AES+F and Eduardo Navarro
AES+F: The Liminal Space Trilogy
24 May–24 June, 2013
Eduardo Navarro: Mercosur Law Studio III
22–27 May, 2013; open 24 hours
Faena Arts Center
Aimé Paine 1169
Puerto Madero
Buenos Aires, Argentina (1137)
Hours: Saturday–Monday 12–7pm
T 4010 9233
The stunning trilogy by Russian art collective AES+F previously exhibited only in Moscow and Berlin will be on view in its entirety along with Eduardo Navarro’s remarkable Estudio Jurídico Mercosur III (Mercosur Law Studio III) beginning May 24.
Faena Arts Center, under the direction of Ximena Caminos, opens its visual arts calendar with a powerful exhibition of the Russian art collective AES+F, organized by the Argentinean curator Sonia Becce. The exhibition will be open Monday to Saturday from 12 to 7pm, and, in line with Faena Group’s policy of social commitment, admission is free on Mondays.
The exhibition will present AES+F: The Liminal Space Trilogy, a threefold series of videos which was created between 2007 and 2011 and only displayed in its entirety in Moscow and Berlin. Consisting of Last Riot, The Feast of Trimalchio and Allegoria Sacra, the work provides alternative versions of Hell, Paradise and Purgatory, reaffirming the artists’ programmatic intention to cast light on the incongruities of modernity and the paradoxical relationship of indifference and devotion, the real and the virtual, tradition and rupture.
The script that structures the trilogy is not literary but graphic, and it has been improvised from the image bank obtained during marathon studio sessions in Moscow. The selection and further edition of over 100,000 digital images taken against a grey backdrop provides the material that organizes the narrative. Each of the group scenes is a result of the painstaking preparation of contemporary tableaux vivants: gestures and positions, clothing and accessories, colors and illumination—everything is subject to rigorous controls. Such obsessive scrutiny is not arbitrary: when the images are projected on the multiple screens—three to five large format screens, depending on the video—any anomaly that slips through is blown up to conspicuous proportions.
“The trilogy is distressing in its treatment of a variety of subjects including the growing media paranoia, religious radicalization, the fear of death and the threat of end of the world. Aligned with the political concerns of the time, the work challenges people to consider to what extent the dizzying escalation of virtual communication impacts people’s lives. The losses of glances and smiles lengthen inexplicably until soon the action is extinct, and young people are the protagonists of an alternate, mediated reality in which actual experience has ceased to be a priority,” says the show’s curator.
Faena Arts Center will simultaneously be the third stop on the tour of Mercosur Law Studio by Argentinean artist Eduardo Navarro, a mobile art project that was also curated by Sonia Becce. This roving law office created inside an 18-metre-long semi-trailer will be open to the public from May 22 to 27, providing visitors with free legal advice.
Faena Arts Center forms the keystone in the consolidation of the Faena District concept as the area’s foundation for the arts and artistic experimentation. Born of a desire to promote and develop the interaction of ideas and interdisciplinary research, the Faena Arts Center emerged out of the transformation of the old machine room of an emblematic mill from the turn of last century. The space is conducive to the boldest and freest forms of creativity, providing the optimal conditions in which to make art.
Inaugurated in September 2011, Faena Arts Center has 4,000 m2 of gallery space and is sponsored by HSBC and Citroën.
International media contact: faena [at] nadinejohnson.com
