deny us access to the place where the work ultimately lies on the floor. As its title accurately indicates, the work discourses on the questionable inclusion-exclusion mechanisms that support the still modern structure of the art system.

Amalia Pica and Begoña Morales both play with the sounds resource.

Pica’s If these walls could talk explores the phenomenon of growing lack of communication that characterizes contemporary society. Using the wall as a symbol of isolation and impossibility, Pica places on it several of the typical makeshift telephones made by children with cans and strings. Like umbilical cords, these rudimentary artifacts efficaciously manage to restore the interrupted bond.

Lastly, Begoña Morales’s sound installation, Canción de mi edificio, stands out for its simplicity and strong poetic sense. Faithful to her search for the unimportant, the artist calls our attention to the beauty of the casual and the everyday.