The Alamar (Asea) installation shows us two sculptural forms (referring to moons or cells) suspended in the air on which a video is projected. These sculptures with spherical shapes are made of expanded polystyrene and on them you can see images of two swimmers. The first image is of a man diving into the Pacific Ocean bathing the Nicaraguan coast and the second is the artist herself floating in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean on the northern coast of the United States. The circumference of each sculpture measures approximately 61 cm. (24 ”) and the video loop lasts 6:30 min.

The Alamar installation that is presented in the Políglota room is an intense visual and sound experience in which the artist raises recurring problems in her works: through a post-human, sexless body that tells us about the lost paradise of nature and of identity, while it warns us of the coming of a new era in which men, instead of transforming the world, will be able to transform their own being.

Objetivos Móviles/Moving Targets-Buenos Aires was a co-curatorial project co-organized by the artist John Hitchcock (Director of the Printmaking Department and Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) and the artist Alicia Candiani (Projecto´ace Director) framed in the residence that Hitchcock made with us from February 15th to March the 6th, 2008.

With the institutional support of the Ministry of Culture of the Municipality of Buenos Aires and Metrovías company partnership, Objetivos Móviles/Moving Targets-Buenos Aires results in an urban artistic action involving Colegiales neighborhood and displayed on the Metrovias Trains System in Argentina on Friday February 29, 2008 (a unique day in a leap-year!). The print action took place between the Federico Lacroze Station in the City of Buenos Aires and Fernández Moreno Station in Buenos Aires Province of the railroad Gral. Urquiza. These two stations united Proyecto’ace in Colegiales, Buenos Aires City and Centro de Edición. Directed by Natalia Giachetta, this is a litho workshop and gallery located in Saénz Peña, Buenos Aires Province. A group of 25 Argentine artists lead by John Hitchcock and Alicia Candiani, carried large banner prints through the train cart system. Each banner had several images of North America, South America and Caribbean artists’ works. 50 young up and coming artists (25 from South America and 25 from North America) and 50 established artists were invited to participate.

The banners, as large flags, were exhibited in two spaces in Argentina: the Proyecto’ace Studios and the platforms of the General Urquiza Train in front of Centro de Edición in Buenos Aires Province. Later they were exhibited in Pyramid Atlantic Art Center´s Main and Kunst Vault galleries from August 1 – October 3, 2009 in the United States.

ABOUT MOVING TARGETS INTERNATIONAL PROJECT

As a concept, Moving Targets involves presenting the print medium in a specific and meaningful way. It ties to the rich tradition that printmaking serves as a vehicle for expression of discontent and critique.

As an international print project reflecting social concerns moving via public transportation across borders, it aims to address on how public transport can become a means of cultural dissemination while emphasizing the historical tradition of graphics as a democratic vehicle for the communication of ideas.

The first action-exhibition was originally presented as Cultural Transport / Moving Target on a train between Berlin (Germany) and Poznan (Poland), co-organized by Keith Christensen and John Hitchcock within the framework of IMPACT IV in Germany.  The title Moving Targets, expresses the difficulty in stopping something (shooting down–in military terms) that exists when trying to stop something or destroy it when it is in movement. The project uses trains, means of public transport, to disseminate cultural actions, thus the vehicle is literally the means of expression. Under the metaphor of what is in motion cannot be shot down, actions have been planned on the trains with printed works, also referring to the capacity of prints as agents that promotes reflection and change.

Emerging Argentine artists participating in the performatic action |Buenos Aires Daniela Karol, Magdalena Arnaud, Lucía Miranda, María Julieta Arnaut, Félix Torrez, Carolina Sosa, Josefina Zuain, Federico Signorelli, Juan Natch, Sofía Quirno, Fernanda Castelo, Valeria Zamparolo, Ignacio Luis Ravazzoli, Nicolás Monti, Isabel Gruppo | Córdoba Sergio David Alvarez, Gisele Rodriguez Polich, Maximiliano de los Ríos, Lucia Mendez, Ana Belen Saldias Lopez, Mariana Pavan, Iván Vianello, Micaela Damico Bossio | Santa Fé Javier Cazenave | Tucumán Martín De Negro.

On October 18th at 3 pm. Patricia Villalobos Echeverría joined us via video-talk as part of the activities programmed for the International Project 150 [cycles]. The video-talk focused on expanded sculpture and printmaking practices. The artist was born in Tennessee to Salvadoran parents and grew up in Managua, Nicaragua. She has a hybrid practice of prints, photos, videos and installations that explore how reproducible forms of representation can alter our notions of singularity and the various states of flux that we enter: some physical, others virtual.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is a hybrid practice of prints, photos, videos, multiples and installations. I am primarily interested in how reproducible forms of representation can alter our notions of singularity. My installations play with the tension between the three-dimensional physicality of sculpture and architecture as well as the ephemeral nature of video and sound. I am interested in the nature of power and relationships of dependence; I examine these through the use of sculptural forms as contaminants within architectural spaces as well as videos dealing with the body in a transnational political context.   In this way my work questions our sense of stability; I am intrigued by how time can seem to be suspended as we enter and exit spaces in a state of flux – some geographical, others virtual, pointing to a concurrent state of dissolution (dissociation) and hyper-embodiment.

-PATRICIA VILLALOBOS ECHEVERRIA