No es neutral, ez da neutrala | Daros

Oswaldo Macià. Vesper
1960 Cartagena, Colombia

Vesper, 2000
Sound installation, poster and cards
Duration: 20 min; poster: 195 x 223 cm

A sound installation carried out following the Gregorian composition techniques, combining the stories of 55 women, in seven different languages of the Caribbean. Although in many cases the observer does not understand what they say, he perceives the feelings transmitted through the sonority, the tone and the rhythm of the voices.

http://www.oswaldomacia.com

Rafael Lozano Hemmer. Tensión superficial
1967 México D.F., México

Tensión Superficial, 1991-2004
Plasma monitor, computer and camera
Interactive Installation

The great eye of the screen follows carefully the movements of the spectator, thanks to a sophisticated computerized monitoring system.

www.lozano-hemmer.com

Valeska Soares. Vanishing Point
1957 Belo Horizonte, Brasil

Vanishing Point, 1998
15 stainless steel tanks, water, perfume and coloring
848 x 895 cm

A perfumed garden with a Baroque structure; is beautiful and nice at first. Soon, the perfume takes over the space creating an oppressive environment. Valeska Soares introduces sensuality into minimal art and offers a reflection on desire and beauty, which at some point can become toxic.

Javier Téllez. Carta sobre los ciegos para uso de los que ven
1969 Valencia, Carabobo, Venezuela

Letter on the Blind, For the Use of Those Who See, 2007
Single channel video, transferred from super 16mm film
27:36 min., b/w, sound

Six blind people tell how they perceive an elephant. Before the same image, we listen to six different stories about what we are watching.

The work, like the Indian parable that inspired it and the essay of Diderot wearing the same title, talks about the difficulty of starting from sensorial perception, which is always individual, to understand a whole.

Julio Le Parc. Continuel – Mobile
1928 Mendoza, Argentina

Continuel-mobil, 1962/1996
Object: acrylic glass, painted wood, metal and nylon thread
Additional installation: 1 spotlight
Objeto: 219 x 155 x 170 cm

Julio Le Parc is one of the artists and theorists that have most firmly positioned against the work of art as an object of value. He has always worked in order to approach contemporary art to the public. “It is enough for me, if the spectator goes out feeling that he has been part of an experience, either due to the movement or the lights (…). The spectator is not imposed a way of looking at things and each one’s interpretation can be different.”

http://www.julioleparc.org

Ernesto Neto. Humanoides
1964 Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Humanóides, 2001 (Köln)
Lycra tulle, fabric, spices and styrofoam balls
7 parts: dimensions variable

Through the "Humanoides", a family of strange organic figures, Ernesto Neto invites the spectator to enter his work and become part of it. He proposes a ludic and sensual experience, addressed to the senses.

Priscilla Monge. Bailarina
1968 San José, Costa Rica

Bailarina, 1995-2000
Engraved marble
9 parts: 20.5 x 40.3 x 2 cm each; installation dimensions variable

The nine sexist insults suggest an exchange of humiliations. The engraving technique with an elegant cursive handwriting on marble, as if it were a gravestone, shows that an aggressive impulse, like a boomerang, always turns back against the attacker.

http://priscillamonge.com

Tonel. El bloqueo
1958 La Habana, Cuba

El bloqueo, 1989-1993/2006
Concrete letters and concrete stones
Installation dimensions variable

Tonel is about Cuba as an isle, a metaphor of the isolation both of the country and its inhabitants. Concrete stones do not only give the isle a hard, dry and infertile character, but they also make it seem too heavy to float, so it appears to be doomed to a sinking.

Iván Capote. Historia
1973 Pinar del Río, Cuba

Historia, 2001
Glass, metal, wood, electric motor, pen and felt
104 x 100 x 17 cm

The marker pen fixed to the axis draws a circumference; meanwhile, the felt joint to the other side of the axis erases it. It seems History repeats itself, but, at the same time, it is being continuously written. Using the strategies of conceptual art, Capote carries out works with social and political character, where irony occupies an important place.

