Read the review by Irene Coremberg (Buenos Aires), who visited the show in Santa Fe. Find further the images documenting the exhibition installation at MAC – Museo de Arte Contemporaneo Santa Fe/Argentina) and links to online press articles (see also–> )
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://Selfportrait – a show for Bethlehem – a show for peace
MAC – Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Santa Fe – Argentina
UNL University Santa Fe
http://ultra31.unl.edu.ar/noti/noticia.php?idnoticia=3531
http://www.unosantafe.com.ar/2007/01/04/nota13631.html
El Litoral (Newspaper Santa Fe)
http://www.litoral.com.ar – 03 January
http://www.litoral.com.ar – 06 January
Visit report
The show opened at December 10 of 2006 at “Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de la Ciudad de Santa Fe†– Argentina – (Bv. Pellegrini 1578).
Santa Fe is the capital city of Santa Fe province in Argentina. It is located at center – east of Republic, at the margins of Paraná River, which is a long river, colored like the mud, and crosses the province from north to south under a sky in warm colours, always changing.
Very close from river and from city port, at the center of the city, in middle of a long boulevard with great trees, is located the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Santa Fe (MAC). Its building shows a colonial style.
At the entrance we can see the museum announcements and those with the invitation to the exhibition “Selfportrait – a show for Bethlehem – a show for peaceâ€
Walking by two contiguous rooms we will find the digital print artworks, and at the third room, the digital videos, soundart, multimedia and artists statements works, all of them running in different digital supports.
The artworks supporting by DVD, are continuously playing (loop), on individual screen monitors. The visitor can access them with earpieces, as a personal experience.
At the same way, it’s possible to access to multimedia support in Cdrom, as an interactive experience and make a review of all the artworks.
There, also we will find the digital versions of the prints and video; besides, there’s a commentary of each author about his work.
As it is a show conformed by artworks that live in despite of their support, as ideas that live with independence of the physical support of the brain, we can appreciate the same works in a variety of formats at the same time; besides it is a show that runs simultaneously with the same shows in other cities of the word; then, it may be a metaphor of nets where the gift of the ubiquity, the non-material and non-original are some of the most outstanding characteristics.
A Show for Peace. This is a show that overcame the walls of Bethlehem, but also it overcomes the continent walls, and I hope it overcame also the walls in ourselves, waking up our conscious.
I can’t avoid remembering the history of another wall, close to that place at the same province. Around the big cities, as a result of the inequality, in our country grew up “belts†of poverty, where live persons who were excluded from system after years of applying political procedures recommended by international institutions, which were creditors of our country.
At times of a world championship of football, developed here under a military dictatorship, long walls were made in order to hide the poverty from the eyes of tourists who had to come here. At nights, the settlers took the bricks to improve their precarious homes.
Here below, a commentary about some works that impacted me more.
Among digital prints, Anahà Cáceres speak us about the spirit of these times:
We don’t know what is beyond the image, the personage sails towards a space out of the visible picture, towards an uncertain space of future, but with a slight sign of hope.
An abyss? A firm ground? This not the classic representation of a future up, behind a horizon, it looks more like a fall, or a descent. It’s a good idea to read also her message at the multimedia version.
Bruce Eves shows here a strong and critical picture, with a multiplicity of possible meanings leaving in it.
Following my personal vision, in this picture from Wolf Nkole Helzle the whole humanity is present composing the figure of the symbolic human being, the millions of fragments build the symbol of the individual when we move us far away, and the symbolic individual fragments itself again when we approach to the picture.
It’s a static print image but interactive at the same time. I hope it will be possible to appreciate the experience here below:
In the artwork of Jasenka Vukelic we find a concept that is related in a point with the previous work:
At this image, there is only one real eye, which looks us through hundreds of representations of eyes in photographs. Looking at the multimedia version, she will tell that God is present through different languages, countries and derivative religions from the same original.
In this strong energetic image proposed by Pier Giorgio De Pinto, I can perceive the forces of conflict that reign in the world.
Among digital video, I find this from Eileen Bonner. The idea that was born in me, after seeing this self-portrait in video, is the dissociation of the vision of oneself, is the capability present in the look of to see from our interior to outwards, and also to fleeing out of the prison of our body and seeing the world from outside, including ourselves in this outside. Obviously, interpretations possible are unlimited.
In this silent self-portrait of Sofia v. Bustorff, I find the proposal of a subtle trip towards the interior of mind locating ourselves between two worlds: perhaps a way towards change, to future, from the intimacy of ourselves. The images are accompanied only by subtle and rhythmic sounds that remember me the wind, like far machines which make me imagine nets of neurons, or perhaps the weavings of reality, working as cogwheels.
Of course, the exhibition is very rich and extended, there are much more good artworks to see, and each work and the whole exhibition will result in a different meaning for each one.
I suggest going and seeing it, and try to communicate with the particular universe of each artwork, and to perceive the multiplicity of hidden meanings that live in them, and the new ones that are being born continuously from our interaction with them.
It will be open in Santa Fe until January 30 of 2007.
Irene Coremberg
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Find below a photo documentation of the exhibition installation at MAC
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La imaginación y sus complejas intenciones
por Stella Arber, directora MAC Santa Fe/Ar
Todas las personas tenemos experiencia directa de lo que significa evocar una imagen.
Podemos representar mentalmente a voluntad, un lugar donde hemos pasado un grato momento e incluso disfrutar de nuevo con solo recordarlo. Imaginar, es en buena parte, reproducir mediante recuerdos, nuestra sensaciones, sentimientos, emociones y pensamientos. La imaginación puede permitirnos vivir en el pasado, pero también anticipar aconteceres, podrÃamos decir que la imaginación es el punto de partida de algunos proyectos y el apoyo insustituible de la planificación previsora.
Si aplicamos lo dicho al género del autorretrato podemos inferir, que a través de la imaginación, el artista puede verse, buscarse, conocerse, mostrarse, exponerse desde una mirada propia y en ella, activar los mecanismos de la representación visual.
Probablemente quien decide autorretratarse, proyecta el hecho y ancla en si mismo, complejas intenciones que son implicadas en la generación de esa imagen. Cuando alguien se autorretrata, está recuperando una amplia gama de impresiones que tiene de si mismo y debe hacer varios ejercicios de imaginación para equilibrar lo que proyecta y construye mentalmente con el resultado de la imagen lograda, instalando asÃ, el otro representado.
Autorretratarse es recuperar y hacer explicita la información propia almacenada, para luego y en forma implÃcita dejarla en la imagen, para ello deberá pasar por varias simulaciones mentales de registros fÃsicos reales, construyendo asà la trayectoria del proceso de realización de la obra.
El artista se observa a si mismo, con el ojo y con la mente, asociando y a la vez disociando la mirada integral que tiene de su yo, pasando por multitud de hechos primarios, garantizados desde un constructo psicológico que da como resultados “informes introspectivos únicos†de su propia historia, informes que suelen determinar “sesgos†subyacentes en la obra. Es probable además, que muchos de los procesos responsables de imágenes finales, sean inaccesibles también, a la conciencia y ala introspección del propio autor.
En consecuencia el autorretrato es un ejercicio de imaginación profunda, es un proceso de múltiples variables y conocimientos, es una forma asombrosa de organizar la información almacenada y es en definitiva la recuperación de la propia existencia.