PREVIEW: designations / curated by Gabriela Galati September-November 2008

     It is the intention of this exhibition to show the work of a group of artists that specifically deal with what can be called an artistic attitude of designation; being this an attitude which is influenced and related to a certain aspect of Conceptualism and Post Conceptualism.

     It is from this aspect that the artist chooses to develop, to indicate, to show things, to ensemble parts of reality, including, for instance, elements of nature, or already existing configurations in a city, on the streets, inside a house or a building, considering this attitude as an intrinsic part of the artistic production. More than producing ex nihilo, it is a choice, it is to underline existent situations that had not been considered as artistic before, that is to say, that had not been proposed as works of art until that moment. This aspect also has to do with the act of choosing, with which the artist considers the conscientious choice as a central part of the artistic practice, emphasizing its importance over authorship. The choice is the base of the operation generated by the ready-made; the one of saying that an object is art because the artist decides that it is. But not only: the artist also appropriates images from other artists, from the Web, from the past, from texts, from history. Thus, s/he chooses, puts in context and re-signifies already existing elements as a work.

Both ideas are laterally connected with Nicolas Bourriaud's concept of Postproduction (Bourriaud 2004). While for Bourriaud this idea has more to do with thinking about the artist as a DJ who mixes and operates with ready-made objects, the idea of designation is closer to showing than to mixing; therefore, precisely, to designate already given configurations. However, the point that both concepts share is the conception of the artist as a "surfer of the significant web", someone who proposes different paths to read the hypertext that contemporary culture is.

Artists

Thomas Brauer

Miguel Mitlag

Martin Gimenez

Guillermo Faivovich

Monika Sziladi