From the press release, 1989: The exhibition features three photographic installations by the Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar, along with one installation and three sculptures by the American Ronald Jones. Their works are displayed for the first time in Scandinavia at Magasin 3. Alfredo Jaar, who was born in 1956 in Chile and now lives in New York, refers to his art as "socio-critical installations" in which, using his nationality as a point of reference, he gives an account of the power relationships between the industrialised and the developing countries.
Underlying ideological mechanisms are also a topic examined by Ronald Jones, who was born in 1952 and now lives in Sweden. In his art, Jones works in exclusive materials and exquisite forms that invite a purely aesthetic consideration up to the point when the artist's chosen subject imposes itself upon the beholder. In this way, the artist employs a method that shows that no shapes are neutral, no view is impartial.
CONTENTS:
Foreword by Amy Simon and David Neuman, director Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall.
Interview: Alfredo Jaar by Dore Ashton, author and professor in art history, NYC (1988).
Interview: Ronald Jones by Jerry Saltz, author and art critic, NYC (1988).
Exhibition catalogue no 3.
36 pages, color, illustrated, soft cover. Texts in Swedish/English.
Published 1989 by Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall.
Price: 150 SEK (approx. 16 EUR)
Interview: Alfredo Jaar by Dore Ashton
Dore Ashton: Do you believe there is such a thing as a "Third World"? If so, is your work intended to speak for, or about, the so-called "Third World"?
Alfredo Jaar: The "Third World - does not exist, it is an ideological construction of the West. The original meaning has been completely distorted and world events have made it obsolete. I am very curious to know why Alfred Sauvy, who "invented" the term and who is still active, has not written something about this extraordinary saturation of contradictory meanings associated with his creation. What exist today are different countries in different stages of development, and in different areas of development; but, most importantly, we have to realize how unequal are the power relations between these different countries. And what my work does, or tries to do, is simply to account for this situation. Now, in answer to the second part of your question, my work speaks only for myself, I will never assume otherwise. That is probably one of the most important features of my work, that is a non-paternalistic approach. The work focuses in no world in particular but on this kind of void or widening gap between different societies.
DA: How would you characterize the relationship between a conventional conception of art and what you do?
AJ: I don't know what is a conventional conception of art today. I would characterize what I do simply as art. A more extensive definition would be that I create socio-critical installations, most of them photography based. My background as an architect and filmmaker is clearly at play in these works. I am interested in the notions of site-specificity (scale, context, time) and audience participation (physical involvement leading to mental involvement). Deleuze refers to these notions as l'image - mouvement and l'image - temps.
DA: I see in your work both elegance and passion. Do you aspire to make Òart" or to inform?
AJ: The elegance is part of the seduction process I use to induce audience participation. But I do not see why art and information have to be two contradictory "functions" On the contrary, I am interested in one feeding the other in a highly critical dialogue. My work is clearly informed by public events, they are the starting point of all my aesthetic investigations. And I guess the most passionate works are those when I have been personally involved in the documentation of these events. And that "information" aspect fascinates me: To go there, to see for yourself, to talk to people, investigate in-situ. After that real life contact, it is difficult not to be emotionally involved. (...)
Excerpt from the catalogue interview with Alfredo Jaar by Dore Ashton, Nov 15th, 1988, New York.
Works in the exhibition
ALFREDO JAAR
"No More", 1988. Two light boxes with black and white transparencies.
"Fading", 1988. Three light boxes with black and white transparencies.
"Reflections", 1988. Suspended light box with black and white transparency, nine glass pools, wood base.
RONALD JONES
"Untitled (Peace conference tables designed by North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam; and the United States and South Vietnam, 1969)", 1987. 7 American cherry wood tables.
"Untitled (Fallout shelters, Kumla Central Prison 1965, Kumla, Sweden)", 1988. French black marble.
"Untitled (DNA fragment from human chromosome 13 carrying mutant Rb genes also known as malignant onkogenes which tigger rapid cancer tumor: genesis)", 1988. Bronze, limestone, marble, wood.
"Untitled (New human immune deficiency virus particles bursting from a microvillus)", 1988. Bronze, limestone, wood.
