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ART IN FOCUS
Ephemeral / Trends III / 2005 at Merrill Lynch
arteaméricas 2005
by Milagros Bello

Ying-Yang
Installation. Mixed Media
Ephemeral Trends III. 2005. Miami Florida
Ephemeral/Trends III interprets the
spirit of an era in which representation has shifted to new
mediums and meanings. New icons and images of the contemporary
artistic mind continue to emerge incessantly. Contemporary art
in Latin America no longer knows any borders. Latin American
artists are now part of the global world, and they produce a
diversity of images sharing the global baggage of wide-ranging
cultural, ideological, political and social content that renders
new visibilities and questions the insignificant, the private,
and the ordinary, away from the objectified world of representation.
Contemporary artists construct and deconstruct from mass culture
and from the collective platforms. Contemporary art deals with
a variety of images as metaphors that range from femininity
to culture, from natural to industrial, from aesthetics to kitsch.
Giovanni Basile proposes an aerial installation, an action sculpture
in which semi-abstract and volatile metal figurines intertwine
playfully, representing metaphorical human encounters. Rakel
Bernie proposes an installation featuring miniature dresses
hanging from the ceiling, in a categorical allusion to femininity
and feminine childhood. Through an acute allusion to the new
contemporary cults, to the new prosthetic gods such as the financial
market, Jorge Brugo presents an installation featuring two gigantic
graphs on canvas that represent the chilling spasm of the world
market on the tragic September 11. The installation is accompanied
by a strange musical structure that is the result of the aural
transference of the graphs to rhythms, melodies and instruments.
In a constructive-deconstructive process, Aisen Chacin proposes
three gigantic white cubes in which the thread tangles are structured
and un-structured, announcing the tragic Sisyphean cycle. Through
a forceful photography with a social bent, Amalia Caputo shows,
in two banners, two masked men symbolizing fear and freedom.
Pablo Contrisciani invades the garden with monumental fractal
cubes dominated by the irregular polychromy of chaos. Lilian
Domínguez presents a gigantic curtain with a sequence
of digital photographs shaped as a woman' s daily calendar.
The duo Guerra de la Paz (Alain Guerra and Neraldo de la Paz)
offers a figure from the Vigilanti Series; strange sculptural
mannequins made with recycled cloth that seem to keep watch
over the viewers. Liliana features an intervention of the second
ticket booth, presenting unusual beings as inhabitants of this
architecture. In the garden area, Marcus Marín exhibits
a contemporary totem in which the Mona Lisa is the new icon.
Andrés Michelena proposes an installation of multiple
neo-ready mades, musical lamps featuring celestial and demoniacal
entities, fluctuating between transparency and aeriality. Sylvia
Riquezes intervenes the façade of the building, modifying
its visual appearance: a strange monster -titled Blop- appears
to devour the first ticket booth. The installation is prolonged
through chromatic floral ramifications on the ceiling of the
entrance hall. Evelyn Valdirio shows a balsero´s oar that
she has rescued from the Bay, a cruel and sad monument to those
who seek their freedom. Pedro Vizcaíno´s hardboard
sculptures feature war icons reminiscent of children´s
toys, innocently representing evil and the massacres caused
by arms.
Cecilia Lueza points out the concept of femininity through a
large-size garden sculpture representing a whimsical and playful
female figure, rooted to the grass. Curated
by Milagros Bello, Ph. D.
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