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16 artists from the Americas in search of a political lexicon to define reality from a specific rather than a generic point of view. EAC, Montevideo, Uruguay.
By Laura Bardier | Apr 2012The philosopher Roberto Esposito, in his article "Político y lo impolítico" (2005) writes: "[…] Thus the impolitical, finally, does not proffer a new reality as an alternative to politics, but rather simply identifies political reality for what it is, without apology. It therefore maintains a certain attitude, if you will, of reservation with respect to a situation of promoting or creating an apology for politics. […]." From the early 1990’s new models of social mobilization triggered changes of government and value systems, with a profoundly critical, sarcastic and irreverent vision of the organizational systems, of social functions and most of all of the essence of political thought overall.
It is in this sense, in fact, that we focus our attention on some regions of the Americas, connected by cultural, political or historical characteristics, which moreover have recently developed a critical sense or have debunked that self-legitimizing attitude of modernity. These regions of the Americas share – without denying each its own indispensable specificity and its regionalisms - similar challenges, but also similar potential solutions.
Today, we find ourselves in a condition defined by the impossibility of identifying and expressing suitable terms and concepts. The words and expressions one usually uses to define politics, marginalize those areas which are impossible to think of or to express. Thus, slowly, a new paradigm is generated. Not via a reductionist perspective, however, like in the case of a-political or anti-political sentiments, but rather in relation to a complex and multi-faceted situation: an actual reconfiguration of politics as a whole. As Giorgio Agamben put up for discussion in the Padua Conference (2005) – is there a ‘alternative’ to civil war? And if this is true, what are its mechanisms and its strategies when the notion of movement itself is put in question?
"Los impoliticos" takes a look at a series of artworks that handle complex and intricate themes as the migration patterns, in economic instability to exacerbated hyper-urbanism. Other thematic areas include the conditions of biased communication manipulated by the control systems and by the government on different levels and to varying degrees; urban and social decay, the obligation of heightened consumerism. Conditions such as this generate a strong sense of impotence. These impotence of rooting out the source of the problem, the inability to respond effectively to these issues, the inability to transform these conditions of instability. Following in Roberto Esposito’s footsteps, the exhibit "Los impoliticos" offers a project of dissection and analysis, a quest for the construction of a political lexicon to define contemporary facts and situations from a specific rather than from a generic point of view.
Artists:
Marcela Armas
Stefan Brüggemann
Angela Detanico y Rafael Lain
Darío Escobar
Jose Antonio Hernández-Diez
Jorge Macchi
Leo Marz
Cildo Meireles
Dulce Pinzón
Liliana Porter
Wilfredo Prieto
Paul Ramírez-Jonas
Miguel Ángel Ríos
Adriana Salazar
Pablo Serra-Marino
Laura Bardier
Independent curator, born in Montevideo, Uruguay. Lives in New York, USA.
Artists:
Marcela Armas, Stefan Brüggemann, Angela Detanico y Rafael Lain, Darío Escobar, Jose Antonio Hernández-Diez, Jorge Macchi, Leo Marz, Cildo Meireles, Dulce Pinzón, Liliana Porter, Wilfredo Prieto, Paul Ramírez-Jonas, Miguel Ángel Ríos, Adriana Salazar, Pablo Serra-Marino
Curator: Laura Bardier
Los impolíticos
16 February - 30 April 2012