Pasajes I
2012 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
12:30 minutes
Sebastián Díaz Morales
Pasajes I is the first in a series of Sebastián Díaz Morales’s four videos Pasajes , which focuses on a solitary man walking through Buenos Aires. He walks through churches, shops, and libraries—accessing completely different interior spaces simply by going through doors. The seamless editing allows the man to transcend locations: after he enters a house from a busy intersection he emerges in the halls of a school. Through our guide we catch glimpses of the city, making the video an intriguing tour of the Argentine capital. We experience different lives, wealth, and employment. Never stopping to take in his surroundings, or to question where he’s going, he keeps on walking relentlessly—a possible allegory for man’s continued searching and struggle for something better and something more. It enforces an idea of progress, never sleeping, and the quest to always move on. The smart officious clacking of shoes of our guide recalls a businessman, flowing around the city, unable to leave. When this film was made, Argentina had imposed controls on movements in their territorial waters in order to block foreign companies drilling for oil, and was experiencing a period of economic growth before a period of harsh austerity. In Pasajes I we experience a complete freedom of movement, to all facets of society. Prosperous locations are accessed via underprivileged ones, and vice-versa. Díaz Morales flattens out these rudimentary distinctions, the city is an ecosystem where everything is symbiotic.
Raised in an isolated location between the Atlantic Ocean and the Patagonian Desert, Sebastián Díaz Morales believes his upbringing led him to a very particular way of perceiving the world around him. Using different filmic techniques, from narrative film-like works to found-footage, he explores the relationship between large-scale socio-political power dynamics and individual objectives. His films are often surreal, include no dialogue, and create a tension between reality, fiction, and representation in a visually abstract way. Morales’s films and videos are oftentimes surreal where social reality is reflected in a form that is visually abstract and fantasy-based. Most of his works study the relationships between a large-scale socio-political power and the actions of individuals; they reflect the interactions between people and their environment and social structures. The methods that Morales uses are twofold – in his works he uses both prepared scripts and the uncertainties of real life. His camera is focused on capturing documentary material, but he also uses footage that is experimental and that comes from the realms of science fiction.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » LENS CULTURE
Reunion — Hand-Embroidered School Class Portraits - Photographs and text by Diane Meyer | LensCulture Feature Reunion — Hand-Embroidered School Class Portraits By obscuring the faces with embroidery — which would typically be the most important parts of these elementary school class portraits — otherwise overlooked details are brought into focus, such as body language and other embodiments of social convention...
© » ARTNEWS ARTISTS
The Defining Artworks of 2023 – ARTnews.com Skip to main content By The Editors of ARTnews Plus Icon The Editors of ARTnews View All December 18, 2023 2:20pm Photo Illustration: Kat Brown/ARTnews Each year, countless new artworks are made and historical ones come into sharper focus as events in the art world and beyond give them new valance...
© » KQED
With Sway's Blessing, SF Rapper Frak Is Ready to Level Up | KQED Skip to Nav Skip to Main Skip to Footer upper waypoint Arts & Culture With Sway's Blessing, SF Rapper Frak Is Ready to Level Up Nastia Voynovskaya Feb 9 Save Article Save Article Failed to save article Please try again Email Frak at Billy Goat Hill in San Francisco on Feb...
© » ARTNEWS RETROSPECTIVE
Howardena Pindell on the Exclusion of Black Artists in the 1980s – ARTnews.com Skip to main content By Alex Greenberger Plus Icon Alex Greenberger Senior Editor, ARTnews View All January 14, 2021 1:13pm ©ARTnews Over the past several years, museums and galleries have made concerted efforts to show work by Black artists, responding to growing calls for equity...
© » KADIST
Nicolás Grum
2014El gran pacto de Chile (The Great Pact) and La balserita de Puerto Gala (The Raft) were part of the “Museo Futuro”, an exhibition in which the artist presented nine miniature dioramas staging fragments of Chile’s history, from its colonial invasions to the present...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Book Review: "The State and The Arts in Singapore: Policies and Institutions" | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles Images courtesy of Institute of Policy Studies, Singapore April 9, 2019 By Chin Ailin (734 words, four-minute read) Commissioned by the Institute of Policy Studies of Singapore (IPS) to trace the course of cultural policy in Singapore from the 1950s to the present, The State and the Arts in Singapore: Policies and Institutions is a comprehensive tome that should serve as an essential text in time to come for any student’s introduction to Singapore’s arts and cultural policies...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Air Con: Who Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up? | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints October 8, 2021 By Dhinesha Karthigesu (1,330 words, 5-minute read) Who do you want to be when you grow up? At the end of the play AIR CON , the character William (Nick Davis) asks the character Asif (Ryan Lee Bhaskaran) this question...
© » KADIST
Joaquín Segura
2016Pyre , an installation by Mexico City-based artist Joaquín Segura, addresses corruption, impunity, and the role that failed governments play in the normalization of violence...
© » KADIST
John Lucas and Claudia Rankine
2018Historically, blondeness has been a signifier for desirability and beauty, speaking to “purity” — the purity of whiteness — like no other bodily attribute except, perhaps, blue eyes...
© » SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara on his art’s meaning, and chasing the ‘carefree freedom’ of childhood | South China Morning Post Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara on his art’s meaning, and chasing the ‘carefree freedom’ of childhood Art Yoshitomo Nara, one of Japan’s leading contemporary artists, talks about his influences, from punk rock to Kraftwerk, and what drives him – it isn’t money Kate Whitehead + FOLLOW Published: 7:15am, 29 Jan, 2024 Why you can trust SCMP I am from Aomori, in the north of Japan’s main island of Honshu...
© » KADIST
Claudia Joskowicz
2007The 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...