Alfredo Jaar
17 April - 05 June 2011
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ALFREDO JAAR
The Marx Lounge
17 April - 5 June, 2011
For The Marx Lounge by Alfredo Jaar, the Stedelijk Museum Bureau
Amsterdam has been transformed into a reading room with comfortable
sofas, reading lamps and a large reading table. The reading table offers
a myriad of publications with topics spanning Marxist theory,
capitalism, neo-liberalism, post-colonialism, globalization, cultural
theory, politics and philosophy. The exhibition is an invitation to the
viewer to sit back and become immersed in this wealth of knowledge. The
Marx Lounge takes place in the framework of Project ‘1975’ of Bureau
Amsterdam.
With The Marx Lounge, artist, architect and filmmaker Alfredo Jaar
closes in on the role played by ubiquitous market forces in defining the
current globalization process, including the legacy of abuses that it
engenders. Not only is Marx’ influential political thinking and critique
of capitalism represented in the exhibition; ample space is also given
to a substantial amount of more recent political-philosophical
publications. With a view to audiences in Amsterdam, the reading matter
includes a significant number of relevant publications by Dutch writers.
Visitors to the lounge designed by Jaar will succumb to the temptation
of this sweeping intellectual display.
Jaar: "I believe an intellectual revolution has been going on for the
past 20 or 30 years, but I also see an extraordinary gap between this
intellectual revolution and the real world… Is this gap a symptom of the
difficulty of apprehending this new knowledge, or is it in the
interests of the status quo to keep it the way it is? Besides hundreds
of books by and about Marx, you will find political theorists and
philosophers like Zizek, Hall, Rancière, Butler, Laclau, Mouffe,
Jameson, Bourdieu, Fanon etc. For me these writings offer us models of
thinking the world. And that is what I try do as an artist – I create
models of thinking. I view The Marx Lounge as a space of resistance, or
as David Harvey would call it, a space of hope”. (Art Monthly, January
2011).
The Marx Lounge is a direct response to the financial crisis and to the
fundamental questioning of the capitalist system it has elicited.
Although the deluge of literature in The Marx Lounge may seem
inaccessible at first, on further inspection the book covers with their
clearly legible titles crystallise into an explicit image: that of a
plea for more attention the (geo)political mores of today. The Marx
Lounge is a counterattack, the ‘art of counter information’ to use a
phrase of Georges Didi-Huberman, against the dominance of a capitalist
practice that has manifested itself in the guise of inequalities
worldwide. Jaar advances Marx as the logical basis, but simultaneously
leaps ahead to the post-‘70s decades – to the post-colonial era. And
again, it is resoundingly evident that the end of colonialism has done
little to address the pressing issues surrounding the current world
order.
The Marx Lounge premièred at the Liverpool Biennial late last year. For
SMBA, the installation has been adapted to the local Dutch situation
which is currently typified by a polarisation of the political
landscape. As a consequence, The Marx Lounge will also contain a
substantial amount of literature by Dutch thinkers, including Bosma,
Buruma, Heijne, Hirsi Ali, Leerssen, Scheffer and Schinkel. Their work
maps the local and political repercussions of global changes; changes
that also ultimately impact upon the visual arts and critical art theory
and prompt a re-evaluation of the role of art and art institutions in a
post-colonial society. This is also the aim of SMBA’s Project ‘1975’: a
reconsideration of the contemporary art institute in a post-colonial
context.
Integral to The Marx Lounge is an intensive programme of reading groups,
lectures, debates and artists’ presentations. The programme is
organised in collaboration with Amsterdam partners such as research
group Liberticide, the Internationale Socialisten, the University of
Amsterdam and others. The current programme can be found here.
Alfredo Jaar (Chile 1956) has participated in the biennales of Venice in
1986 and 2007, São Paulo (1987, 1989 and 2010) and in Documenta in 1987
and 2002, among others. In addition to the installation in SMBA, work
by the artist is currently included in the following exhibitions: ‘Ars
11’ in KIASMA, Helsinki (15 April - 27 November) and at the Sharjah
Biennale (16 March - 16 May). In 2012, a major retrospective of his work
will be exhibited in diverse venues throughout Berlin. During The Marx
Lounge in SMBA, Paul Andriesse Gallery in Amsterdam will present a small
selection of works by Jaar. Alfredo Jaar lives and works in New York.
www.smba.nl
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