8 minutes
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. Video plays a role in the relation between the use of her locations and the stories of actual figures depicted as central in the frame. The meaning behind these historical icons such as Che and Cassidy, speak to their stories as itinerant figures whom traveled in a preglobalized era through borders and cultures in order to escape the law or overthrow it. The camera work, and the stylistic and formal devices such as tracking and establishing shots, create narrativistic voids that offer the transference of new political or social meanings.
Claudia Joskowicz is a video and installation artist working at the intersection of landscape, history, and memory. Her works form unsettling scenes that reimagine public and private histories of Latin American individuals and communities. Blurring the line between documentary and fiction, these works often involve violent images to bring traumas to the present, and to offer a moment of catharsis for the ones who were affected by these incidents in some way. In her works, Joskowicz intentionally gives a great amount of power and agency to the camera, reminding the viewer of their passive role in the construction of history. In this way, the artist critiques technology as a medium that easily manipulates one’s interpretation of history, controlling what gets to survive in the public collective memory. As Joskowicz’s camera wanders around the landscape, or focuses on one of the protagonists in her stories, the rest of the scene—and with it, other possible perspectives—fall into the dark, constructing yet another subjective historical narrative. It’s easy to focus on the slow movement of the camera more so than the actual event being recorded, which Joskowicz harnesses to remind her viewers that history is man-made. When texts or events are taken out of their context and technology is present to create an imaginary cinematic space, any narrative is possible.
Empire’s Borders II – Passage and Empire’s Borders II – Workers are from the three-channel film installation Empire’s Borders II – Western Enterprise, Inc...
Empire’s Borders II – Passage and Empire’s Borders II – Workers are from the three-channel film installation Empire’s Borders II – Western Enterprise, Inc...
Destilaciones ( Distillations , 2014) is an installation composed of a group of ceramic pots, presented on the floor and within a steel structure...
For I use to eat lemon meringue pie till I overloaded on my pancreas with sugar and passed out; It seemed to be a natural response to a society of abundance (1978), also known as the Bodybuilder series, Martinez asked male bodybuilding competitors to pose in whatever position felt “most natural.” They are obviously trained in presenting their ambitiously carved physiques, but their facial expressions seem comparatively unstudied...
Primero estaba el mar ( First Was the Sea , 2012) is a system of equivalences between syllables and silhouettes of waveforms cast in cement...
In Untitled (Sword) , addressing histories of colonialism with abstraction, a large steel blade extends from the gallery wall...
This photograph is part of the series titled “Iris Tingitana project” (2007) focusing on the disappearance of the iris...
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Made in cast bronze, Two Eyes Two Mouths provokes a strong sense of fleshiness as if manipulated by the hand of the artist pushing her fingers into wet clay or plaster to create gouges that represent eyes, mouths and the female reproductive organ...
Part of a larger series of photographic works, Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck’s Corrupted file from page 14 (V1) from the series La Vega, Plan Caracas No...
Milena Bonilla’s discursive practice explores connections among economics, territory, and politics through everyday interventions...
Re: Looking marks a new phase in Wong’s work which connects his region’s history with other parts of the world...
Defined as entropy, the second law of thermodynamics proposes that energy is more easily dispersed than it is concentrated...
Casa de la cabeza (2011) is a drawing of the words of the title, which translate literally into English as “house of the head.” Ortiz uses this humorous phrase to engage the idea of living in your head....
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...
Enrique Ramirez’s La Memoria Verde is a work of poetry, politics, and memory created in response to the curatorial statement for the 13th Havana Biennial in 2019, The Construction of the Possible ...