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magazine
Publication by Living Art Room
Celebrating 2 years. Success stories
No 008. april, may, june. 2012
Contributors
director
Catalina Restrepo Leongómez
catalina@livingartroom.com
editor and translator
Daniel Vega
serapiu@hotmail.com
art director
Rebeca Durán
rbk_sara@hotmail.com
Franklin Aguirre
Paulina Cornejo
Carlos Pérez Bucio
David Gremard Romero
Acknowledgements
Gonzalo Ortega
Julia Ortega
Eugenio Echeverría
Karla García
Photographies
Courtesy of artists and contributors
Marco Casado
Jorge Carerra
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Omar Rosales, Suspension points , 2011
ARTICLE
NEW ARTIST PORTFOLIOS
ChRONICLES
ARTIST PORTFOLIOS UPDATES
CONTENIDO
Editorial 006
Celebrating two years. Success stories.
Raúl Cárdenas. TOROLAB 008
by Paulina Cornejo
María García-Ibañez 020
by Iván Buenader
Rodrigo Facundo 040
by Ivonne Pinni
La Bienal de Venecia de Bogotá (part I) 064
By Franklin Aguirre
Omar Rosales 074
Saúl Sánchez 082
Carolina Rodríguez
Marisol Maza
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092
100
CURATOR PORTFOLIO UPDATE
SPECIAL GUEST
RECOMMENDED
DIAGRAM
INTERVIEW
ChRONICLES
MUSIC
Kerstin Erdmann 114
Margarita Leongómez 126
By David Gremard Romero
YO, PRIMATE 138
at BORDER
Historias de Éxito 156
By Catalina Restrepo L.
Le Dernier Cri
by Carlos Pérez Bucio
A dark new day: present and future
of the musical industry
by Daniel Vega
4
160
La Bienal de Venecia de Bogotá (I I parte) 166
by Franklin Aguirre
192
www.LivingArtRoom.com
5
CELEbRATING TWO yEARS. SUCCESS STORIES.
EDITORIAL
It’s been 2 years since the first
editorial experiment of living art
room. Since then, larMagazine
has been edited tri-monthly,
showcasing portfolios of artists and
curators that have joined the website
and our virtual platform during
this time. It is incredible to have
reached 77 thousand readers and
550 thousand unique visits to our
publications, regardless of the
www.livingartroom.com statistics,
which have grown enormously thanks
to the magazine.
Our gift: a totally new website.
Now, living art room visitors will
see that portfolios have a different
structure, much easier to use and
optimized for ipads and smartphones.
Our celebration: a compilation of
success stories that inspire us, starting
by one that personally fascinates me,
La Bienal de Venecia de Bogotá, and
that if you ask me, is probably the
most ingenious, rightful, necessary,
effective and, to put it briefly,
successful initiative that has ever
been produced in Colombia. Franklin
6
Aguirre, its founder, tells the story
step by step, about the experience of
coordinating and living such an event,
which turns 17 years old in its next
edition, in 2012.
We also invited curator Paulina
Cornejo and artist Carlos Pérez
Bucio to share, with articles and
interviews, some of the success stories
they have witnessed. Paulina tells
us the story of an artist with whom
she’s worked closely: Torolab/Raúl
Cárdenas. Beyond describing its
work, she tells us of the difficulties
faced by Raúl, and what he’s
accomplished as an artist in social art.
Carlos, on the other side, shares us
an interview he made with one of his
greatest illustration idols: the LDC
(Le Dernier Cri) collective, formed
by Pakito Bolino and Marie-Pierre
Brunel.
Also in this issue, we recognize
succesful initiatives that inspire
us every day, like Centro Cultural
BORDER and OMR gallery in
Mexico City; Arteria and Esfera
Pública in Bogotá; NoMínimo space
in Guayaquil, Exit magazine in Spain
among others.
On this eighth edition we proudly
present the portfolio of one of
Colombia’s most recognized artists:
Rodrigo Facundo. We also feature
the portfolio of a very talented
Spanish artist who lives in Mexico:
María García-Ibañez. Also, updates
from Omar Rosales, Saúl Sánchez,
Carolina Rodríguez and Marisol
Maza. And finally, the update
of curator Kerstin Erdmann’s
portfolio, who’s been working as a
coordinator for OMR gallery, and as
an independent curator from a few
months ago.
As a recommendation, we bring you
a selection of images from pieces of
I, primate, an exhibition featured
in Centro Cultural BORDER since
the 21st of march, in Mexico City.
It presents the work of several
Living Art Room members, like
Juan Antonio Sánchez Rull, Emilio
Rangel, Saúl Sánchez, Alejandra
España, Rodrigo Imaz, Omar Arcega,
Raúl Cerrillo and Sofía Echeverri.
Our special guest in this edition
of larMagazine is Margarita
Leongómez, historian, who far
7
from academic discourses chose
to hand-embroider globally
known contemporary art images,
questioning with it the traditional
notions of originality, authorship
and reproduction, aligning itself with
Walter Benjamin’s proposals in his
famous text about art in the time of
its technical reproducibility.
I hope you enjoy this eight issue of
larmagazine as much as I do.
Catalina Restrepo
Director living art room
www.livingartroom.com
“Public art is not about oneself, but about others. It’s not
about personal taste, but about the other’s needs. It’s not
about the artist’s anguish, but about the happiness
and well-being of others. Not about the myth of
the artist, but about his civic sense… Not about
the emptiness between culture and public, but
about looking to turn art public and the artist
into a citizen again”.
(Siah Armajani)
one degree celcius, 2008
torolab
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from the social field of art,
to art in the social field
by Paulina cornejo Valle
Torolab was founded by Raúl
Cárdenas in the mid 90’s, a
research and contextual studies
workshop/lab that focuses in
diagnosis and the use of art as a tool to
improve the inhabitant’s quality of life, an
initiative that added to the diverse proposals
that later on would put Tijuana in the
country’s most movable cultural epicenter.
Today, after 15 years of work, Torolab has
explored a great deal of themes in public and
private spaces through the use of different
strategies and numerous collaborations
with multidisciplinary teams. Even if those
proposals have distinguished themselves for
their conceptual complexity, they have also
achieved to position themselves effectively
in social contexts, extending far beyond the
institutional frame and of easily predictable
spaces.
Torolab’s proposals, the so-called Territories
in conflict, are born from a tension inherent to
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the politic, personal, collective, environmental,
knowledge, cultural, economic, social or
spatial limits or frontiers, whose breakpoints
are sensitive to reconfigure new territories in
order to generate new local models based on
process and collaboration.
With this, Raúl Cárdenas has achieved a
flexible platform that allows collaborations
between specialists (engineers, geologists,
chemists, nutritionists, architects,
sociologists, anthropologists, agronomists,
etc.), institutions and communities,
who work together for the creation of
mechanisms that, through critical dialogue
and participation, suggest alternatives able
to detonate gradual change processes on a
system.
Regarding the international scene, Torolab’s
work enters in the kind of public actions
that, from the beginning of the 90’s, have
focused on conditions specific to the place
(economic, social, political, cultural, etc.)
that have been designated as contextual,
participative, and communitarian new genre
public art, or art in public interest, among
others. Despite the gradual acceptance of
these projects, there is still a discussion
going on, fed by the diversity of visions
and perspectives, the skepticism, the lack
of understanding, the difficulty to evaluate
its effectiveness, and the questions about its
relevance.
Within the Mexican context, this
controversy has been reflected on
the difficulty to find the conditions,
institutional support and financing to make
the interventions, partly because of the
impossibility to justify the expenses to the
circles of art, used to immediate results and
to the consumption of finished products.
Before this outlook, Torolab represents an
essential precedent, as well as a mandatory
reference to social insertion art in Mexico,
since it has made great efforts in the
management and search for synergies for
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the realization of long term projects. It has
also shown coherence in its career which,
after being recognized in cultural spaces
and first rate colleges in the US and France,
slowly builds up a proper following in
Mexico.
Torolab has developed, as a creative
platform for connecting processes, complex
initatives oriented to specific results, such
as One Degree Celsius (2008), Homeland
(2009) and Granja Transfronteriza (in
development).
One Degree Celsius bets to the power of
transforming green areas into strategic
sites, as well as recreational and activation
spaces, because of the possibility these
have to replicate infinitely to achieve a
gradual environmental change that, in
a metaphorical sense, would diminish
global temperature one degree Celsius
in a long term. This proposal is based on
the study of the relationship between the
human body, urban traces, weather and its
impact on the mood and quality of life. It
proposes a replicable model of strategic
interventions designed for each context, to
take advantage of the “spaces”, the empty
or abandoned territories of the urban trace,
to recover them as green areas, to improve
communities and establish micro weather
networks.
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Developing since 2009, Homeland/
territorios del hogar is a project that looks for
alternatives for the economic and cultural
survival of the Iu Mien, an agricultural
community from China that, after several
displacements through Vietnam, Laos and
refugee camps in Thailand, established in
Oakland, California. This initiative develops
strategies that seek to preserve not only
the community’s agricultural knowledge,
but also the memory of their journey
and cultural heritage, while generating
sustainable life forms that avoid the
migration to other jobs. In 2011 a second
farm was made active, looking to become
a space for harvesting not only food, but
knowledge, working under the idea that Iu
Mien farmers turn into masters while doing
their work, while the farm becomes a school
to their visitors.
Finally, the most recent project, also the
most complex and ambitious, is Granja
Transfronteriza, which not only alludes
to a frontier territory destined to the
agricultural activities of a community,
but to the metaphoric space where the
limits of different disciplines are blurred
in favor of an interdisciplinary knowledge
exchange. Working with immigrant
communities in different states, some
of them in Camino Verde, Tijuana (the
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community with the highest food poverty
rate in Baja California), Torolab elaborated
a diagnosis that studies the relationship
between income, capacities, territory and
food culture. The objective is to design
integral strategies and sustainable economic
models that, through interventions that take
advantage of the immigrants’ agricultural
securitree, 2004
knowledge, achieve to impact in the
families’ incomes, as well as in health and
nutrition, while stimulating creativity and
learning in the community. The project has
the support of public institutions, local,
state and federal authorities, and civil
organizations that have summed to the
proposal.
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Artistic, or social development practices?
For many people, from common citizens to
specialists, projects like the above mentioned
generate uncertainty about the relevance of
its development from the artistic scene and
its effectiveness, since it is considered a social
work that does not concern art and therefore
must be promoted by good will and social
development institutions. Although there
are many unachieved actions that have not
been effective either in the metaphorical
or practical level (as in any other kind
of practice), I would like to present the
reasons why I consider that some specific
interventions in this field, Torolab’s for the
case, are inserted into an artistic, relevant
and effective practice, that must be taken
into account for their capacity to generate
processes that bring forth new perspectives
and change-inducing mechanisms.
