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The curatorial script for this new contribution to the 53rd Venice Biennial seeks to reflect the significant dimensions of contemporary visual arts in Uruguay. To offer a prismatic view of its inherent variety, laying down lines which involve both manual crafting and the employment of technological resources, narratives which are situated on the boundaries between issues of identity and locality, as well as including global aspects. Thus, it has been planned that not only will the internal areas of the Uruguayan Pavilion be put to use, but also the external areas; specifically, the flight of steps which provides access to the pavilion itself. At the same time, visual productions committed to the aesthetics of risk have particularly been taken into consideration.
In accordance with these criteria, the curatorial team composed by the Commissioner, Ms Patricia Bentancur, and Mr Alfredo Torres, has proposed that the artists Raquel Bessio, Juan Burgos and Pablo Uribe should develop a project in order to put this course of action into practice. The team considers that, in view of the artists’ backgrounds, they are capable of rigorously interpreting these guidelines to a high standard of quality.
Raquel Bessio is noted for her strict adherence to research and the processing of projects. Her work refers to the mythical values of the country and the region. The so-called “promised land” is suggested as a splintered terrain, grey and darkly metallic. The enclosed spaces eat away at certainties and resolutions, a process which the very pieces of her works, as they rust, will undergo. In the process, they achieve autonomy and become unmanageable.
Juan Burgos expands urban apocalyptic visions which proliferate in daily life. His starting point is a children’s storybook, from which he constructs a delirious collage. Anything is possible in his productions. With amazing dexterity he cuts, pastes, digitally photocopies and photocopies again, the result of which he fits into a fascinating stage design. Within these metaphors, there are, mingled with a large cast of characters, iconic elements of national images.
Pablo Uribe has produced a false documentary. In so doing, he reflects upon the play between reality and fiction, on representations within representations. A man in a white shirt imitates the diurnal sounds of indigenous animals. On another screen, in a light blue shirt and in an identical pose, he emits the nocturnal sounds of other animals. The binary conflict of distinct opposites is thus conceived in this polyphony of sound and sight.
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