Comentários de Joesér Alvarez

 

*It has already been a month that I am in Spain / Seville. Leaving Seville I come to Madrid to visit the biggest Europe contemporary art fair: ARCO.

*Before ARCO, I stop at the Telephonic's Cultural Space to watch a Cubist expo: several names of theat period, mainly Juan Gris. Rego Monteiro, more parisian than Brazilian also is there. It is one of my preferred.

*At the art / science space, interesting videos and instalations. I lose half hour trying to decipher the "Sphinx" by Dora Garcia, a game in Flash or
Director, I believe. After three hundred attempts, by the 40th question I give up, and the sphinx devours me. I shoot me in the abyss of the street.

*To arrive at ARCO by subway is not difficult. More difficult is to find the pavilions, because there is also a fashion fair in parallel.

*The entrance: 19 euros (student). A guard in the ratchet wants that I leave the backpack which I load, with him. I argument that it is not a backpack, but a purse. I come in. The line was great.

*I chose the left side to visit. The fair is a
market. There is everything there and for all kind of tastes. The prices are very democratic: they are all in the clouds.

*There are collectors everywhere. Students, art lovers, etc...and there are pretty women...no...pretty is little...very very pretty...very well dressed or hippies...it seems an European models parade...perhaps because of that fashion fair in parallel.

*simple conclusion...the women are the true work of art of the fair, blondes, brunettes, red-haired, sculptural bodies, tatoos here and there, and a kenzo perfume in the air...hmmm

* ARCO is a transgression fair...it is so much
transgression and nonsense that lets anyone bored...it is because I did not see neither half.

*Transgression, transgression... Arco is a
transgression and nonsense Fair. The quantity of
transgression seems to be related to the quantity of money. It has something wrong with the transgression...!?

*Safe by the new media: tired of so much visual variety, I meet again the Dora Garcia's "Sphinx", which also is online at:

(http://www.museoph.org/MuseoPatioHerreriano/).

In this version, the number of questions is smaller and, in two attempts I conclude the game. I leave her for the public's abyss.

*I begin to pay more attention to the video-art, I am really tired of canvas, sculptures and instalations...

*I find a refuge...it is the "black box", a more less 20X20m sector, done exclusively for the digital art ...each room has 3X4, and 2 or 3 places to
sat down, covered of black cloth, there we watch video-projections all time.

* There is much variety and many pieces for be seen, difficult is to find something captivating...even among video-projections. Highlight for the videos of Bigas Luna, who I already knew and one or another, here and there. Much nonsense as well.

*Highlight for Paco - street poet, a robot done with recycled material and one of the awarded in LIFE Contest 7.0 (http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/), done by a student of the Polytechnic University of Madrid. Paco moves through a wheel chair.

* Curious people enclosure PaCo the whole fair , because he shakes a box, it seems that he is asking for a coin, for each one that deposites a coin, PaCo recites a poem with his electronic voice. That poem is printed on paper imediately.

*I paid 0,5 cents of euro by mine, number 210.9982, which tells:

"el guiño es órfico
el entrañamiento es apático
al ánodo es antipalúdico
el ananá es alérgico."

*Very very funny. Also Very curious. I feel pity of seing that metallic being on his wheel chair asking a coin for a poem...

"PaCo" means: Poeta Automático Callejero
Online. Paco also has a site:

http://www.isys.dia.fi.upm.es/PaCo.

*I spent 6 hours inside the fair, and I did not see half of it. I will return Monday, the last day. I let Sunday for visit a new exhibition at the cultural space "Duque Conde" and at the Queen Sofia Museum.

*Hasta La vista ...

"the doubt is the last that dies (or not)"

joesér alvarez
http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/coletivomadeirista/

Isabel Saiji' s reponse:

I saw the pictures made by Joesér during the art fair. I noticed the confirmation of a (re)current trend: figurative painting.
Just something that does exist since centuries!
Photography shawn in art fairs is quite similar: mainly photos of people.

Joesér mentioned "transgression".
Recently news papers, magasines wrote very critical articles on the subject "contemporary art".
In the german "Der Spiegel" about an exhibition called "RAF" (a german group of terrorists in
the 70' and 80'):

"So is art. What you see is not what it is. That's why it has to be explained.
Shouldn't it be explained, it would probably not be art."

In the french "Marianne" about the theatre piece of Jan Fabre "The Crying body".
The article denounces the strategy of artists: provocation to be known.
Advantage of provocation is to avoid any discussion about the artwork itself.
Consequence for the artwork: there is no sense in it.