Jose Damasceno. Entretanto
Entretanto, 2003 Marble 7 parts; installation dimensions variable

Damasceno works with systems. He is a poet of systems. He works in specific spaces, using daily life elements he transforms by means of repetition and combination, creating new relations with the space and the observer. Meanwhile, with his seven large commas, he talks about the flow of time and the necessity of stopping to be able to continue.

Chemi Rosado-Seijo. A Polok(de la serie Historia sobre ruedas)
1973 Vega Alta, Puerto Rico

Sin título (a Polok), Cuenca, Ecuador, 2004
From the series "La historia sobre ruedas" [The History on Wheels]
Traces of skateboards on primed plywood
243.5 x 1032.5 cm

A skate ramp dismantled and turned into a “painting”, the lines of the skaters as paint form this work. The title is a reference to Jackson Pollock. The piece suggests both a ludic aspect and the dynamism of the action that originated it and elevates the traces of a play to the category of “Art”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofTZsD6HmX4

Juan Manuel Echavarría. Guerra y pa
1947 Medellín, Colombia

Guerra y pa', 2001
Single channel video
9 min , color, sound

The male parrot attacks the female to throw her out of his territory shouting “war”. The female parrot, almost static, lets us hear only a shy “pa’”. This “pa’” is owed to the Caribbean pronunciation of the trainer. Apart of being a metaphor of human relations, it shows how fast words can lose their content to be used as weapons that can be thrown.

Lázaro Saavedra. Untitled / Yo pienso (I Think)/ OjoVideo Corporation, Volumen I.
1964 La Habana, Cuba

Untitled, 1997
Single channel video
2:04 min., color, soundbr />
OjoVideo Corporation, Volumen I, 2006
Single channel video
3:01 min., color, silent

Yo pienso (I Think), 2005
Single channel video
4:54 min., b/w, sound

In these digital animations, we see the repeated attempts of small individuals to develop their own ideas and to maintain a minimum of independence and freedom in front of the masses or before a powerful figure. Using a clear and direct language, and with humour and irony, the Cuban Lázaro Saavedra presents deeply critical and complex thoughts.

Miguel Ángel Ríos. Return
1953 Catamarca, Argentina

Return, 2003-2004
One channel video installation
3:23 min., b/w, sound

Miguel Ángel Ríos recorded the spinning top, a very popular game in the streets of Mexico, to create a film to be played backwards. Thus, friction between the spinning tops does not make them fall, but it seems that lying tops come to life and start spinning in a dance that can be hypnotic, until all of them are up.

Fernando Arias. Ataúd de Lego (Homenaje a los niños de la guerra de las drogas)
1963 Armenia, Colombia

Lego Coffin (Homage to the Children of the Drug War), 2000
Lego and plywood
28.5 x 190.5 x 70 cm

Fernando Arias plays with concepts such as childhood, game, drug traffic and death. Concepts that have marked connotations and that generate a strong contrast between them. This Lego coffin is the sarcophagus of the artist, where people will have a wake for him. Afterwards, the body will be taken out to be cremated, and the coffin will be a present for the children to play with. “Life goes away, but there is nothing more beautiful, dark and real than those children playing with their own death.”

http://www.fernandoarias.org

Oscar Muñoz. Aliento
1951 Popayán, Colombia
Aliento, 1996-2002
Photoserigraph on steel disks
Diameter: 20.2 cm each

The disks are like mirrors on which, at first, the observer can only see himself. But when the spectator gets closer and breathes near them, other faces appear on the metallic surface. These are photos taken from obituaries published on the newspaper; memories that, by when we breathe again, have disappeared.

http://www.lugaradudas.org

Jose Damasceno. Agregado
Agregado, 1999 Aluminum Installation dimensions variable

Damasceno works with systems. He is a poet of systems. He works in specific spaces, using daily life elements he transforms by means of repetition and combination, creating new relations with the space and the observer. Meanwhile, with his seven large commas, he talks about the flow of time and the necessity of stopping to be able to continue.