1. autonomy. While the efforts of social work are focused on
generating a development through granted assistance, art uses
strategies that allow it to intervene in reality and to function
on multiple levels that go from symbolic action (detect
tensions, make ironic statements, problematize, denounce),
to specific products/mechanisms able to trigger an impact on
the community. More than a provider, art acts as a mediator.
2. integral nature. Unlike projects generated from social development
institutions -with bonds limited to getting results from granted
support-, artistic platforms have the capacity to effectively address
various needs, through the transversal collaboration of different actors.
3. artistic nature. The starting point, which makes social art
practices radically different from social development efforts, is
the intention to creatively intervene contexts with a processbased
and participative approach. In these works the artist goes
from being a solitary author to a committed citizen, while the
“audience” is no longer a passive receptor of a self-referential
object, but a co-author and active collaborator of the work.
4. dialogue. The dialogic relations and the building process of
the artwork are based in communication, which allows the
exchanging of ideas, motivates reflections regarding relations
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with context, and reinforces the social fabric
through the creation of stronger community
links. In many cases, the topics to be discussed
or the finding of solutions are not as relevant, as
the process of interaction among participants.
5. originality. Working from the autonomy of art
provides the possibility to respond uniquely and
creatively to tension or conflict situations. The
languages of art in social contexts can generate specific
platforms of activation, which intervene the everyday
and contribute in the solution of collective problems.
6. Visibility of conflicts. Artistic initiatives in social
contexts have the potential to intervene in issues
related to other fields, making visible the invisible
or ignored. Likewise, they provide new perspectives
that do not only offer a deeper and different
understanding of things, but can also facilitate the
negotiation of collective issues between the parties
involved.
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Paulina cornejo Moreno-Valle
(México dF, 1979)
Graduated in Art History at the University
of Barcelona. From 2003 to 2007 she served
as Deputy Director of the Museum Curator
and Research Muros in Cuernavaca, where
she was responsible for the Jacques and
Natasha Gelman’s Collection of Modern
and Contemporary Mexican Art. Since
2006, she is been focused on research about
cultural policies implemented in Mexico
and other countries of Central and South
America aimed at the professionalization
of practices such as curators, researchers and
art criticism. From 2008 to 2010 he served
as co-curator of the project RESIDUAL
/ artistic interventions in the city, a
collaborative project of the Department of
Visual Arts at UNAM and the Goethe-
Institut Mexiko to sensitize the public
about shared responsibility involved in
waste management, and contribute to
regeneration the ownership sense of people
16
COMA, 2006
homeland, Iu Mien Farm Tapes, 2011
Finally, I would like to recall that Torolab’s bet, and also of
those of us who believe in the urgency of linking certain
artistic practices to everyday life through intervention
and participative processes, does not reside on a messianic
conception of art and the artist; it lives in the possibility of
generating reflections from the microscale that, at least, can
put down the indifference of the inhabitants and, in the best
case, stimulate critical thought and motivate an action capable among others.
of detonating the transformation of our physical and social
territories. This is what Beuys meant when he talked about
construction in a collective order, or a social sculpture where the individual
becomes the architect or artist of his own destiny.
fotos: Cortesy of the artist
17
on public spaces. She currently works as an
independent researcher and curator in projects
focused on activation and social art. Paulina
has been invited as a lecturer in curatorial
programs about public art at the National
School of Plastic Arts at the Academy of San
Carlos in Mexico, at the Universidad de los
Andes in Bogotá, Santo Tomas University
in Medellin, among others. She has worked
for different publications such as Código, La
Tempestad, Equilibrio, Arquine y ArtNexus,
www.torolab.org
NUEVOS ARTIST
PORTFOLIOS
Rodrigo Facundo (Colombia)
María García-Ibañez (España)
195
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Drawings HPF, 2011
MarÍa garcÍa-ibaÑeZ
Under the last stratus
(fragment)
by Iván Buenader
María García-Ibáñez’s work evidences and
enjoys two usually confronted moments:
that of the primary design, inspirational,
clean and scientific, and that of the time
passed over things that existed, exposed to
real life and to everything that once laid
over them. To look at her pieces is to ask
ourselves if we are facing a present and active
experimentation, or a series of findings
that must be treated with archeological
attention to detail. Inside the pieces there
is medullar liquid as delicate and precious
as porcelain, impossible to remove, just
like the genetic information underlying in
a landscape. The material chosen to build
these pieces makes us conscious of our vital
cycle, of our inevitable return to earth and
www.livingartroom.com/maria_garciaibanez
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the possibility of one day becoming part of
a clay jar or a sculpture, with all its strengths
and weaknesses.
María makes an empirical research that
tries to reach the very cell, the essence of
the structure, but from learned female
indications, questioning them with the
vehemence of one who digs under a
mountain, dissects a child to see what’s
inside, peels the bones of a hand or examines
people’s heads as a creature looking for
fleas. In the process, the artist discovers that
everything is made up of layers, and that
under the last one there is one more, which
probably is not the last.
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Drawings HPF, 2011
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Drawings HPF, 2011
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Series Windgaelle, 2011
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Series Windgaelle, 2011
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Instalación Estrato, 2011
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sleepwalking project, 2008/10
35
Sistema migratorio”, 2011
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the hands, 2011
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Bones, stones, flowers, 2011
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De la serie “Mutantes aeromarinos”, 2011
RodRigo fAcundo
www.livingartroom.com/rodrigo_facundo
in search of lost memories
and identities
ivonne Pini
If there is one characteristic that marks recent
Latin American art it is the eclecticism with
which the more or less recent past is taken
and mixed in. That attitude is accompanied
by an experiential posture: the weight of
one’s own experience. If we assume that
the past is the space for interpretation,
memory acquires a special significance: it is
that which allows one to pick and discard.
It is one of the various elements that
construct identity and can be seen from two
perspectives: a more personal and subjective
one, referring to our memories, and another
one that is more closely linked to rationality,
Which is to say, that which provides us with
information. Both memories are present in
each of us; both influence our behavior and
are difficult to separate despite the fact that
the first moves in the private sphere and the
second in the public.
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So given the subjectivism and the
experiential attitude already mentioned,
various artists see the pasts as a stage for a
series of individual and collective memories
with which they can relate themselves, most
often in order to reinterpret them. To look
at the past, to rediscover it, allows one to
assume difference with others and thus, to
assume characteristics of identity.
Rodrigo Facundo (1958, Ibagué, Colombia)
aims to produce a meditation that transcends
his personal history, in proposing to analize
those signs that form part of the collective,
centering his inquiry on a space that seeks
to understand what is exterior to the self,
avoiding remaining stuck in the narcissism
of self contemplation.
l have always been interested in domestic
life. Those images one finds in family
photo collections, in department store
catalogues… I take nothing from them but
the taste, what I like about that image, I feel
like a catalyst for all the images circulating
in whatever place I find myself… I select
those images consciously. That is how I
find the signals(1):
What relationship exists between the
notion of knowing who we are and the
form in which we handle memories? This
is a question that appears again and again as
the background for the formulation of his
concepts. Reality becomes for him a space
in which to reconstruct a world outfitted
with archivistic resources storing images
that reclaim and recontextualize
In the early nineties his initial painting was
making room for highly textured surface
in which photographs were combined.
Reflecting on a statement by Susan Sontag
All photographs are memento mori. To take
a photograph is to take part in the mortality,
vulnerability, mutability of another person or
thing ( 2) Facundo takes the photographic
image as a reflection of the past.
It is the possibility of showing a moment
or the passage of time and they possess the
double alternative of being presence and
memory for they permit the longing for or
recomposition of another reality. They are
the trace left by an instant that has passed.
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In his series ‘Instante y huellas” (“Instant
and Traces”) from 1991, he combined
two elements charged with meaning:
photography and clay, producing objects
that sought to have a direct impact on our
senses. By concealing the photographic
processes, he left the spectator to find them,
lost among the features of the clay. And
from them emerged characters from art
history, anonymous figures, natural disasters
preserved by photographic memory from a
certain oblivion (3).
The sensation of a funereal place, of a place
of loss and the experience of mourning,
becomes concrete in works like Luz Perpetua
(Perpetual light) and 108 (4) from 1992.
The violence and the memory of those
who have disappeared becomes a constant
for those living daily reality of Colombia.
Facundo attempts to sublimate this daily
reality, to took at it in a more poetic manner,
to reorganize it, recomposing the memory
fragments. Within small niches laid out in
rows, as they appear in cemeteries, he placed
photographs blurred by the film of paraffin
with which he covered them. Past time,
memory, became present for our perception.
The material the support was made of
cracks and all that is left—as in reality—
is the emotive nature with which present
time charges those ecstatic images of the
past. And the meaning of the photography
changes: it is no longer the image that is
looked at indifferently in a newspaper
that illustrates acts of violence. The frozen
presence of the anonymous face seeks to
incite the spectator to experience mourning
as well, now a collective mourning.
Perhaps remenbering the reflections of
Baudrillard regarding objects, Facundo
begins in 1993 to combine everyday objects
43
De la serie “Sociepez”, 2010
Phantographies, 2010
with anonymous figures. His Objetos
Melancolicos (Melancholic Objects) are
cut out figures, printed on paper or fabric,
coated with wax and
set among house hold plants. Leaning
against the wall they produce a sensation
of fragility, of lightness, of possible
disappearance. Objects like revolvers,
bones, picture frames, are
camouflaged and allude as much to
domestic violence as to external violence.
There are the objects that accompany
man, like his trace and his memories.
Photography helps him probe the feeling
and function of the everyday object but it
also allows him to reconstruct history and
death ends up recognized in an object that
invites reflection.
In I 995, utilizing large format canvass
and making use of mixed media, he looks
into other possible gazes onto the passage
of time. Photography doesn’t lose its
central role and in works like El rey de los
animales (The King of Animals) and Cocos (
Coconuts) he incorporates big photographic
enlargements that take as their initial
referents images taken from religious
iconography of the colonial period. I
know that there are prejudices against the
figurative in painting. But I know that in this
place where I live, a visual culture prevails
that comes from the colonial period. It is a
period that formalized a culture of naivete
and produced the people we are. That is
why my images use the colonial visual code
that was basically for images of worship. I
know that by combining different images in
the pictorial space that what I am doing
is switching temporal and social codes. In
the end, all of my images are borrowed and
sometimes I ask myself: what here is not
borrowed? (5)
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And since memory is recovery, it is not
forgetting, he goes on bringing those images
into the present era. The fragments are set:
in a new context in which the mixture of
reality, subconscious personal experiences,
and collective memories is not missing.
In November of 1997, Facundo mounts
an exhibit in the space of the Santa Fe
Gallery in Bogota, an installation entitled
En la punta de la lengua (On The Tip of The
Tongue). In the exhibit catalogue he explains
the following parameters of his inquiry:
The distance that exists between our personal
memories and the history of our country is more
complex than the distance that exists between a
“now” from which we remember and a “before”
that is remembered. Personal memories and
our understanding of history start to create a
map whose composition is based on distinct,
mutually exclusive languages and in both cases
space manifests itself in a drastically opposed
fashion. This dichotomy allowed me to come to
the con1usiorr that our history takes place, in
two parallel realities: in absence and inwardly.
