The Dialectic City [Document|Context]

Laboratorio de Artes Binarios (LAB) - Santurce, Puerto Rico
Curated by Carla Acevedo-Yates

By María Arlette de la Serna

This exhibition reminds me that big cities invite us-almost force us-to experience opposites simultaneously. Coming myself from one of the largest and most populous cities in the world, I know that the relationship between a city and its citizens is often one of love/hate, collectivity/individuality, and life in motion/life in stillness.

“The Dialectic City [Document|Context]” is the first exhibition to be held in the new Laboratorio de Artes Binarios (LAB) in collaboration with Puerto Rican independent arts writer and curator Carla Acevedo-Yates. Currently directed by artist-architect Javier Olmeda, LAB is a matrix of digital services operating in a gritty ’50s-era building now called Edificio LAB 1206, which is located in Santurce in the city of San Juan. Formerly a shoe factory and warehouse, the building has been transformed into an alternative art space, but not entirely transformed, because it has retained its old gray cement walls, which resonate with the idea of the urban.

“The Dialectic City”-taken from the title of the book by famed architect Oswald Mathias Ungers-explores the concept of city through the work of 11 contemporary artists employing photography and video. Other more traditional media have also been included, as well, such as xylography, watercolor and sculpture. “The Dialectic City” is an exhibition that investigates two fundamental concepts linked to the context of the city: its movement and (its essential component) its inhabitants.

David Lamelas, Buenos Aires Time as Activity, 2010, 16mm film; 15 min, (loop), color, 3 cibachrome prints. Courtesy Ignacio Liprandi Contemporary Art, Buenos Aires.

Included are recent works by Iván Argote, Jason Mena, Juan Alberto Negroni, Víctor Sosa, and Omar Velázquez, and there are also important earlier works by Francis Alÿs , a Belgian artist based in Mexico City. Argentine David Lamelas’ 2010 work, part of a series begun in 1969, will also be on view. Other artists represented are Alexander Apóstol, Adriana Bustos, José Luis Cortés, and Norma Vila. As the catalogue essay says, “the artists in this exhibition appropriate the city as their studio.”

All the works have been thoughtfully chosen to respond to a cohesive idea: movement and transformation with the city as their setting. Adriana Bustos’ video is a night tour captured by a camera placed between the eyes of a waste picker’s horse named Primavera. The video Don Carlos by Alexander Apóstol questions the limits of private/public space. The video Record by José Luis Cortés shows the artist running around a city block. Iván Argote’s silent, slow-motion video captures the moment when people turn around and look at the artist when he screams phrases such as “I love you!” or “You’re great!” while standing behind groups of pedestrians waiting to cross the street in New York City. Jason Mena’s photographs, Crossings, were taken in the historic Zócalo district in Mexico City, where each street is named after a different Latin American country. Inverted Resources of Nature (Cabotage), by Víctor Sosa, is a found-art sculpture installation created out of 21 car tires scavenged from the street. Omar Velázquez presents Patches, which is comprised of woodcuts whose plates were plywood panels used to board up abandoned buildings. Juan Alberto Negroni’s watercolor on paper diptych Untitled depicts two vehicles after a wreck, and Norma Vila exhibits photographs titled Coyote-Mobile and A Neighbor Stole My License Plate. A catalogue has been produced to document the exhibition, though viewers, I’m sure, would have welcomed a longer, larger version.

(November 17 - December 15, 2011)

María Arlette de la Serna is the Assistant Curator at Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico.

Filed Under: Reviews