Street Action: Moving Truck
as part of the exhibition Dias & Riedweg …and it becomes something else
Tuesday, June 9, 6:00 pm – 9.00 pm
El Museo del Barrio
Fifth Avenue
(between 105th and 106th Street), New York, NY
Free admission
Moving Truck is an ongoing and multilayered public art project by Dias & Riedweg comprising a series of video projections that are screened in a moving truck. As conceived by the artists, the public’s spontaneous reactions to and interactions with the truck become an integral part of the work itself. Moving Truck is a multifaceted project occurring in several platforms, each of which contributes to the cumulative life of the piece.
The first platform, a commission for the 9th Kunstenfestival des Arts in Brussels, took place in the Belgian capital from April 30 to May 2, 2009. During the festival, Dias & Riedweg projected their single-channel video Throw (2004) onto a moving truck and documented the public interactions generated by this screening. The results of that project were presented at the Americas Society on May 12th, 2009 onto a moving truck in front of the building. The footage obtained from this screening was edited with footage obtained in Brussels to create the second platform of this piece, on view currently at the Americas Society’s art gallery until August 1st 2009.
A third platform of Moving Truck, presented collaboratively by the Americas Society and El Museo del Barrio, will take place on June 9, 2009, as part of the Museum Mile Festival. Documentations of the previous manifestations of the project in Brussels and New York will also be edited into this footage. The resulting video will assemble all the richly variegated layers of this complex work: footage taken at each public presentation of Throw; the artists’ documentation of the process; and live web transmissions from Rio de Janeiro. Moving Truck thus operates as an image inside another, inside another—evolving and taking on different forms until the initial image is barely visible any longer.
This public program is presented in collaboration with the Education Department of El Museo del Barrio and in conjunction with the exhibition Dias & Riedweg …and it becomes something else on view at the Americas Society gallery until Saturday, August 1st.
This is the first solo U.S. exhibition by Mauricio Dias and Walter Riedweg, a duo of Brazilian/Swiss internationally recognized artists based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Curated by Gabriela Rangel, the exhibition features five video and installation projects that examine the dichotomy between the private and the public spheres in different contexts. Dias & Riedwegs’s practice tackles social political issues through a poetic fusion of video, ethnography, and performance art, opening up new lines of thought about human interaction and identity across borders.
Americas Society gratefully acknowledges the following donors for their generous support of the exhibition Dias & Riedweg …and it becomes something else, and accompanying public programs: Rockefeller Brothers Fund; Pro Helvetia Swiss Arts Council; Consulate General of Brazil in New York; and Consulate General of Switzerland in New York. These programs are also made possible in part with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
All our cultural programs are free, open to the public, and take place at Americas Society, unless noted. We are located at 680 Park Avenue at 68th Street in New York City. To arrive by public transportation, take the 6 train to 68th Street / Hunter College.
Gallery hours are Wednesdays to Saturdays from 12 pm to 6 pm.
