Matilde Marín, Atlântico Sur (Atlántico Sur), at the exhibition Paisajes entre paisajes at the MFA - Museo Fueguino de Arte/Centro Cultural Yaganes

The second edition of BIENALSUR, which aims to expand to several cities around the world, will open in Argentina on May 19 and 20, specifically in two cities on the island of Tierra del Fuego, Ushuaia and Rio Grande. In addition to the exhibitions and other activities in the host cities, BIENALSUR will have simultaneously, in 20 countries, more than 100 exhibitions linked to the event, which included 400 artists from all over the world.

For Aníbal Jozami, director general of BIENALSUR and rector of the National University of Tres de Febrero (UNTREF), the choice of the province to host the inauguration is important because it is “in the South of the South”, which refers to something much more than a geographic reality. Diana Wechsler, curator and artistic-academic director of BIENALSUR, explains that the choice of Tierra del Fuego is deeply symbolic, “because it allows us to advance in the design of new possible artistic routes, reconfigure the existing cartography and point out new, unprecedented, simultaneous forms, borders , capable of expanding their own limits”.

On the first day of the opening, May 19, in Ushuaia, the exhibition art and territory, at the Museum of the Fin del Mundo. Among the artists participating in this video art collective is the Brazilian Anna Bella Geiger, in addition to the Canadian Kapwani Kiwanga and the German Harun Farocki. The works refer to ways of explaining what a territory is and also how to occupy one. At the same institution, the artist and biologist Paul La Padula shows his work The gaze that builds the world, “collage that tells an anachronistic story of nature”.

The artists Voluspa Jarpa (Chile), Magdalena Jitrik (Argentina), Christian Boltanski (France) and Mariana Telleria (Argentina) are part of an exhibition at Aeroclube Ushuaia, entitled Flags of the End of the World, in allusion to the nickname given to the city, “the city at the end of the world”, as it is located at the southern end of the globe. In this collective, the artists developed banners that accompany the project draw me a flag, formulated by Boltanski for the Cartier Foundation in Paris. According to the organization of the biennial, the creation of the installation will have the musical accompaniment of OIANT (Orquesta de instruments autoctonos y nuevas tecnologías de UNTREF).

On the 20th, in the city of Rio Grande, at the Museo Fueguino de Arte (Yaganes Cultural Center), there will be three exhibitions: two individual — The water that extinguished the fire, by Gustavo Groh, and Two, three, many, by Esteban Álvarez, both Argentines — and a press conference — Landscapes between landscapes. In the collective, made up only of works by women artists, three Brazilian women stand out: Berna Reale, Lia Chaia and Dora Longo Bahía, in addition to Carla Zaccagnini, an Argentine living in Brazil. Paisajes between paisaje shows “how the landscape is a topic that stimulated travel and fantasies; This has caught the attention of scientists, writers and visual artists throughout history, and it gives the possibility to capture the immensity of nature.”

It is the first time that activities related to BIENALSUR have taken place in Tierra del Fuego, reinforcing its mission to show and reflect on contemporary art, as they seek to demonstrate in public programs through lectures, workshops, projections, shared readings and other activities that may arise from the exchange between different subjects of the social and cultural space.

The next openings will take place in Tucumán, northwest of the Argentine Republic, on May 25; in Rosario on the 5th and 6th of June and in Córdoba on the 13th of June. In the Argentine capital, BIENALSUR should only arrive between the 22nd and 29th of June, when it reaches its peak, as it occupies important spaces in many of the most important institutions in Buenos Aires. Among the exhibitions in other locations around the world, the first openings will be in Switzerland, on the 8th and 9th. The BIENALSUR program continues until November.


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