By “absence” I mean the way we constitute
ourselves as passive witnesses of a history
that is constructed using external elements
as an official story that becomes an
imposed, foreign memory. In a parallel
fashion individual memory is developed
“inwardly,” with a unique character and
virtually impossible to transcribe . . .(6)
This extended quote allows the reader
to come closer to the concept that lay at
the base of the research for this project:
the recognition of the coexistence of two
parallel levels of memory. Such is his
reflection on the particular situation in
Colombia in which memory is fragmented
and broken apart in a society with a
proclivity to amnesia. And without wishing
to arrive at singular answers regarding how
to construct a national identity he attempts
in his work to show the encounters and
separations existing between collective
memory and the subjective and personal
map of autobiographical memory. The
proposed goal in these meetings from
diverse dimensions is to begin to remember,
questioning with its images an official story
that runs the risk of becoming an imposed
memory.
In his use of three key words places ,
people, and thoughts- he chooses a series
of images provided by his family album and
by the documentation of historic events in
addition to the emblems, flags, and even
cartoons that in one way or another provide
a graphic summary of events.
Because history so frequently .attempts to
immortalize itself through monuments that
become spaces with the peculiar quality of
eternalizing memory, Facundo takes up this
notion and the reworked images to create
his own monuments. Without forsaking his
45
interest in photographic documentation, he
seeks for resources in various techniques of
visualization used in the nineteenth century,
important antecedents in the development
of cinema. His research on devices like the
stereoscope and the zootrope formed the
foundation for his circular Arquitectura del
eco (Architecture of Echo) and Recuerdo de
las formas ambiguas (Memory of Ambiguous
Forms).
Assuming that memory allows us to gather
together very personal fragments of reality~
Facundo very rapidly “shoots” images
that, through the means of metaphor, are
transformed and converted into symbols
diametrically opposite to their originals.
There is an intention to make manifest
how certain values associated with certain
symbols are subverted by the passage
of time: abundance, poverty, freedom
oppression, and so on. It is as if he wished
place us once again before the past so we
might be capable of reclaiming ourselves
from the amnesia and able to discover and
understand the real history beyond the
traditional accounts.
And in this gaze, aimed equally at collective
history as at the personal, there continues
to be an aspect of a search for identity. That
return to history is a return to the sources,
to the public spirit as well as the spiritual
heritage of the nation. He doesn’t seek
46 Princesas de otoño, 2007
47 Phantographies, 2010
to create an imaginary one so much as to
reconstruct it through new perspectives.
In 1998, his inquiries have led him to
propose a series of Anonimos (Anonymous),
attaching histories to fictitious characters,
as they approximate certain attitudes one
can find in everyday life and which form
part of the recognizable stereotypes. And
there again appear memory and identity
in the way that through his images he
intends to show how a contrasting duality
exists between the external ideals shown
by publicity like models of happiness, of
individual achievement, and the reality
people actually live.
The sources for his images come from
magazine and newspaper advertisements
and his visual discourse has the opposite
effect from publicity: instead of announcing
utopias they announce desperation. With
digitally manipulated images, he burns
offset plates which function not as the basis
for a mass-produced piece but rather as the
matrix of the piece. To it he incorporates, in
the style of an assemblage, cut-out objects.
Skepticism seems to be gaining ground in
Facundo’s work and the text by Baudrllard
that accompanies his “Desilusionada”
(“Disillusioned”) could be the frame of
reference by which to conceptualize the
images:
48
You have the illusion you exist for something
and to break the continuity of nothingness.
But deep down you know that you don’t add
anything to the nothingness of the world,
for you form a part of it. Out of fear of
not desiring anything you would prefer to
desire nothingness. Existence is that which
one doesn’t have to give oneself over to. It
has been given to us as a consolation prize,
and there is no need to believe in it (7).
Facundo seeks not only to explain the
past but also to understand the present,
concerned with the accelerated ideological
and political destabilization due to the crisis
in social identities.
The past has been his connecting theme,
exploring the use of materials and
techniques extracted from the material
culture, from everyday life, from collective
imagination. And in the recovery of valid
resources for creation there are no innocent
representations of the past, as thought of
as much from a perspective of inquiry into
identity as of a questioning of the accounts.
49
notes:
1. Text by Rodrigo Facundo in the exhibit
catalogue Por mi raza hablara el espiritu
(Mexico-Colombia, April-June 1996, 19)
2. Susan Sontag, Sobre la fotografia (On
photography) (Editorial Sudamericana:
Buenos Aires, 1977) 25.
3. Ivonne Pini, Rodrigo Facundo, Juan Fernando
Herran, Doris Salcedo:al rescate de la memoria,
“Atlantica, no. 15, invierno 1996, Centro
Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Canary Islands,
98-99.
4. The title refers to the 108 policemen murdered
in Medellin and was made with photographs
that had appeared en newspapers.
5. Exhibit catalogue, “Por mi raza”, 19.
6. Exhibit catalogue, “En la punta de la Lengua”
Santa Fe Gallery, Bogota, 1997.
7. Adapted by Facundo from the text by Jean
Baudrillard in El crimen perfecto, Editorial
Anagrama, 21-22.
ivonne Pini
Proffesor at the National University of
Colombia. Executive Editor for Art
Nexus
53 Phantographies, 2010
55
Sketch, 2008
57
Sketch, 2008
59
En la punta de la lengua, 1997
61
Retratos grafológicos, Status Specials, 1998
OGOTA’S
Venice
bIENNALE
between independence and dependence
by Franklin aguirre
The Bogota´s Venice Biennale
National Prize to New Visual Arts
Practices
Department of Culture of
Colombia/2005
64
The Bogota’s Venice Biennale has realized, from 1995 to the present,
a dynamic function between art and the city: to extend the
contemporary artistic production to new spaces and audiences;
to set out its practices as means of possible interaction and communication
with unknown territories and communities by moving the attention of cultural
production to the Venice Neighborhood in South Bogota. It also distinguishes
itself for being a project with non homogenous urban groups, without having a
paternalist or assistive political culture.
The Biennale has been pioneer in its way of using the urban spaces as an artistic,
curatorial and management lab, one that builds a community as a space for
the interchange of ideas, dreams and knowledge. On those terms, it represents
a change in perspective that has taken artists to overwhelm the studio production,
rethink their activities in the urban space and their relationships with
society. In that sense, it represents initiatives that understand contemporary art
as a reinvention of the autonomy notion, which instead of taking for granted
the inherited territory of a discipline, proposes different operations and freeing
practices that question the social and cognitive limits, as well as the valuation
and definition of arts.
Born from a game of words (The Bogota’s Venice Biennale), it has created a
decisive symbolic operation by transforming the marginal into central. In each
of its five editions, it has been a meeting place that connects the international
biennales circuit and other artistic events with the local. Even though it
involves the participation of artists from many continents, the Biennale still
65
epresents a space for the other,
where the artistic, pedagogic
and recreational becomes alive,
and evidences the artist’s social
function as a dynamic agent of
culture.
Because of this, we unanimously
give the 2005 National
Prize to New Visual Arts
Practices in Visual Arts to
The Bogota’s Venice Biennale
which, after ten years of
existence, has been relevant to
Visual Arts in Latin America
and is a precedent for other
regional events. The Biennale
convincingly proposes the experimental,
political, conceptual
and organizational value
of new artistic practices.
Prize Act of the Jury
Cuauhtémoc Medina
Gloria Posada
Miguel Rojas Sotelo
66
introdUction
The Biennale was born in Bogota in 1995, as a chance to extend the art field to
new spaces and audiences. The Biennale can also be seen as a halftime show, an
open sentence, a multi-disciplinary lab, a cultural construct, or a work in progress.
This event started as a word game towards Italy’s Venice Biennale, but unlike its
European referent, the BVB states another kind of relationship with the spectators
by actively involving them on the process of creation, realization, circulation and
insertion of artistic practices that take place in it. Far from being a simple display
of autobiographical works, so usual in museums and galleries, The Bogota’s Venice
Biennale is an event that has taken the neighborhood as its basic theme, extended
today to the town of Tunjuelito (1) , in South Bogota. Besides, this event has turned,
with the passing years, in a symptomatic display for contemporary Colombian art
and its relationship to the usual, the local, the neighborhood and the urban.
The in situ character of the Biennale has shaped its sense, as well as the relational
artistic projects that happen there.
67
JUstiFication
The Bogota’s Venice Biennale (BVB) takes place because it is considered
important that pedagogical projects are developed from and towards
the community through artistic practice, such that aim to provide the
neighborhood with symbolic-cultural spaces. This new context will allow
potential expressions and cultural practices born from the inside to be
developed and optimized.
The BVB’s mission is to draw the artists and the community together
through a pedagogical strategy that takes art as its central activity, and is
articulated in the neighborhood context. Within the Biennale, pedagogy
is a space where different knowledge around art, its role and its audiences,
circle and confront. The BVB supports the community’s self-search
to transform its way of life, exploring new elements of day to day life
interpretation, as well as new references to read and experiment this
relation with the urban space, the neighborhood and itself.
This is how the BVB brings new elements and strategies to the efforts
of different sectors, social, public, professional and academic, to update
68
concepts and practices of the community. For the participant artists, this
represents a different commitment with the work’s consequences, since the
Biennale proposes the search of other solutions, conditions and fields of action
for their projects in a unique scenery: the neighborhood.
Venice, the
neighborhood and
tUnJUelito, the
locality
The Venice Neighborhood belongs to the 6th Tunjuelito Locality in South
Bogota. This locality is limited by Puerto Aranda and Kennedy on the north,
Ciudad Bolívar to the west, Usme and Ciudad Bolívar to the south, and
with the locality of Rafael Uribe to the east.
Initially, Tunjuelito was a Ranch owned by Don Pedro Nel Uribe. He then
sold it to Don Jorge Zamora Pulido, who farmed it and gradually turned it
into a capital neighborhood. In the early twentieth century, it was common
to see artisanal brick factories on that sector. Today, the industry remains on
the sector, although it has raised its technical level. Tunjuelito is crossed by a
river of the same name, one which features complex pollution problems due
69
to the farming houses that use it to deposit waste in improvised black
water sewers, built by the informal housings and by other commercial
enterprises such as mechanical workshops, car washes, etc.
Tunjuelito’s first population came from Santander, Boyacá and
Cundinamarca, as a basic consequence of the forced displacement due
to the violence of the times, the 1940s. This mixture of regions turned
the locality into a diverse and rich place that, due to its high “floating”
population (people who work in the locality but do not live there) lacks
homogeneity in their social practices and distinctive features. Despite
this, there are some peculiarities in the locality, like the emblematic
residential place El Tunal, the Tunal Park with its mega library, Venice
Neighborhood’s great commercial and industrial activity, and the
sector’s strategic placing, a gateway to an important Township of the
department.
