Alfredo Jaar://

Words Devour Words and They Leave You in the Clouds.

Memories of Underdevelopment {Jaar c.1990 / Homage Alea c.1968} ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Much of Alfredo Jaars work is due largely in part to culture and the conflict that surrounds it. Born in Santiago, Chile, 1956, Alfredo Jaar lived through a military coup dtat staged by General Pinochet who mobilized his military to rise against the presiding democratic commander and chief Salvador Allende. Having grown up in a strict authoritarian dictatorship, he later immigrated to America in 1982 to work for SITE an architecturally based firm. Now, Jaar continues to do his work out of his studio between New York, NY and Barcelona, Spain. With consideration for his past history, it is no surprise that the majority of his work is vastly influenced by war, globalization, and advocating political activism in both the first and third worlds. Alfredo Jaar is an artist, architect and filmmaker responsible for projects of or relating to multiple municipalities. Many of his works can be found here, there, and, everywhere in countries all over the world in places like the Venice biennale, So Paulo, Sydney, Istanbul, Kwangju, Johannesburg, and Seville as well as film documentaries and exhibitions in Kassel. Of all the works he has done, recently with in the last decade as well as in years past, the most contemporary and yet not necessarily the most prevalent also in no particular order of importance are as follows: Bunka No Hako, {Culture Box | Niigata, Japan | Jaar c.2000}; a pill-box museum. The Cloud, {Valle Del Matador-Tijuana-San DiegoMexico-USA Border | Jaar c.2000}; a performance he directed. The Skoghall Konsthall, {Skoghall, Sweden | Jaar c.2000}; another cultural event he staged. And as well as the Lament of the Images, {Gallerie Lelong | Jaar c.2002}; a gallery exhibit he developed. Among others he has had done are also: Hope, {Green point Stadium, Cape town, South Africa | Jaar c.2003}; a digital display he directed for the Nelson Mandela Foundation and MTVs staying alive event held there. And: Eslcalera al Cielo, {Stairway to Heaven | The Biennale of Architecture, Art and Landscape of the Canary Islands in Tenerife | Jaar c.2006}; an event that aims to raise the awareness of inequality in society. Also: RWANDA PROJECT, {Jaar c.1994-2000}; an on-going series of works cited in reference to the Rwandan genocide. Although most of his earlier work was primarily composed of photography, Jaar has since moved on into making installations as an extension to his repertoire. If we step back and look at his body of work as a whole we begin to see some heavily over-arching themes begin to emerge from his work. The most basic building blocks of his design are really very elemental with consideration for wind, water, earth, fire, light, etc. i.e. Eslcalera al Cielo, {Stairway to Heaven | The Biennale of Architecture, Art and Landscape of the Canary Islands in Tenerife | c.2006}. In another production: The Cloud {Valle Del Matador-Tijuana-San DiegoMexico-USA Border | c.2000}; a commemoration of illegal immigrants. And: Field, Road, Cloud, {c.1997}; a project about the Rwandan genocide. See also, Lament of the Images {Gallerie Lelong | c.2002}, The Sound of Silence, {Gallerie Lelong, New York, NY | c.2006}. However, for the sake of argument we are going to focus our concentration on The Cloud. Amidst a series of similar works involving clouds, how is it that each individual installation could possibly be considered site specific? In light of some particularly nebulous similarities between these themes collected from his condensed culture study around a central theme, does an air of site specificity permeate the atmosphere in situ at these locations or in these productions? And, is each concept site specific to its socio-political climate?

