Radical Optimism
Josée Bienvenu. New York
The spirit of “Optimismo Radical” (Radical Optimism) was already present in some of the streets around the New York gallery Josée Bienvenu. A series of graffiti on the pavement led the visitor towards the gallery entrance, while simultaneously the encounter with these words inspired a paradoxical feeling of optimism. The fact is that the exhibition had its origin in the particular relationship between these words, for...are they contradictory terms or, on the contrary, everything is radical opti- mism? Furthermore, is radical optimism opposed to a more moderate optimism, or even to a certain conservative pessimism? All these questions gravitated around the works of the twelve artists featured at the exhibit, characterized by its irony and its particular sense of humor which targeted certain radically optimistic trends and attitudes.
Thus, in Liliana Porter’s work The Riddel (Man With Balloon) (2010), the figurine representing a little man held a balloon that was too big for him in a fragile balance that elicited more than one smile. Artur Lescher’s Roda Quadrado (2006) and the video Rolling Square (2010) demonstrated that a square can actually rotate like a wheel. Paulo Bruscky’s works, The Eye Is Responsible For What It Sees (2010) and I’m Pickling Myself (1974) featured a reflection on the (im)possibility of taking oneself too seriously, and so did Rafael Lozano Hemmer (Seismoscope 8: Baruch Spinoza, Dutch (1632-1677), (2009), when he recomposed, once and again, the portrait of the rationalist philosopher through the action of a seismograph placed in the gallery (in such a way that the vibrations produced by the visitors generated the final image).
Particularly utopian were the works of Luis Camnitzer, Utopiary (2010), in which he restored a sheet of graph paper, giving it the shape of a tree, or Juan Manuel Echavarría’s beautiful project, Corte de Mampuján (2010). Two photographs from this series showed spaces temporarily reinhabited during the commemoration of the tenth anniversary of the forceful eviction of the inhabitants of the mentioned locality. For her part, in her work For the Time Being (2010), Ana Tiscornia created a beautiful and fragile structure in which, for the moment, a series of apartment buildings were squashed together in a fascinating balance.
The show was completed by a magnificent work on paper by Waltercio Caldas; the singular piece by Darío Escobar Untitled (2010), in which he reflected on the nature of common, everyday objects; a series of suggestive works by Patrick Hamilton; two labyrinthine and extremely subtle pieces by Marco Maggi, and Jota Castro’s Cheers (2006), a small Statue of Liberty sumberged in crude oil. Now we can only wish these artists the best success and be on the alert for the continuation of the project, “Optimismo Radical 2”, which will be on view at Nara Roesler Gallery in Sao Paulo the following year.