Tunjuelito has around 198,000 inhabitants, distributed in more than 30
residential compounds and 19 neighborhoods. The Tunal Metropolitan
Park, the Police Academy, the Artillery Academy and the industrial
zone are part of the context, which coexists with the locality and its
dynamics.
70
IT CONTINUES
at PAGE 170
71
ARTIST PORTFOLIO
UPDATES
Omar Rosales (Méxco)
Saúl Sánchez (Colombia)
Caroina Rodríguez (Colombia)
Marisol Maza (México)
73
oMar rosales
www.livingartroom.com/omar_rosales
75
Controlled expansion, 2010
79
Suspension points , 2011
81
Ambiguous color, 2011
saúl sáncheZ
www.livingartroom.com/saul_sanchez
83
Duck or Rabbit, 2011
85
Paciencia, astucia, prudencia, 2011
87
Esto es solo para un museo, 20112011
89
Constante pero esforzado ejercicio de repetición, 2011
91
Duck or Rabbit, 2011
93
Vitamina D series, 2012
carolina rodrÍgUeZ
www.livingartroom.com/carolina_rodriguez
Genealogía, 2011
95
Genealogía, 2011
97
Genealogía, 2011
100
Marisol MaZa
www.livingartroom.com/marisol_maza
101
102
103
104
105
Before After, 2011
106
107 My Monsters 2010
108
109 My Monsters 2010
110
111
112
CURATOR PORTFOLIO
UPDATE
Kerstin Erdmann (Alemania)
113
Kerstin Erdmann
www.livingartroom.com/kerstin_erdmann
114
emen, alemania / 1979
She held a Bachelor of Art Degree in
Culture Studies from Europa Universität
Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Germany
and a Masters Degree in Art Studies from
Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City.
Currently works as Coordinator at the
OMR gallery, where she is responsible for
registration and control of work, coordination
of exhibitions and fairs, public relations
and Institutional links. Previuosly Kerstin
was Head of International Relations at the
University Museum of Contemporary Art
(MUAC), and guest curator at the Museo
de Arte Carrillo Gil and the MACAY
Foundation, Mérida, Yucatán.
She has worked as an independent
curator of the projects, for example;
White Noise (Gabriel de la Mora) at
115
Museum of Contemporary Art of Oaxaca
(2011), Lie. Cheat. Steal. (Arturo Vega) at
OMR gallery (2011), Nan Goldin, and Lo vi
con mis propios ojos (Tom Früchtl) within the
FIAC (Contemporary Art Festival), Leon,
Guanajuato (2009), 2 suitcases, nothing to declare,
during Cali Contemporaneo in Cali,
Colombia (2009), Interior-Exterior at Futurama,
Mexico (2009) and Vistazo. La transformación
de lo cotidiano at Museo de Arte
Carrillo Gil, Mexico (2008).
She is the author and coordinator of diverse
exhibition catalogs and articles about
contemporary art, artists, exhibitions and
art market. She has participated in numerous
art conferences, symposia and congresses
and has been a reader and commentator
of undergraduate and graduate theses.
116
117
Gilberto Esparza, Plantas Nómadas, 2010
118
Gilberto Esparza, Plantas Nómadas, 2010
119
Jerónimo Hagerman, Camino, 2010
120
Mónica Espinosa, Espíritus elementales, 2007
121
Amor Muñoz
Proyecto Maquila Región 4, 2010-2011
Curated by Kerstin Erdmann and Ariadna Ramonetti
Exhibition: Lo escuché y lo olvidé, lo vi y lo entendí,
lo hice y lo aprendí, 2010
Ex Convento de San Hipólito
fotografías Marco Casado
Curated by Kerstin Erdmann
Exhibition: White Noise, 2011
Gabriel de la Mora
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Oaxaca MACO,
Oaxaca, México
photographs: Courtesy of the artist and OMR Gallery
122
123
124
125
SPECIAL GUEST
MARGARITA
LEONGÓMEZ
Text by David Gremard Romero
126
127
128
Some thoughts on
the work of
Margarita
leongómez
From first seeing her piece,
the hand-embroidered copy of a
Takashi Murakami print in the living
room of Cata’s house, I felt that the
painting embodied certain ideas that
teased at my brain with complex ideas
revolving around representation and
the meaning of authenticity in the work
of art. I was happy yesterday to have
the opportunity to talk about this piece,
and the one she is currently working on
which is a copy of a photograph of a
piece by Jeff Koons, with Cata, yesterday
during our exploration of Mexico City. It
129
allowed me to crystalize some ideas that
had been forming in my brain regarding
her work, and why I liked it so much.
To begin, the piece is extraordinarily
beautiful. It is an image of hundreds
of cartoon flowers with manic faces,
like a drugged vision of an early
Disney cartoon, rendered the more
so by the thick and luscious texture
of the brilliantly colored thread she
uses to do the embroidery itself. This
is in contradistinction to the original
Murakami. I am not sure precisely what
the source is, but I imagine a print,
which, if so, would have been flat and
computer generated, with absolutely
no texture. The embroidered version is
deeply textured, and clearly made by
130
hand, over hundreds of hours, filled
with the idiosyncrasies and lovely
imperfections which are the inevitable
result of the hand-made piece, while
the original is flat (in fact, Superflat, as
the artist calls his brand of painting),
clearly embraces modern, technical
means of production, and
is machine made. It is not
without a certain irony
that the version made
by Cata’s mother must
certainly have taken an
unimaginable amount
of time to make, while
the original, so lovingly
copied, must surely have
taken a great deal less.
It is telling that the two
pieces thus far conceived
are both by artists whose
work is specifically conceived in a
mode which rejects traditional ideas
of authorship in the work of art. Both
artists work with studios who execute
their works, so that it is not uncommon
that the artist will not have touched a
piece at all, until the time comes to place
131
upon it his signature. The conception of
the artist is given primacy, and the work
of the hands, the craftsmanship itself, is
considered irrelevant to the meaning of
the final piece.
This conception of art has its origin,
or was first articulated, in the work of
Walter Benjamin, prior to world war II.
He described the original, traditional
work of art as possessing an aura, which
is imbued by the hand of the artist and
in effect transforms the work of art into
a reliquary or sacred object, because
of its absolute uniqueness. However,
because of the new, modern ability
to reproduce art through mechanical
means, images of art would become
“ephemeral, ubiquitous, insubstantial,
available, valueless, and free,” and the art
piece itself would come to be stripped
of its aura of value and meaning. I
think that this prediction of the work
of art in the modern age was always
doomed to fail, in part because the
uniqueness and meaning of the original
work is altered, but not destroyed, by
its mechanical reproduction, and partly
because of the voracious ability of
capitalism to commodify the object and
create value where none should exist.
132
What Benjamin described was a new
form of visual meaning in the world,
which did not destroy the old order,
but merely came to coexist along side it.
Thus, Murakami’s prints are made in a
computer, without ever being touched,
physically, by the hand of the artist. An
indefinite number could theoretically be
produced, all identical to each other, but
instead they are made in limited
editions and hand-signed by
the artist (which provides the
“aura” and transforms them
into “unique” objects). This is
an artificial means of creating
value, in order to accommodate
the market. There is no
“original” in a Murakami print,
but a grouping of 1’s and 0’s
in a commuter monitor, thus
bringing into stark reality
Benjamin’s conception of the
133
134
work of art as existing
only as a reproduction,
only an illusion, but
one which in the
end comes to have
great value through
the inevitable
manipulations of
a capitalist system.
The deep irony in
the appropriation of
the print by Cata’s
mother is that where there was
literally no original, no aura but the
one falsely devised by a market, she
has created one which is indeed,
inarguably, almost fetishistically
hand-made, unique, and impossible
to separate from the hand of the
living artist, as each of the many
thousands of threads patiently and
painfully attest. The work becomes a
visual paradox; it is a copy of the work
of another artist; it is purely original,
because no original exists to be copied.
It creates the value that had never
existed, the aura which had never been,
but by copying an idea which does
not actually exist. It brings into focus
the anxiety which exists at the heart
of Walter Benjamin’s argument; that
in a world of illusions brought about
through capitalism and mechanical
135
reproduction, what is the original sign,
or referent, which relates the image in
this world of images we now reside in, to
a human scale, and a human meaning?
Cata’s mother creates that meaning,
with her hands, imbuing an illusion
with human reality, thought, and labor.
This is in a tradition of critique by artists
which extends back a least to the 80’s. In
particular, I have been thinning of Sherrie
Levine. In her famous 1980 exhibition at
the Metro Pictures Gallery, titled “After
Walker Evans,” she hung in the gallery
untitled pieces which were photos she
had taken of Evans photographs, from
his book, “Let us Now Praise Famous
men.” She subsequently had exhibitions
in which she presented photographs
taken of photographs of paintings by Van
Gogh and others in art history textbooks.
These pieces are a rather cold illustration
of Benjamin’s ideas, and illustrate the
extent to which it is impossible to see
the original work of art any longer, for
we are so exposed to reproductions
that the original disappears behind it;
even when looking at the original, say,
for example, the Mona Lisa in Paris,
it is impossible to separate it from the
many reproductions in books and on
mugs, posters, T-shirts and the
rest. The commodified image
becomes the reality. What is
true of the Mona Lisa is true of
any other reproduced image. The
embroidered Murakami represents
that triumph of illusion; it is as
though all of the thoughts of the
artist are wrapped in this illusion,
for so many countless working
hours, as she contemplates the
reproduction, which is to say, that
which does not exist. However,
136
herein lies another paradox, for it is within
that very act that meaning is created.
This strikes me as a metaphor of our
relationship to images in general.
Quite outside of reproductions,
outside of modern image-making
techniques, all images are illusions,
existing outside ourselves and visible
to ourselves only through the sadly
inadequate perceptions of our eyes. We
are imprisoned within our bodies, and
all images appear to us from without,
and the work of interpreting what we
see is painful, slow, and personal, like
that which Cata’s mother did in her
embroidered piece. We can none of us
truly know what it is we are looking at.
137
Everything that exists is in some sense
an illusion. Her painful task of making
meaning where none exists is like our
existence in this world, created stitch by
stitch.
Images of previous works from
photographs of graffiti
RECOMMENDED
exhibition
yo, PriMate
at
border
Zacatecas 43. col roMa MeXico d.F
21.03.12 - 25.04.12
138
139
Rodrigo Imaz
Chango, 2010
The Project I, Primate is born from the
proposal of various artists –coming from
different cities and contexts- that reflect,
from the figure of the monkey, upon
situations and attitudes relative to the
human being. The pieces for this exhibit
work as a kind of projection of human
features onto different species of monkeys,
which have to do with a great variety of
references, cultural, scientific, religious,
historic and popular.
The ape (1), or monkey, has always been
directly related to man, since they both
share an evolutionary past as hominids.
