Pablo Contrisciani

Art In Focus: Ephemeral Trends III

Ephemeral/Trends III interprets the spirit of an era in which representation has shifted to new mediums and meanings. New icons and images of the contemporary artistic mind continue to emerge incessantly. Contemporary art in Latin America no longer knows any borders. Latin American artists are now part of the global world, and they produce a diversity of images sharing the global baggage of wide-ranging cultural, ideological, political and social content that renders new visibilities and questions the insignificant, the private, and the ordinary, away from the objectified world of representation. Contemporary artists construct and deconstruct from mass culture and from the collective platforms. Contemporary art deals with a variety of images as metaphors that range from femininity to culture, from natural to industrial, from aesthetics to kitsch.

Giovanni Basile proposes an aerial installation, an action sculpture in which semi-abstract and volatile metal figurines intertwine playfully, representing metaphorical human encounters. Rakel Bernie proposes an installation featuring miniature dresses hanging from the ceiling, in a categorical allusion to femininity and feminine childhood. Through an acute allusion to the new contemporary cults, to the new prosthetic gods such as the financial market, Jorge Brugo presents an installation featuring two gigantic graphs on canvas that represent the chilling spasm of the world market on the tragic September 11. The installation is accompanied by a strange musical structure that is the result of the aural transference of the graphs to rhythms, melodies and instruments. In a constructive-deconstructive process, Aisen Chacin proposes three gigantic white cubes in which the thread tangles are structured and un-structured, announcing the tragic Sisyphean cycle. Through a forceful photography with a social bent, Amalia Caputo shows, in two banners, two masked men symbolizing fear and freedom. Pablo Contrisciani invades the garden with monumental fractal cubes dominated by the irregular polychromy of chaos. Lilian Domínguez presents a gigantic curtain with a sequence of digital photographs shaped as a woman' s daily calendar. The duo Guerra de la Paz (Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz) offers a figure from the Vigilanti Series; strange sculptural mannequins made with recycled cloth that seem to keep watch over the viewers. Liliana features an intervention of the second ticket booth, presenting unusual beings as inhabitants of this architecture. In the garden area, Marcus Marín exhibits a contemporary totem in which the Mona Lisa is the new icon. Andrés Michelena proposes an installation of multiple neo-ready mades, musical lamps featuring celestial and demoniacal entities, fluctuating between transparency and aeriality. Sylvia Riquezes intervenes the façade of the building, modifying its visual appearance: a strange monster -titled Blop- appears to devour the first ticket booth. The installation is prolonged through chromatic floral ramifications on the ceiling of the entrance hall. Evelyn Valdirio shows a balsero´s oar that she has rescued from the Bay, a cruel and sad monument to those who seek their freedom. Pedro Vizcaíno´s hardboard sculptures feature war icons reminiscent of children´s toys, innocently representing evil and the massacres caused by arms.

Cecilia Lueza points out the concept of femininity through a large-size garden sculpture representing a whimsical and playful female figure, rooted to the grass.

Curated by Milagros Bello, Ph. D.