Realidad y Utopía. Argentina's Artistic Road to the Present
Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz 4, 10117 Berlin-Mitte, Germany, Phone + 49 (0)30 200 57-1000, 6 euros, 4 euros (reduced rate)
Running time
Oct. 2 - Nov. 14, 2010
Venue
info@adk.de
Opening Hours
Tue – Sun, 11 am - 8 pm
Admission
Free admission on the 1st Sunday of the month and for visitors under 18 years of age
Exhibition Opening
Friday, October 1, 2010, 7 pm, free admission
Realidad y Utopía (Reality and Utopia) presents for the first time in Germany an extensive exhibition of modern and contemporary art from Argentina, displaying works by over 70 artists. In the course of dictatorships, crises and the new democratic order Argentinian art, with its rich and complex history, has emerged as a crucial medium of social criticism and political comment. The art scene of Buenos Aires is considered to be amongst the most vital ones in the new decade.
Taking present-day art as a point of departure, the exhibition, curated by the Argentine Diana B. Wechsler, shows historical perspectives reaching down to the beginning of the 20th century. The collective image memory of Argentina, closely linked to the European cultural and art history as well as the discourse of decolonisation, is reflected in painting, photography, installation and video. Remembrance culture and the search for identity, shifting between reality and imagination, are at the focus of the artist interventions, foregrounding topics such as the experience of distance and infinity, the memory of one’s origins, the complexity of identity and the genesis of violence.
Thus Graciela Sacco questions the localisation of one’s homeland and origin with her latest installation "m2", as does Nicolas García Uriburu with his sculptures of the 1970s. The political dimension is accentuated in the expressionistic satires of Carlos Alonso with "Censorship" and the works of León Ferrari, whose critique of religion shows in "Nunca Más" and "Devoción". The interventions of the artist collective Etcétera follow up this path in a present-day context. In addition, works by artists such as Antonio Berni, Oscar Bony, Horacio Coppola, Tomás Espina, Victor Grippo, Miguel Harte, Jorge Macchi and Miguel Rothschild are on display.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue (Spanish/English).
A project of the organisational committee for the participation of Argentina as guest country of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2010 (COFRA) in cooperation with the Akademie der Künste, Berlin
English Audioguide: Introduction of curator Diana B. Wechsler, themes of the exhibition and description of single work