This symbolic charge is linked to positive
and negative connotations. It is in
some cases related to the instinctive,
impulsive, primitive and natural part of
a human, which itself alludes to a sense
of liberty. Other times the representation
of the monkey is associated to a lack of
intelligence and manners, in other words,
the supposed antithesis to a human being,
who is hairless, straight, modern, educated
and evolved.
As a part of this investigation, a video
is shown, that compiles different clips
from youtube, related to the behavior of
both species, although this time from the
perspective of popular culture and media.
140
Featured Artists:
Omar Arcega, Raúl Cerrillo, Sofía
Echeverri, Alejandra España, Rodrigo
Imaz, Emilio Rangel, Gabriela Rodríguez,
Juan Antonio Sánchez- Rull, Saúl Sánchez
Curator: Catalina Restrepo Leongómez
1 Ape is a common term, without a taxonomical equivalent, which is used to name a wide group of ape-like primates. Ape and
monkey are originally Spanish synonyms, although there is a tendency to separate their meanings in English.1.
141
Alejandra España,
El transcurso de la vida, 2006
142
143
Saíl Sánchez
What is paintig?, 2011
144
145
Sofía Echeverri,
Serie Saturninos, 2012
146
147
Raúl Cerrillo
Cheesewiz, 2010
Flor de loto, 2010
148
149
Alejandra España
Changuilocuente, 2007
Emilio Rangel
Serie: Chimpancé fisicoculturista, gay,
metrosexual, 2007
150
151
Omar Arcega
Homídidos, 2009
152
153
Gabriela Rodríguez
Historia Natural, 2011
154
155
Juan Antonio Sánchez-Rull
Casa Darwin, 2009
Living Art Room
success stories
Initiatives, projects, publications, spaces, galleries and
projects that inspire us to move forward
- by catalina restrepo leongómez
centro cultural border
(México)
border.com.mx
Founder: eugenio echeverría
It started in a small place located in La Roma
neighborhood in Mexico City some years
ago and is now considered a very important
space for artists from different areas, including:
Street art, electronic art, animation
and video, among others. A main aspect of
BORDER is its workshops, which complement
very effectively the aim to promote
artists who are selected for its active program
of exhibitions.
156
eXit (españa)
exitmedia.net
director: rosa olivares
It is one of the most important publications of
contemporary photography in the world. Each
issue develops a particular subject and presents
research of great interest. For the quality of its
articles and published photographers, EXIT is not
only a conventional magazine but a current theoretical
and visual reference for everyone today.
esfera Pública (colombia)
esferapublica.org
Founder: Jaime iregui
What has made this website for criticism of
contemporary art is unprecedented. Thanks to it
has been promoted in the public the interest to
stay informed, to think and question intelligently
about everything related to the artistic creation
today with the use of discourses related to the
critical point of view of artists in relation to social,
political and cultural context surrounding them.
arteria (colombia)
periodicoarteria.com
Founder: nelly Peñaranda
This is an initiative that came to fill a very obvious
need of specialized community and interested in
contemporary art in Bogota, Colombia. Thanks to
its content ranges from information about upcoming
openings, until very complete articles that invite
to make a serious reflection on contemporary art,
Arteria has made the general public interested in
these issues.
157
Museo Universitario arte contemporáneo
MUac
www.muac.unam.mx
director: graciela de la torre
In its few years of life this area has achieved
unprecedented quality standard in the context
of museum management in Latin America. The
quality of its exhibitions of contemporary art is
indisputable, and reflects the tradition of cultural
diffusion of the UNAM. The MUAC has facilities
unrivaled in the country, and also has an auditorium,
an area of Experimental Sound, Library
and area for high quality educational activities.
other links
. www.ccromacondesa.mx
.www.fotologia.org
. www.art21.org
. vernissage.tv
. universes-in-universe.org
. www.casasriegner.com
. www.kioskogaleria.com
Living Art Room
success stories
Zona Maco
zonamaco.com
Founder: Zélika garcía
It is certainly the most important contemporary
art fair in Latin America. Its evolution has been
remarkable over their past versions and has achieved
worldwide recognition. Zona MACO has
established a quality standard so high, that exceed
by a quite a lot other similar initiatives.
158
oMr gallery
Founders: Patricia ortiz Monasterio y Jaime
riestra
www.galeriaomr.com
It is one of Mexico’s most important galleries. It is
worthy of admiration its exhibition program and
the quality of its artists. Over the years the OMR
has distinguished itself by taking risks and supporting
projects that do not necessarily have the ultimate
purpose of economic gain, but have opted for
experimentation. His alternative space, called “52”,
has achieved great recognition in the short time
since it opened its doors, and is very clear evidence
of this vision.
galería nueveochenta
director: carlos hurtado
www.nueveochenta.com
Being a relatively young Colombian gallery, it has
managed to position a large number of Colombian
artists abroad. Its management has set an example
in this country, the professionalism in the operation
of a gallery, a commitment to their collectors
and support of their artists beyond a commercial
context, creating links with major institutional
spaces such as museums, biennials and festivals.
noMínimo espacio cultural
Founders eliana hidalgo y Pilar estrada
www.no-minimo.com
It is a space in the Guayaquil city, Ecuador, which
has been centralized contemporary artists and has
taken the important job of educating and sensitizing
the public over everything that involves
artistic creation today.
159
galería nueveochenta
Founder: luis aristizábal
w.la-galeria.com.co
Probably what best distinguishes this gallery is
the vision of its founder, Luis Aristizabal, who has
been able to select artists of unquestionable quality
that today are undoubtedly the exponents of
contemporary Colombian art worldwide. The gallery
is an example of dedication and teamwork, as
artists and director collaborate in great complicity
and professionalism.
. agenciaenartes.com
. neter.com.mx
. www.videodumbo.org
. plataformabogota.org
. www.lasillavacia.com
. boladenieve.org.ar
. vernissage.tv
. www.museoamparo.com
. somamexico.org
. www.r-a-t.com.mx
. www.replica21.com
. www.pintomiraya.com
160
LE
DERNIER
CRI
by carlos Pérez bucio
INTERVIEW WITH PAKITO BOLINO
AND MARIE-PIERRE BRUNEL,
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION EL
ÚLTIMO GRITO, FROM THE FRENCH
ART COLLECTIVE LE DERNIER CRI,
IN VÉRTIGO GALERÍA.
161
S
ome years ago, a friend of mine, a
plastic arts professor, introduced me to
Le dernier cri, a French collective of
drawers and illustrators with a mission to
populate the world with visceral, sexual,
meat and homicidal images. Besides silk screen prints
and limited edition books at affordable prices, they
create animated pictures that luckily remind us there
is life beyond Pixar. Everything is made with the
highest quality standards, from the trenches of selfmanagement.
I went to meet him on his latest visit to Mexico.
Thanks to Clarisa Moura’s (director of Vértigo
Magazine) intervention, I was able to talk to Pakito
Bolino, high priest of Le dernier cri and his partner,
draftswoman Marie-Pierre Brunel
162
carlos Pérez bucio:
How did this exhibit came about?
Pakito bolino: Because of Jorge Alderete,
who took a peek on my workshop two
years ago, when I had an exhibition in
Aix-en Provence, on a graphic novel
festival. He came to check out Le dernier
cri’s work, saw the walls covered with
images, the books, and he told me: “as
soon as we open a new space, we´ll make
an exhibit”. Then, the idea was for Vertigo’s
inaugural exhibition to be ours, but it was
postponed, and now we are finally here, on
the second anniversary of the gallery, and
we are quite happy.
carlos: were you surprised to have
so many followers and raise so much
enthusiasm in Mexico with Le dernier cri?
Pakito: I believe, from a graphic point
of view, there are many similarities
between Le dernier cri and Mexican art,
in intention, content, color. Many of the
collective’s artists have Mexican popular
art influences, so I’m not that surprised
that our work is appreciated here.
carlos: Le dernier cri has been working
hard for 18 years now. In what context was
it born?
163
Pakito: I studied Fine Arts in the
province and, as many others, went to
Paris in the mid 80’s seeking to work as
an illustrator and to publish my comic
books. It was a time when the editorial
world was facing a decline, many comic
books and graphic novels ceased to exist
and the big editorial houses stopped
investing. Many authors got organized,
created self-publishing associations and
structures; Le dernier cri was one of
them. It was the first time since the 70’s
that authors got organized, edited their
own work as well as other artists’, since
there wasn’t any support for these types of
work.
carlos: Le dernier cri has always been self
sustained, which means you´ve always had
total freedom. Have you ever applied for any
public subventions?
Pakito: .: Yes, we have applied many times
for specific projects, such as our animated
films. For the most recent, which was two
hours long, we asked support from the
PACA region (Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur)
but didn’t got it, I think because of the
fact that our work does not fit in a single
category. It seems a bit comfortable for
the deciding party to say that our work “is
not graphic novel, not art brut, nor art, not
illustration; it is a little bit of everything”,
and well, it is all that at once. I think art
should be that way, but these people have
to classify it because there is not a whole
lot of budget for this or that projects. Also,
we got a modest support from the city of
Marseille, which we used to rent a premise,
an old factory named La Friche, which
was rehabilitated as an art centre with
workshops for artists, that kind of stuff.
Fortunately, this support has allowed us
to punctually pay the rent for many years
although, since it is a modest subvention,
it doesn’t help much in developing new
projects.
Back to the self-sustaining subject, my
164
idea from the start was
to assemble a silk screen
printing workshop, since it
is a technique that allows
for high-quality small
number printings and, at
the same time, for artists to
get directly involved in the
project.
carlos: and right in time
for this event, El Último
GRITO!, únicamente la
infección has just been
published, a compilation of
images made specifically by
artists celebrating le dernier cri’s visit to
Mexico. apart from correctly digesting
popular Mexican imagery, the book has
certain nods towards the reality of the
country today, the moment of violence.
did the information about the cartels,
murders, etc. had any influence on you at
all?
Pakito: Actually the only information we
get from Mexico from a year back is about
the drug cartels wars, we get warnings
about going to certain cities because it’s
dangerous. But farther along, for example,
are Fredox’s images; he works with
clippings from popular newspapers such
as Alarma! He has come to Mexico many
times and knows all about it, but we also
like to play with stereotypes.
carlos: Politically, i place le dernier cri
among those who oppose globalization.
There’s a sequence in the film les
religions sauvages where an american
dollar passes off as a penis…
Pakito: Sure, the globalization of money,
of financial markets that control the life
of the people is a stupid thing. However,
globalization as we do it, meetings among
artists and editors from different countries,
is something that should exist on a
broader scale, it’s the positive side of that
phenomenon. It’s a good thing that people
meet, work together, create cultural bonds
and find connections, since all countries
of the world have a thing in common:
art. You just need to take a glimpse into
history, check out some of the primitive
arts. We visited the pyramids yesterday.