Regina José Galindo. Limpieza social
1974 Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala

Limpieza social, 2006
Single channel video
1:55 min., color, sound

Regina José Galindo is one of the fundamental pillars in video art and performance in the Latin-American scenario. Her actions are direct and aggressive in relation to the reality of her country, Guatemala. Galindo’s art denounces such reality where women are the most frequent victims; it is a kind of art that intends to move the spectator.

In Limpieza Social, the small and fragile naked body of the artist is attacked with a pressure hose. The artist has to strain to stand on her feet.

Priscilla Monge. Lección de maquillaje
1968 San José, Costa Rica

Lección no. 1: Lección de maquillaje, 1998
Single channel video
3 min, color, sound

http://priscillamonge.com

Antonio Dias
1944 Campina Grande, Paraiba, Brasil

Do it Yourself: Freedom Territory, 1968/2002 (reconstruction)
Titanium and lettering
400 x 600 cm

Do it yourself (Freedom Territory) suggests the existence of a symbolic space for invention, games and experimentation. It also expresses some ambiguity and a way of delimiting the space, by squaring it. It suggests the military or colonial way of marking borders and strategies more than a territory of freedom.

http://www.antoniodias.com

Antonio Dias. To the police / Do it yourself. Freedom territory
1944 Campina Grande, Paraiba, Brasil

To the police, 1968
Bronze
3 parts: 7.5 x 12.5 cm , 9 x 14.5 cm, and 8 x 11 cm

Do it Yourself: Freedom Territory, 1968/2002 (reconstruction)
Titanium and lettering
400 x 600 cm

Do it yourself (Freedom Territory) suggests the existence of a symbolic space for invention, games and experimentation. It also expresses some ambiguity and a way of delimiting the space, by squaring it. It suggests the military or colonial way of marking borders and strategies more than a territory of freedom.

http://www.antoniodias.com

Luis Camnitzer. Coca-Cola Bottle filled with a Coca-Cola Bottle
1937 Lübeck, Germany

Coca-Cola Bottle filled with a Coca-Cola Bottle, 1973
Glass and metal
18.2 x 5.5 x 5.5 c

"Luis Camnitzer, uruguayo nacido en Alemania, es uno de los pioneros del Arte conceptual, utilizando el lenguaje en el Arte con la intención de involucrar al espectador y dar una carga política a su trabajo.

Luis Camnitzer
1937 Lübeck, Germany

This is a mirror. You are a written sentence, 1966-1968
Vacuum-formed polystyrene mounted on synthetic board
48.4 x 62.5 x 1.5 cm

“This is not a mirror. You are a written sentence“. At first sight, it seems an information poster; however, it directly addresses the spectator, who is the subject of the phrase.

Luis Camnitzer, an Uruguayan born in Germany, is one of the pioneers of conceptual Art who uses language in Art with the purpose of involving the observer and giving a political content to his work.

Cildo Meireles. Missão/Missões (Como construir catedrais)
1948 Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

Missão/Missões (Como construir catedrais), 1987
600'000 coins, 2'000 bones, 800 communion wafers, light, 80 paving stones and black fabric
Approx. 300 x 600 x 600 cm

Cildo Meireles created Missao/Missoes (como construir catedrais) in 1987 for “Visão do Artista“, an exhibition that commemorated a specific event in Brazil’s history, the missions founded by Jesuits between 1610 and 1767.

The illumination and the space delimited by cloth have something to do with theatre, and the dramatic touch can also remind us of a religious temple, added to the symbolic content of the materials chosen. Beyond the historical event on which the work is based, Meireles transcends specific matters and questions the representation of material and spiritual power meanwhile he promotes the effect they create when they both powers encounter.

“I wanted to do something that could be some mathematical equation, very simple and direct, connecting three elements: material power, spiritual power and the unavoidable consequence of the historical repetition of such combination, this is, tragedy. In other words, my work would have a human-animal appearance, it would be an approximation. Therefore, I had the idea of building a piece where people could enter, and by entering, they could immediately be in relation with the equation: material power + spiritual power = tragedy“.