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 In his earliest work, featuring a cloud as a deceptively aesthetic subject matter, Field, Road, Cloud, (c.2000,) is a series of three consecutive images. Jaar employs the use of the so seemingly harmless image of a cloud. However, until further investigation on the viewers part, in the description below, the observer discovers that each image denotes an event that occurred at or near there, where the photograph was taken. It is not until after the initial introduction with the print and having read the description that they learn there was an act of genocide committed wherein each place some total of 500 bodies were found. A shocking realization ensues, in that genocide such as this could happen in locations with like kind of aspects, similar attributes and generally the same qualities. Field, Road and Cloud are part of a series of documentaries dedicated to his Rwanda. They are featured in his considerable body of work, Lament of Images. In a book titled, Alfredo Jaar Lament of the Images, by Debra Bricker Balken it is written, quote: I think that as artists we are very privileged, and we should use that privilege. [ ] I think in another life I would be a journalist. But look at the journalists today. Unfortunately they are eaten by the system and they have become in most cases, instruments of the government, a quote by its author, Alfredo Jaar. This series, Field, Road and Cloud, is essentially the epitome of all that is Jaar. It is by summaxion, a microcosm in Jaars defining work. Furthermore, the title Lament of the Images, is an apothegm presenting a larger body of work found here only in miniature, Field, Road and Cloud. It is representative of an overall feeling of despondence, distance and false sense of place we have when we observe a picture. As Jaar would say, [...] if the media and their images fill us with the illusion of presence, which later leaves us with a sense of absence, why not try the opposite? That is, offer an absence that could perhaps provoke a presence. Pictures have as much power to persuade as they do to dissuade, it all depends on the content, its perspective and how it is presented. Being an artist, Jaar has the uncanny ability to draw these correlations through seeing meaning and making them a part of this motif: Lament of the Images. Likewise, as with his production in the Biennale of Architecture, Art and Landscape of the Canary Islands at Tenerife in 2006, Jaar exhibits a particularly peculiar project in a space tank. In the afore mentioned project, Jaar constructs an installation with some of the main themes in, as in Yi-fu Twons description of Space & Place: The Perspective of Experience. In the above, Jaar pairs sensation and perception with interaction and perspective in a surreal environment. The physical architecture lends itself to Twons concept of mythical space and place; something sacred somewhere everybody can go to feel separate and alone or together and united. The interior of the space tank is similar in size and scope to Hadrians pantheon. Given that the projects aim and goal was to reveal inequalities in society, it seems appropriate. The scale model is in gross disproportion to the individual as well as the subject area it encompasses: iniquity. In much the same way as many of the Greek and Roman temples, in the Escalera al Cielo he creates an atmosphere fitting in comparison to the Pantheon to illustrate a point. One such that the individual is finite; a small inadequate spec in the ordered universe who plays a significant part in the grand designwhen in reality, we all live under the same sky, it is infinitely bigger than us. Although, it seems to be a utilitarian version of a modern day Greek or Roman temple devoid of any traditional such traditional architecture, it is not the space tank itself but what it contains. In it Jaar utilizes its mystic atmosphere. Complete with its concrete walls, steel girded columns and low hanging cloud, Jaar employs a series of separate sound stations positioned all around the circumference of the enclosed structure equipped with prerecorded audio. In theory, if each individual is only listening to their own devices, then how is one supposed to know what others are thinking? How is this supposed to bring about change? This too is representative of his lifes work of exposing a physical socio-cultural and economical disconnect we experience in every day life and how to bring it together.

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 However, unlike the projects we have previously discussed here, The Cloud c.(2000) is not a picture or a place but an event. At the border of the U.S. and Mexico, in Valle Del Matador Tijuana-San Diego Mexico, Jaar stages a performance at a crucial crossing point where many have had their lives lost in hopes of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. As a part of an ephemeral act Jaar directs some musicians to play a long song in remembrance of those who have passed on before them. At the same time during some climactic point in the presentation, a net of some 3,000 thousand white balloons were released in remembrance of the departed. The balloons were set adrift to the wind at the artist discretion as if they were souls they sailed away on the breeze. They were originally intended to cross the U.S.Mexico border in order to reach their final destination, that day the wind suddenly shifted and thousands of balloons, little white souls returned home to where they came from. Despite that the materials used are questionable because they do not come directly from the products or crafts of the indigenous people, it is not what they are but what they represent in this final act of liberation bringing closure into the lives of the relatives who may or may not have had the privilege to bury their dead. Perhaps it may be considered a sort of new genre public art of culture in action. It is not as though Jaar has communicated exclusively with his audience or otherwise his contributors, so much as it is he communicated through them using their cultural history and subtle broad and basic motifs experienced throughout life to convey a message. Although the cloud may take on a vague and general appearance throughout his body of work, the image of the cloud means the same thing to different people who view it. It is in some sense, universal and that anyone can relate with it no matter what their point of few or even their status in life. Like the ambiguous image of a cloud, Jaar is a creative conduit for expressing a simple truth that can really only be revealed in light of the circumstances within contents of the surrounding context. However, like the cloud, the truth is subject to change with the wind depending on the situation. In this way, Jaar is an interpreter; a maker of meaning. It is difficult.... to determine, whether Jaars work is Site Specific, Site Conditioned, or Site Determined. It is hard to say what category of site specific art, as interpreted by author Miwon Kwon, that Alfredo Jaars work might fall under such as: Public Art, Art in Public, or Art in the Public Interest. Perhaps not that but just a new kind of public art genre of culture and as Kwon would put it, (Un)sitings of community. It may be that it is not exactly any of these so much as it is a cultural movement, an ephemeral performance, and an experiential moment in time exclusive to the observer(s). Alfredo Jaars work is not Sited per se, inasmuch as it is based on sightings of the (un)sited; it can be applied broadly and all across the board the only difference is where for and what time. Jaars work provides an eclectic view to be recorded by the collective conscious via a moment in time as site. Moments can happen anywhere, but they can only occur when set into motion by some sequence of events that led up to it. If one can learn and understand the previous events, then, there is a time, a place, and a way to perform the moment and then it is gone. At that time, in that place an artist emerges for a reason to help others learn to achieve this understanding of the moment based in time. What then, are words to describe all this when there are actions to perform that provide learned meaning in the moment they happen to make art and understanding. After all, Word devour words and they leave you in the clouds.

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Works Cited://

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience by Yi-fu Tuan, University of Minnesota Press, c.1977 One Place After Another: Site Specific Art and Locational Identity by Miwon Kwon, MIT Press c.2004 Alfredo Jaar Lament of the Images By Debra Bricker Balken, Stinehour Press, c.1999. Alfredo Jaar by Madeleine Grynsztejn, Rush press, c. 1990

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