I saw sculptures of certain gods which
reminded me of Asian art, and even some
aspects of ancient European sculptures. It’s
like carnivals, so deeply-rooted in popular
culture around the globe: there are carnival
costumes in Switzerland which resemble
those of La diablada, in Bolivia. That’s why
I try, be it on drawing or design, to find
all of these links and show that there is
the same essence, life, even when we draw
skeletons. Skeletons are life!
carlos: In LDC, we find artists that
come from different places with different
trajectories: there are youngsters and
165
veterans, which may be a reflection of the
multicultural mosaic of today’s France.
Pakito: Yes, but unfortunately there
are not as many Arabian drawers as we
would like (laughs). We have people from
Finland, Japan, but the most common
are foreign artists who work from their
countries. They have this do it yourself
motivation. Like the case of Ichiba
Daisuke, from Japan, who has self edited
his work for the last fifteen years. I found
his books before I knew him. If he had
not made his books probably no one
would know him. Most of the involved
edit themselves, which creates links: first
through books, then through animated
films and the possibility of accepting
resident artists in our workshop to work on
impression. And there are the exhibitions,
of course. In my travels, I always look for
new authors that could be published in
Le dernier cri. I think that, in the future,
we could return to Mexico with a more
ambitious project.
carlos: Speaking of Young artists, we have
Marie Pierre here. Mary, how did you
approached LDC?
María: When I finished art school I found
myself a little bit isolated. I started looking
for a collective for young drawers, like LDC,
to have a wider exposure; when you are on
the underground, it is very difficult to find
an editor. Collectives like Le dernier cri are
an opportunity for young artists to show
their work and publish monographic books.
That motivates us to keep on working.
carlos: I’m very happy to know that
in France there are not only artists like
Boltanski, Messager, Sophie Calle. Le
dernier cri may be one of the best things to
happen in the history of images, probably
since the time of… “Picasso!”, (claims
Bolino laughing)
Pakito: I agree. The problem with the
art market is that we are talking about a
global market. The art market is galleries
that bloat the artist’s prestige, a few elected
whose careers are under the gallery owner’s
shadows. It has always been like that, and
today is worse. For example, every day
the number of galleries that take risks
with new artists is reduced. They are not
worried of establishing a real line, such
as happened in the 1950s and 1960s. It is
tougher every day.
Contemporary art is a completely
incestuous medium; you finish art school,
a good student, accumulate residencies
around the world, while we inflate your
prestige. That is how artists are bloated.
We, for a change, are artists who first of
all have the will to show our work through
very accessible prices because we come
from the book culture, from the graphic
166
novels we could find for a few coins in
newspaper kiosks. As you can see, it is
not the same notion of “unique piece”,
but a notion of spreading our work in the
widest, cheapest way, to reach the largest
number of people and have a real braininfection
effect on the masses, but doing so
with intelligence.
Contemporary art is elitist; you require
certain codes to be accepted in it, while
our images are accessible to anyone. If you
give one of our books to a guy in the street
who reads Alarma!, he will get it instantly
for sure. He will even laugh, because it is
perfectly able to find the parody side of
the matter, as in Fredox’s images. Now, the
same thing in a 2 meter wide format in
a gallery would not have the same effect
or price. As a matter of fact, there is no
gallery in the world that would allow
something like that in their walls because
then the system would be at risk, since
the objectives are not similar. What ones
understand for spreading is not the same,
even when we also are willing to make
some money selling our work.
carlos: I have a friend in the art
underworld who claims that a piece can
be any thing, but the artist has to be
handsome.
Pakito: Well, McCarty is interesting when
covered in shit and ketchup.
carlos: Finally, I would like to ask you:
what does a young artist needs to do to
identify with LDC, to get close to you?
Pakito: He just needs to visit www.
lederniercri.org and send us images of his
work. That’s how I got to edit Sekitani,
another Japanese artist. He first sent
me an image. I asked him for more and
he sent me his work from the previous
two years, which nobody in his country
would publish. That’s how he became
a collaborator. We keep all the contact
information from artists who get in touch
with us, and get new images when we
publish announcements for new projects.
The Mexico special will include a 10% of
artists that I don’t personally know.
carlos: As far as the immediate, what will
your next project be about?
Pakito: A compilation of drawings made
by Mexican-american prisoners. In U.S.
jails, chicanos make drawings on napkins
to send to their families, who then sell
them. Their aesthetics are related to that of
tattoos. There’s a guy who recovered more
than a hundred of these drawings, and will
make an exhibition about it, while we take
care of the catalog. That is true popular art:
prison art
167
for more information:
le dernier cri
www.lederniercri.org
Versión 1.0
continued from page 71
168
The first Bogota Venice Biennale was born
in a very particular moment of Bogota’s
art, where discourses and contemporary art
spaces were wearing out, reiterative in their
limitations, over-politicized and somewhat
distant. The initial idea was to move art from
the convenient and official spaces to other
less common ones, to recruit new audiences
and suggest a twist in the process of every
artist, confronting it with a specific context
by having to relate its work with the new
spectators that would read it afterwards.
Sarcasm and paradox, a consequence of the
mimetic reflection expressed from the start
by the Biennale with its Italian counterpart,
became effective publicity hooks that
massively turned the media onto the event.
The impact was such that, although many
personalities of the art world were not
present, they were indeed paying attention
to the development thanks to articles and
magazines that, from different angles,
constantly registered all that happened.
The BVB invited artists living in the
locality to show their work in these spaces
since, for obvious reasons, it was them who
could go closer and more precisely to the
reality of the space, having lived in it for
years. The remaining artists, some of them
summoned, some invited by the organizers,
permitted the coexistence of different
views and different ways to approach the
169
neighborhood. This dialogue between
artists of different platforms generated a
kind of camaraderie and team work around
this relational art practice that, with time,
would become one of the main qualities of
the Biennale.
During the event, the artists rewarded the
population’s support through conferences,
workshops and guided visits, which took
place freely in the BVB facilities during the
event. These activities were generally aimed
to children, adolescents and elders of the
locality.
Versión 2.0
170
Under the same general parameters, the
second BVB developed in the same space,
Venice Neighborhood Community Hall.
This time the artists, most of them widely
known in the national art world, proposed
to appropriate the urban spaces. This way, a
high percentage of the works were showed in
parks, stores, houses and all kinds of alternate
spaces far from the community hall, where
the pieces were first showed using the typical
habits of a gallery.
The media interest in the Biennale was justified
thanks to the quality of the participants and
the recursion of the proposals. Local artist’s
work was contrasted by that of renowned
artists. This feature forced the Biennale
to discuss a way to classify this works and
processes, something that would come into
fruition later, with the implementation of a
Local Hall, which would serve as a prelude
to the participation of local artists.
Unlike the first edition, where participation
itself was considered a prize, the second
edition prized five pieces by popular
demand, thanks to voting ballots placed at
the hall’s entrance. This time, IDCT(2) and
other entities supported the BVB. That way,
different companies started to show interest
in the event, and would subsequently support
it. Local commerce was equally interested and
thanks to it we not only got its support, but
earned the community’s trust on the Biennale.
The Biennale was set out, in the beginning, as
something eventual that took a processional
character and demanded continuity in time.
The artists and the art circle, with a growing
interest, were already talking about a third
edition. The event grew and so did the
troubles since, because of the event’s growing
dimension, the initial support was becoming
insufficient. Because of this, and from this
moment, resource management became one
of the main points in the BVB’s schedule.
171 The memory project, 2011
Versión 3.0
172
Our focus changed on the third edition.
Media positioning was not as important
as the approach that could be made to the
Venice Neighborhood inhabitants. The
number of local artists grew, compared to the
previous Biennales. In order to achieve this,
we contacted artists associations, informal
and independent artist organizations in
order to gather them, explain them the
project and invite them to take part. The
result was very interesting and the event was
gaining popularity in the context that gave it
birth, gradually assuring its place in Bogota’s
plastic art scene.
Artists were still interested in the urban space.
Some of the projects were about interesting
modifications made to the neighborhood
and new channels of communication, while
others made commentaries about violence
in the less favored sectors, or enunciated
proposals about the diverse paradigms of
contemporary art. The result was interesting
too, but the proposals differed in quality due to
the disparity in the performers’ background,
and the lack of a clear methodology for
the presentation and execution of artistic
projects, not only for such an event as the
Biennale, but for any Art Room. For that
reason, it was decided to follow a curatorial
line or a horizon of sense, and to invite a
group of consultants and external advisors
who would optimize this processes.
Thanks to an official link with the Istituto
Italiano di Cultura, a cultural institution
dependant of the Italian Embassy, we were
173
able to give a special recognition to the
winner of this edition, a round-trip ticket
to Venice, Italy. The circle was completed
that way, and the artist was able to visit the
context of the Italian Biennale and draw
its own conclusions by creating in Rome
the same piece he made in Bogota’s Venice
neighborhood, after enjoying his visit to Italy.
The media was so interested on these
particular dynamics that the Biennale’s
presence in magazines and newspapers did
not decreased. On the contrary, it drew the
attention of the international media, critics,
curators and artists. The recent interest in this
atypical process was what took the Biennale
as a study case for various academic events,
locally and internationally.
Versión 4.0
The Biennale’s high visibility at this point
generated a series of particular reactions.
A great number of the summoned artists
pretended to take part in the event without
a previous approach to the neighborhood,
something that is marked in the official
announcement. Other artists presented
works that involved public spaces and
certain communities that apparently rhymed
with the BVB’s spirit, without the least
interest on approaching the neighborhood.
174
Some local artists demanded their inclusion
just for living in the same neighborhood,
suggesting that the pre-selection (necessary
in any event of this kind) was a form of
discrimination. The loan of the space, gently
ceded before, was negated for this edition,
since the event’s visibility was taken by some
people as a financial aptitude, something
way far from reality. In fact, the Council
for Communal Action (3) charged an
impossible to pay rent, so it was necessary to
ent an empty commercial place to realize the
event. This presented us with many logistical
inconveniences and a certain trouble with
artists and organizers, which fortunately
were solved afterwards.
Thanks to the inclusion of the Biennale
in the Nexo Project of the Andrés Bello
Agreement, we were invited to an academic
event in the Pirelli Room for Young Art in
Caracas, in 2000. We took advantage of this
visit to invite Venezuela as a Guest of Honor
in the Biennale. Thus, the BVB became an
international event with a wider range, and
the possibility to present new perspectives
that could enrich the initial process and
promote links with important international
cultural entities. One of them, the Italian
Embassy, reaffirmed its support and offered
a gallery in the Istituto Italiano di Cultura
as an alternate space for the BVB, allowing
it to get closer to different communities and
audiences in Bogota.
This time, and to allow all artists to participate
in the “same terms”, a theme for a curatorial
line was established: Art & Gastronomy,
175
that with the motto: “Because not everything
enters through the eyes”, set out an interesting
discussion from a concept that, seen from
different angles and articulated in the specific
context of the Venice Neighborhood, provided
the artist with interesting tools to propose a
solid project, objectual or processal. This way
the artists, from any origin or background,
had to carry out the specific theme, make a
proposal from the neighborhood as territory
and articulate it with its process, techniques
and particular interests to officially take part
in the Biennale.
