In Un Hombre que Camina (A Man Walking) (2011-2014), the sense of rhythm and timing is overpowered by the colossal sense of timelessness of this peculiar place. Shot in Uyuni, Bolivia, the film depcits world’s largest salt flat, a site that sits in a mountainous region at over twelve thousand feet above sea level. Ramirez’s work is deeply invested in the loss of regional identity, and the anachronistic dress of his “modern-day shaman” in the film is meant to reconcile the historical and cultural gaps between tribal traditions of a specific time and place and the all-too-prevalent homogeneity brought on by advanced capitalism. His festive yet ominous ceremonial mask, by extension, functions as a relic of colonial resistance: made by native coal miners to ward off Spanish invaders, the mask signals a need both past and present to preserve rituals passed down through future generations and across cultural genealogies.
Enrique Ramirez’s highly politicized practice engages both personal recollections and gathered stories, questions notions of exile, displacement, loss of memory, and a changing sense of place. Growing up in Santiago, Chile, his father was a sail-maker and Ramirez’s process often returns to the sea to bolster his investigations of movement, discovery, and geo-politics. The artist describes art and filmmaking as methods to communicate the ways society moves in cycles, sometimes backward and sometimes forward, especially regarding issues of immigration, border politics, and national identity. His seductive films and installations are sites of contemplation and imagination in their depiction of boundless space and expansive landscapes.
These hand drawn maps are part of an ongoing series begun in 2008 in which Gupta asks ordinary people to sketch outlines of their home countries by memory...
The three monkeys in Don’t See, Don’t Hear, Don’t Speak are a recurring motif in Gupta’s work and refer to the Japanese pictorial maxim of the “three wise monkeys” in which Mizaru covers his eyes to “see no evil,” Kikazaru covers his ears to “hear no evil,” and Iwazaru covers his mouth to “speak no evil.” For the various performative and photographic works that continue this investigation and critique of the political environment, Gupta stages children and adults holding their own or each other’s eyes, mouths and ears...
For the past two decades, An-My Lê has used photography to examine her personal history and the legacies of US military power, probing the tension between experience and storytelling....
In this photographic series, Yto Barrada was interested in the logos of the buses that travel between North Africa and Europe...
The threshold in contemporary Pakistan between the security of private life and the increasingly violent and unpredictable public sphere is represented in Abidi’s 2009 series Karachi ...
The central point of Vanishing Point is the most direct physiological reaction of the body to the environment...
Martinez’s sculpture A meditation on the possibility… of romantic love or where you goin’ with that gun in your hand , Bobby Seale and Huey Newton discuss the relationship between expressionism and social reality in Hitler’s painting depicts the legendary Black Panther leaders Huey P...
A mesmerizing experience of a vaguely familiar yet remote world, History of Chemistry I follows a group of men as they wander from somewhere beyond the edge of the sea through a vast landscape to an abandoned steel factory...
The primary interest in the trilogy is Joskowicz’s use of cinematic space, with long tracking shots that portray resistance to habitual viewing experiences of film and television...
Re: Looking marks a new phase in Wong’s work which connects his region’s history with other parts of the world...
Thomas’ lenticular text-based works require viewers to shift positions as they view them in order to fully absorb their content...
South Africa Righteous Space by Hank Willis Thomas is concerned with history and identity, with the way race and ‘blackness’ has not only been informed but deliberately shaped and constructed by various forces – first through colonialism and slavery, and more recently through mass media and advertising – and reminds us of the financial and economic stakes that have always been involved in representations of race....
Days of Our Lives: Reading is from a series of work was created for the 10th Biennale de Lyon by the artist...
Created for the tenth Lyon Bienniale, in Days of Our Lives: Playing for Dying Mother, Wong’s ongoing negotiation of postcolonial globalization takes aim at French society...
The threshold in contemporary Pakistan between the security of private life and the increasingly violent and unpredictable public sphere is represented in Abidi’s 2009 series Karachi ...
In Untitled (Sword) , addressing histories of colonialism with abstraction, a large steel blade extends from the gallery wall...
The photograph Exquisite Eco Living is part of a larger series titled Executive Properties in which he digitally manipulated the images to insert iconic buildings of Kuala Lumpur in the view of derelict spaces also found in the city...
The image of rusted nails, nuts and bolts as shrapnel sandwiched between a fried Chicken burger highlights the contrast between decadence and destruction...