Through this “dramatization”, Meireles invites us to an intellectual and conceptual confrontation, but also offers a sensorial experience that traps the spectator.

SALA DE LECTURA. IRAKURGELA

Oscar Muñoz. Retrato
1951 Popayán, Colombia

Re/trato, 2003
Single channel video
29:51 min, color, silent

Some thoughts on self-portraits, but also on perseverance and failure. The hand of the artist tries, unsuccessfully, to make a self-portrait on a base of stone, under the sun and using water instead of ink. Although he never achieves to fix the image, he does not give up trying, in an action that goes back to the starting point over and over again.

http://www.lugaradudas.org

Tania Bruguera. Autobiografía - Inside Cuba.
1968 La Habana, Cuba

Autobiografía - Inside Cuba, 2003
Sound installation: Space painted white, 2 Soviet speakers from the 70s, wood stage, 8 subwoofers, 1 disconnected microphone, 3 unfinished sheet rock walls and 1 electric bulb
Dimensions of space variable

Those who get on the stage intending to accept the invitation of an empty stage with a microphone will realise that it is shut off and, regardless of what they say, only the instructions repeated through the loudspeakers shall prevail.

The autobiography of Tania Bruguera is a personal and a social autobiography connected with the events that have marked the Cubans’ life. It is also a reflection about how words lose their content when they are continuously repeated.

http://www.taniabruguera.com

Priscilla Monge. Boomerangs
1968 San José, Costa Rica

Boomerangs, 1998-2000
Engraved marble
9 parts: 20.5 x 40.3 x 2 cm each; installation dimensions variable

The nine sexist insults suggest an exchange of humiliations. The engraving technique with an elegant cursive handwriting on marble, as if it were a gravestone, shows that an aggressive impulse, like a boomerang, always turns back against the attacker.

http://priscillamonge.com

Gonzalo Díaz. Resistencia
1947 Santiago, Chile

Resistencia, 1999
Metal, ceramic and electrical supplies
26.8 x 97.7 x 16 cm

The work turns incandescent thanks to the electric mechanism resistance itself. Then, a sequencer is activated and blocks the power flow. Such blockage allows the mechanism to resist and continue working. What we read is what we see. Resistance is, apart from the title, the basic mechanism of the installation, the word it conforms and the meaning evocated by the word. Diaz works at different meaning levels. Not only does he use word as a metaphor, but also the mechanism itself.

Juan Carlos Alom. Habana solo
1964 La Habana, Cuba

Habana Solo, 2000
Single channel video, transferred from 16mm film
15 min, b/w, sound

The Cuban photographer and film director offers us a tour through his city, Havana, helped by some musician friends. The film, where not even a word is spoken, was shot in 16 mm and with environmental sound. It was later manually developed by Alom himself to suggest an aging effect. In view of the deterioration shown by the city and the film, the spectator finds difficult to determine whether he or she is watching an old movie or a current view of Havana city.

Alom counted with the collaboration of artists such as Emilio (piano), Jose-Luis Cortés (flute), William Rubalcaba (double bass), Tata Guines (conga drums), Enrique Lazaga (güiro), Eduardo Lazaga (timpani), Pancho Amat (Cuban tres), Chicoy (electric guitar), Alfredo Echevarría (electric bass), Sonia Marcoma, soprano and Teo, bailaor, without any kind of instruction or restriction.

http://www.juancarlosalom.com

Alfredo Jaar. A logo for America
1956 Santiago, Chile

A Logo for America, 1987/2003
Single channel video;
Original version on spectacolor sign at Times Square, New York, April 1987
1:00 min. , color, silent

A Logo for America was created in 1987 to be exhibited on a large screen in New York’s Times Square, for a month between ads, every six minutes. By overlapping a simple phrase over a clearly recognisable image, the U.S. map or flag, Jaar succeeds in giving images a new political content.

http://www.alfredojaar.net