The experiment was successful and the pieces
were a lot clearer and stronger. The public
space was used in an effective way and some
local artists got into artistic events such as
the Biennale, unlike other official processes
that did not cared about the work’s relevance
within its context, but turned into simple
samples arranged in a communal space,
which only coincidence was the creators’
common geographical sector.
Versión 5.0
The Biennale was again invited to an
academic event, the discussion tables in the
ARCO Contemporary Art Fair, in Madrid,
2002, where it raised a lot of interest
because of the number of versions, the
sustaining of the initial theme and its ability
to accommodate to the new conditions of
the medium, as well as the plastic avatars in
Latin America.
176
In Madrid, Spain was officially invited as the
Guest of Honor for the 5th edition in 2003.
This time, the theme was America 3 for 1,
pay 1 get 3, referring to the utopia of the
union of America in a sole sovereign state,
and to the immigration phenomena that hit
Spain and other Latin American countries
around that period. It also referred to the
Colombian exodus caused by the violence,
and the informal selling strategy used in the
Venice Neighborhood streets, where sellers
usually yell: “pay 1, get 3!”
With the intention of continuing with the
process qualification program, the Biennale
implemented the creation of the first Local
Room of Venice, which became, since that
moment, a prelude to the BVB. There, local
(4) artists planned the realization of different
works under the same parameters as those
of the Biennale. They were exhibited in the
local Library El Tunal, a beautiful space that
allowed the works to be appreciated by a large
audience, mostly made up of local students.
Thanks to the Local Room, the Biennale
got meticulously close to the processes of
the local artists, took care of their execution
and created links with previous participants
such as artists, investigators and managers,
to achieve the tuning sought for since past
editions.
177
This version had the support of the Spanish
Embassy and the Spanish Agency of
International Cooperation for the planning
and development of these processes. The
Embassy granted the Biennale’s Prize,
which consisted of two round trip tickets
to Madrid, in order for the winner to visit
museums and cultural centers where they
could share their experiences and serve as
Ambassadors for the BVB. Sadly, two of
the winners did not return to Colombia.
After officially thanking for the support, the
Biennale made clear to the Embassy that
the winners traveled with the commitment
to return. Since then, the BVB decided to
cancel all travel prizes.
Versión 6.0
178
This time, the Guest of Honor was the United
Kingdom (Wales, specifically), with the
central theme Exclusion/Inclusion, attending
to the latest activities of the Biennale and
its work group tai/The art incubator (5),
which was invited to Liverpool to transcribe
the BVB’s exercise in Kensington, an area of
the city with features similar to those of the
Venice Neighborhood in Bogota.
The basic intention was around planning
strategies, solutions or designations that
took on concepts like exclusion/inclusion
as an articulating tool for the minorities to
new contexts, as a coexisting strategy or just
as a knowledge and experience interchange
that could qualify tolerance, communitarian
welfare and team work in some way.
In this edition, the Biennale took place in
a neighborhood mall. There were exhibited
references of works that appropriated the
neighborhood’s public spaces, and also some
private ones, which some citizens of Venice
kindly lend. The works were mostly exhibited
in the neighborhood, coexisting with
houses, streets and people. Some also used
closed circuit TV, the “video jukeboxes”(6) in
convenience stores, and the public TVs in
the mall.
British guest artists were Alice Forward
and Michael Cousin, who were in the
neighborhood for some weeks creating
works based on their experiences, their
particular searches and their relationship
179
with the context. They also presented some of
their work, and talked about their processes
in public libraries such as el tunal and el
tintal from the Biblored network, and in the
Arts Faculty of the Pontificia Universidad
Javeriana de bogota.
A great amount of public attended this
6th edition of the BVB, thanks to the
decision of using the local mall as the main
venue. Many people, especially during the
weekend, attended the exhibits and were
an active part of the Biennale. It is planned
to keep a permanent presence in this space
or in a similar one, since this will allow to
continue with the already started process
and to reinforce the relationship with the
community.
Despite the great decisions, the need for a
specialized group for each of the areas was
evidenced, as well as the reinforcement of
the volunteers and local leadership.
Versión 6.5
180
In this version, we made a stop in the way to
reread ourselves and redesign new strategies
for the optimization and sustainability of the
BVB. A group of people got associated and
started the Visiva Foundation, an institution
that gave legal life to the event and that today
allows the linking of proposals generated
towards the Biennale.
The chronological walk through the BVB
allowed us to see some of the interventions
that had taken place in the neighborhood,
and the didactic activities that had occurred
alongside these projects. In the same manner,
it allowed us to take back effective strategies
and review our mission, vision, mandates and
local dynamics, national or international, for
its improvement.
On two separate platforms, the Colombian
National Artists’ Hall, and artbo, the
International Bogota Art Fair, the Biennale’s
fourteen year labor was visualized, and an
invitation was made for the public to bring
their documents, registers and experiences
in order to widen and optimize the archives
and register the memories, which would
serve as reference for students of today and
tomorrow.
181
Versión 7.0
For 15 years, the BVB has established
alternate and emergency dynamics against the
usual paradigms in the work-space-audience
system, simultaneous to the development of
contemporary artistic practices in Bogota
and the rest of the country.
This time, upon turning 15 years old, the
Biennale turned to a usual social practice in
Latin America: the quince años (15 years)
party. This celebration would serve as a
182
metaphor to couple a series of imaginaries,
dynamics and contents that would allow us
to have a transversal look, not only of the
neighborhood and the art that’s being made
in the city, but of ourselves.
In this version, artists and collectives generated
co-construction synergies and dynamics
between a contemporary art exhibit and a
traditional birthday party; 15 teenagers from
the Venice neighborhood and its surroundings
were gathered, teenagers whose birthday was
the same day as the Biennale. The proposals
were inspired and derived from the typical
protocols for organizing these traditional
events, such as a serenade, the changing of
shoes (or the Mexican doll), the waltz, etc.
Given the mappings of these kinds of
celebrations in Latin America, Mexico’s
been present in the hybridization of different
cultures, beliefs and social customs that let
us see its multiple origins. For this and other
reasons, it was decided that Mexico would be
the Guest of Honor in the 2010 edition.
That is why the curatorial theme for this
edition was the quince años celebration,
a common practice in Latin American
societies. Thanks to this process, the BVB was
invited to Oaxaca, Mexico, to take part in the
2010 humanitas Festival, organized by the
Government of the State of Oaxaca, and to
make an artistic residency in an alternative
space called la curtiduría (7) . An interesting
experience with a group of artists –led by
Demián Flores, the director and Mónica
183
Villegas, the coordinator- took place; they
were able to articulate the work of these artists
towards the 15 year celebration of young Ana
Yazmín Lázaro Silva, resident of the Jalatlaco
neighborhood, in a record time.
The starting point of this practice was the
search and visualization of common areas
between both cultures by celebrating a party
that represents the symbolic step from girl to
woman, and the presentation in society of the
young woman who will soon get involved in
different social dynamics.
This was also a metaphor for the Biennale.
After 15 years of reinventing and redirecting
ourselves, and assuming new practice
dynamics that refer to our past, the BVB
registered and documented our present and
projected us into the future, a complex one
maybe, but full of possibilities.
Towards The 8.0 ediTion
Although some key words proposed in the 7th edition for the future development
of the 8.0 BVB (habits, mode and fashion), the emergence of artistic collectives
against “official production”, the need of interpretation processes for contemporary
artistic practices and the reviewing of the “Biennale” format as a hegemonic scenery,
have included different reflections in the landscape.
A special interest in artistic residencies will also be dealt with, especially its boom
as an extension of academic formation, settling as growth and specialization spaces
for emerging and established artists. Another interesting theme is the inclusion
of private companies in artistic practices, wrongly called “independent” (since we
always depend of something or someone), and their positive or negative influence
in finished cultural products.
Among different conditions that may give birth to a new Biennale is the also
clear influence of social networks in co-curatorships, where the spectators become
active agents with voice and vote. On the other hand, there is a need to implement
184
pedagogic and information-formation processes, optimized and continuous, with
official, legal and commercial participation from public, private and informal entities
from the sector.
*** This edition is in construction at the date of publication of this document.
alternate actiVities to the bVb
TO UNITE COMMUNITIES THROUGH ARTS
(BOGOTA-LIVERPOOL)
In October 2004, thanks to the kind invitation of Metal Culture, an important
cultural institution in London, TAI/The Art Incubator, the support group of the
BVB, was taken to the Liverpool, in the UK. An articulating process took place
with local communities through art, something quite similar to what took place in
the Venice Neighborhood.
The general process included a series of projects proposed independently but
related at the same time. The mission was to create a kit for pedagogic activities that
may be taken to different contexts and audiences to enrich and continue with this
adaptation and nomadic strategy, with the objective of implementing this process
to any town in Bogota, the country, or even the rest of the world.
The basic intention of this activity is to propose and execute a series of artistic
practices in a particular place with a determined group of people, in order to create
links, optimize processes, get communities closer, raise tolerance and promote
teamwork, all through art.
185
THE VENICE MUSEUM
(FIRST NEIGHBORHOOD MUSEUM IN BOGOTA)
The Venice Museum of Bogota, planned as a neighborhood museum, seeks to
establish itself as an open, dynamic, inclusive and versatile space. Through visual
arts in their most open manifestations, we search for a perfect scenario where
communities of a particular territory get involved in such dynamics, and to generate
a space where their imaginaries are visualized, registered, developed, shared and
well kept.
For 17 years, the BVB has used a great share of its efforts and resources to find
the right spot, with the necessary museographic features to carry out the BVB and
other cultural events of the neighborhood.
Right now, our big objective is to establish a place to make our activities and reaffirm
our processes, so that our links to the community do not weaken. Likely, this space
should turn into the perfect arena to replicate some of the more than 150 didactic
activities that have taken place throughout the BVB’s 17 year history.
Local leaders will also be trained for these initiatives to be applied from their
particular interests at the right time. A database will be made including artists,
managers, leaders and audiences to generate a usable and constantly updated micro
system.
In 2009, thanks to the cooperative work established between the Design and
Architecture Faculty of the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Bogota and the
VISIVA Foundation, Manager of the BVB, a forward thinking project named
186
The Venicen Ephemeral Museum was developed which, acting at the same time
as a metaphor and multipurpose artifact, was generated thanks to the following
parameters:
-From the different materials in the area, which generate a harvesting cartography
to locate the available materials and evaluate its possible use according to closeness,
comfort, quantity and aesthetical criteria.
-The museum is designed in real time from individual contributions in a think tank,
knowing the place, analyzing the peculiarities of the environment and knowing the
materials and their possible couplings. It is collectively built after learning all the
base criteria while, through different agreements, decisions are made, fulfilling the
needs and interests established as the project’s requirements.
