The Chilean artist alfredo jaar[Name], one of the big names at the current Venice Biennale, in which he is participating for the fifth time, returns to exhibit in Brazil after five years. The gallery Luisa Strina opening and exhibition The dark side of the moon The exhibition features 48 works created in the 1970s and 1980s, during the period of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile. The title references the iconic album *Dark Side of the Moon* by the English progressive rock band Pink Floyd, released months before the coup d'état in 1973, which became his musical obsession until he left the country.
The exhibition occupies Room 1 of the Luisa Strina Gallery and brings together works that take as their starting point the impact of the Chilean dictatorship on Jaar's career. More than just documenting the violence of the period, the works investigate the political, social, economic, and cultural transformations caused by the military regime, themes that permeate his production to this day.
Among the works presented are the series September 11, 1973, which emphasizes the date and time of the bombing of the La Moneda Palace, and Searching for Kissinger, composed of interventions on photographs and declassified documents that confront former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger about his role in orchestrating the coup.
The exhibition also features works from the Studies on Happiness series, in which Jaar reflects on the illusion of prosperity promised by the neoliberal model imposed during the dictatorship, including his urban interventions with the question "¿Es usted feliz?" (Are you happy?).
“Through the austere language of conceptual art and its uses of information, data, and appropriation, Alfredo Jaar’s early work is a sensitive and context-deeply rooted response to the cataclysm caused by the 1973 military coup,” states Edward A. Vazquez, who wrote the critical text for the exhibition and is the author of the book Alfredo Jaar: Studies on Happiness (Afterall/MIT Press, 2023). “This work remains essential for understanding the artist’s practice as a whole, while also offering a window into a pivotal historical moment whose resonance remains ever more present.”