-To break with the design from the desk schemes, since it does not allow in situ
changes.
-We seek to link the community with the creation of the museum. Starting with
the neighbors who donated materials, there were also workshops in surrounding
schools to help co-design the museum, entwining the community to take part in
the conceptual and formal construction.
For more details:
http://a57arquitecturaencolombia.blogspot.com/2009/09/el-proyecto-requeria-una-inteligencia.html
187
art to the soUth
(oUr center is the soUth)
In cities the size of Bogota and other great Latin American capitals, unplanned and
overwhelming growth is a reality. Strategies previously planned to cover the needs of
the population fall short not only in economical and mobility terms, but in recreation
and culture.
Cultural scenarios are usually developed around historical or administrative downtowns,
but not everyone has access to them. Even a large part of the population is unaware of
the existence of these scenarios, and of the fact that they can make use of them and get
involved in their dynamics.
Bogota suffers from this problem in both south and north extremes, since its cultural
scenarios are placed close to the center and in the near north. It is important to say that
the west does not have important cultural places either, apart from the teatro Mayor
Julio Mario santodomingo and the Museo de arte contemporáneo del Minuto de
dios.
Thanks to the optimization of curricular projects from the whole city, students from
the south can now have quality education in colleges that owe nothing to private ones.
This process of optimization in education is part of a broader project of the Township
of Bogota. Today, graduates seek career options different than the usual, and are getting
interested in human sciences and arts, health science, economy and law.
However, it is essential to give these students places where they can work their artistic
abilities in depth and scenarios for their possible development, just as there are for other
areas of knowledge. In other words, we have to generate spaces for the development of
creativity south of Bogota City.
188
From basic inputs from the Kennedy seat in the Bogota Commerce Chamber (8), we
will make a series of conferences, talks, workshops and work tables with visual artists
from the south of the city, professionals or not.
The mapping of local talents, achieved with support from previous administrations’
local Townships and their Departments of Culture, will allow us to capture a series of
potential partners to create a system that can announce, classify, optimize, and put the
talents from the south into circulation and insertion.
Results from this process will not necessarily be visualized through traditional
exhibitions, although the goal is to make a professional following of the artists and
their processes. The final objective is to give them a visibility space in the seat and
surrounding spaces, and of course, the Bogota International Art Fair, artbo (9) .
The view of the BVB implies strengthening local cultural projects that are already in
process, and to set the conditions to apply a series of communitarian cultural centers in
Venice and other places. This has the objective of turning the participation dynamic into
a common thing for local artists and new audiences, articulating them with day to day
activities and the local cultural offer. We also want to get closer to their entertainment
and information interests, or simply to set out active links to the community from
different perspectives.
We dream that, in the next few years, The Bogota’s Venice Biennale will have a place
of its own and an optimized work team, for it to turn into a favorite space for artists
and cultural managers to form; these people will be in charge of promotion, press and
sustainability for the BVB and other high caliber cultural events in a very near future.
189
Sites:
www.bienal-venecia-bogota.blogspot.com
www.fundacionvisiva.org
Footnotes:
1 Bogotá City is administratively divided in
20 localities. One of them is Tunjuelito, where
the Venice Neighborhood is located.
2 District Institute for Culture and Tourism.
Around that time, it was the entity in charge of
formulating public policies towards plastic arts
on a district level. Today this entity is called
the Department of Culture of Bogotá, while
the one in charge of arts is called IDARTES.
3 The Community Action Committee is
an organism created in 1958 to draw the
communities close to the central level of the
District Administration.
4 Local artist refers to those who live in
Tunjuelito.
5 The TÄI/The Art Incubator Group is a
multipurpose artistic lab that gathers all
the volunteers for the BVB. This group is
generally constituted by students of art, design,
architecture and other related disciplines.
6 Videojukeboxes are jukeboxes with a screen
for videos, adapted as an exhibition device.
7 La Curtiduría (Oaxaca, México). It is
an independent and self-managed space
founded in 2006 by artist Demián Flores,
whose purpose is to open a center for dialogue,
interchange and contemporary artistic
production in Oaxaca.
190
E-mails:
bienalveneciabogota@gmail.com
contacto@fundacionvisiva.org
franklin.aguirre@hotmail.com
8 The Bogotá Chamber of Commerce is a
private, non-profit organization in charge
of managing the commercial registers of
companies and societies created in Bogotá, and
thus represents the interests of the businesses
and society in general.
9 Bogotá International Art Fair. Planned and
directed by the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce
it has consolidated, after seven editions,
as the main commercial showcase for the
strengthening of cultural industries in Bogotá
and artistic interchange in Latin America. It
takes place every October in the Corferias fair
compound.
191
A dArk new dAy:
Present and future of the music industry
by Daniel Vega
The CD was the protagonist of music’s last
great boom. Numerous bands were able to
sell millions of records in this format. Ultra
commercialized artists like Michael Jackson,
Madonna and Led Zeppelin, whose greatest
hits hypnotically spin on dead nostalgia radio
stations, sold more copies of their music
in CD than in any other format, even years
after their peak.
I’ve been buying music since I was eight
years old. In junior high I bought at least
one record every Friday; after school I would
get lost for hours looking at covers, listening
to albums, looking for songs. It was around
that strange year of 1998, when the rumor
192
of CD burners was around, and we were
surprised to get a CD for one fourth of its
commercial price. Slowly but surely, copies
of every kind started to gain territory to the
original CDs distributed by the record companies.The
disease spread in little time and
doctors had no idea what was going on. I remember
those ridicule copy protected discs
that included personalized players to avoid
the scattering of copies on people’s PCs:
band aids for gangrened arms. I don’t know
if they still exist, because I’ve not bought a
CD in years.
The minds that control the music industry
have always been some of the most perverse
and ridiculous, something that time
has only accentuated. From Coronel Parker
squeezing King Elvis like a juice to his last
consequences; going through David Geffen,
President of Geffen Records, who sued Neil
Young, artist of his own company, for doing
“music uncharacteristic of Neil Young” (???);
reaching the limits of the ridicule with Warner
Brothers, who, because of a management
mistake, technically paid twice for Wilco’s
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. These are evidences
of what the artist may turn to in this business,
a tool, a monolith that will draw the
masses, who will give them some of their
money as worship through records, concert
tickets and souvenirs.
Many people like to blame the fall of the
industry to the digital download sites that
started to show their little heads towards
the end of the 20th century. From Napster,
Limewire and Soulseek, until we discovered
the simplicity of Megaupload and its proud
heir, Mediafire, who
at least have supplied
me of more albums
than my dad’s allowance
ever did. But the
seed of the problem
was present from the
start. Of course, this
has generated heated
193
debates about the legality of downloading
music. There are mixed opinions among the
artists; some of them see downloading as an
aberration, while others consider it as another
way to make themselves known to the
public. The issue is more regulated in countries
like the U.S., but the dilemma is still in
its moral stages in Mexico. I know very little
persons that still get their music on original
neil young,
considered
the second
most important songwriter only behind
Bob dylan, was sued by his own record
company for not mantaining a creative
line in his albums.
Alt-country band Wilco was fired
from reprise records because
their album, yankee Hotel Foxtrot,
was considered unreleasable.
CDs. The most common ways are unofficial
downloads or unoriginal CDs with complete
discographies. Yes, it is not the same experience
and music enters our brain in a different
way, different than when we used to get
home, play the disc and read the lyrics. But
in the end, the important issue is that we’re
194
still interested in discovering new
music, despite of the natural adaptations
of the listening ritual.
This relationship between music
executives, who usually give little
importance to creative processes or
artistic ideologies and artists, have
always been a weird one. Record
companies have to look for the
best way to increase sales. Records
themselves are already expensive.
Then comes the confrontation with
these real artists who propose
something new and different
and do it coherently; those who
come from little independent
companies, where their creativities
live freely, who many times
bluntly crash with the compromises
they acquire when signing with big
transnationals. Many have rapidly lost to
this reality shock, going from being a little
known but well respected to being projected
into the mainstream, with the inherent loss
of seriousness in the eyes of their original
followers. Yes, surely their music will reach a
broader audience, but it will probably do so
by being contaminated by some of the producer’s
formulas, different production techniques
designed to compete and be successfully
mixed with the current trends in music.
And so, all of that will die some not very far
away (dark?) day. The infection is in place,
it’s only a matter of time. Some transnationals
have already succumbed to the impossible
modifications they never accepted. Upon
trying to keep functioning in this new reality
as they did twenty years ago, old models
have become unusable. Sometimes it’s simple
greed, but there are other factors such
as the uneasy transition into new formats,
mainly because of the lack of a unanimous
and prevailing way of selling music.
Recent platforms as Myspace gave the industry
a much needed rush of air, especially
to independent bands that, through this
website, made themselves known to the
world without the need of a contract. The
site allowed users to create a personalized
195
profile that could include recordings, videos,
tour dates, etc., with the idea that any artist,
without having to belong to a record company
or having a contract, could promote
in the internet in an easy and free way. And
even though the format became obsolete
after a couple of years, it set an important
precedent: all you need to make yourself
known is a decent website and a somewhat
creative distribution. Unfortunately, talent
wasn’t a requirement to register, what made
us prey of an avalanche of trash, minimum
quality “music”.
Towards the end of the 21st century’s first
decade, many veteran artists reached the end
of their long contracts, many of them signed
at the beginning of the 90s. While the majority
renewed or signed with smaller companies
for survival’s sake, many more have
successfully transitioned into new distribution
models. The idea of eliminating the
artist/company/promoter triangle was out,
and many big names decided to self-distribute
their music, creating their own companies
to promote new material. But despite
the changes, the inertia from the old system
is still alive, and industry dinosaurs have created
some new superstars, figures that can
still move thousands of copies.
We live in 2012. More than a decade has
passed since the first mp3 boom, and there
is still not a person who knows how we will
get and listen to our music in the mid-term
future. The music industry is in anarchy, it
jumped thousands of years into the past,
something that has its advantages and disadvantages.
Some dinosaurs still live. But
new minds have imagined effective methods
>
that, even though will never reach the sales
of the past, have found new ways to keep
the boat from sinking. Sites like Spotify,
where one pays a monthly fee to listen to a
catalog that already counts many important
196
distributors among its ranks, have reached
acceptance among the audiences and artists,
who have already signed contracts to distribute
their music through this portal.
The future is uncertain and there are no
smoke signals in the horizon, but the latest
tendencies are based on digital distribution,
while the gross of the income is, as was in
the beginning, in live shows and merchandise.
Although the industry is no longer the
monster it used to be, the good news is that
today there are a lot of possibilities to present
a new project, and many times it’s talent,
hidden in some lost neighborhood,
who projects this new
bands into the spotlight. In the
end it is comforting to know
that talent, presented and promoted
wisely, can still draw the attention of
music lovers everywhere.
197
www.livingartroom.com
198
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