Presentation 
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From January 22, Fundación Proa’ s exhibition program offers a look at the international art scene with the opening of Of Bridges & Borders, a curatorial experience organized around a book edited and curated by Sigismond de Vajay, which, in this occasion materializes as an exhibition.

The borders, the bridges, the imaginary lines that divide and organize states, races, cultures, and territories are coordinates, questioned by Of Bridges & Borders. The exhibition reunites a rigorously selected group of artists, invited to produced works for Proa, whom mainly work similar problematic on immigration, censorship and frontier. 

Of Bridges & Borders assumes diverse roads regarding the construction of the work, all of them concomitant with the means of contemporary artistic production. Thomas Hirschhorn sends by DHL his series of UR Collages, at the same time that a documentary on his work is being previewed. Jorge Macchi produces especially for the exhibition his piece Reacción. At the same time, the variety of productive means allows for some of the artists to come to Proa to finish off their work. Fabrice Gygi, Lang/Baumann, Josep-Maria Martín and Gianni Motti’ s presence channels different aspects of contemporary art: the theoretical role and the importance of the reflexive exercise through continuous dialogue with the audience as well as the direct and personal presentation of the works to the public. They come to Argentina for the first time and exhibit at Proa’ s galleries the result of their work creating dialogues between format and processes; installations, sculptures, performances, site-specific and multidisciplinary proposals, able to enrich “collective memory”, which, in words of Sigismond de Vajay, works as the main theme of the project.

Of Bridges & Borders organizes encounters, proposes interventions, produces concerts and imagines special projects, subject to revealing the instability, which, in contemporary work and given globalization, redefine the notion of limit and rethink the concepts of proximity.

El Primer paso en Argentina (First step in Argentina) that Italian artist Gianni Motti sealed as he arrived at Ezeiza airport in occasion of the exhibition, became a sort of introduction to the show itself. Famous for his far-reaching proposals, Motti imagined this gesture as a clear allusion to the bridge establish by modern estates between America and Europe.

The exhibition presents, for the first time in Argentina, Thomas Hirschhorn ‘s 118 Ur Collages. Imposing, Hirschhorn’s images seal a fierce and strict contrast. The projection of: Thomas Hirschhorn. Jours tranquilles au Musée Albinet, a documentary by Coraly Suard on the Albinet museum, completes the presence of the artist in the frame of the exhibition.

Fabrice Gygi’ s work, O_O, works with aspects of a society of control and social regulation on violence, crystallized in an object of sadomasochistic nature. 

The tragic exclusion and the impossibility of circulation motivate the work of Spanish artist Josep-Maria Martín: Una casa digestiva para un piso patera para lavapiés con Mouhamadou Bamba Diop (A digestive house for a house at lavapiés neighborhood, with Mouhamadou Bamba Diop) frames the first hand experience of a Senegalese immigrant in a red cube. The daily projection of Casa digestiva para un piso patera de Lavapiés at Proa’ a Auditorium completes his work.

Carlos Garaicoa conceived Welcome for the edition of the project: adversity, psychological damage and tedious bureaucratic work regarding “Green Card” issue.

John Bock’ s video-installation, Lusstorte, reaffirms in Buenos Aires his kinship with chaotic art. In his video, a room spins. The cake spins. And so does the artist, endlessly.

 en Buenos Aires su filiación al arte caótico. En su video, una habitación gira. Gira también una torta. Y gira el artista, interminablemente.

Lang/Baumann shifts their interest to architecture: “Beautiful Steps # 6”, a central stair limited but infinite, insufficient and impressive. Upwards and downwards; leading nowhere.

Jorge Macchi’s fence, Reacción, produced with blown-glass, combines forms of fear, both personal and imposed.

The limits can be crossed. Of Bridges & Borders tries a proximity and contrast capable of replacing greater concerns from a world undergoing a symbolic and political crisis.  

Of Bridges & Borders has the support of Swiss Embassy in Argentina, French Embassy in Argentina, Swiss Arts Council PROHELVETIA, Avina Stiftung, KBB, Toît du Monde and Tenaris. 

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Of Bridges & Borders, by Sigismond de Vajay
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Of Bridges & Borders is a cultural multidisciplinary cross-border project, originated with a book edited and produced in October 2009, which reunites and reveals the stand and view point of musicians, architects and intellectuals from 17 different countries.

Of Bridges & Borders is a group of contributions that materialized through exhibitions, urban interventions, concerts and conferences, with diverse formats including installation, video art, cinema, architecture, music and performances. Given these different forms, Of Bridges & Borders aims to provoke new ways of reading by proximity, difference and contradiction in a cultural background.   

At Fundación Proa, Of Bridges & Borders presents eight artists, whose works establish a dialogue. Using universal formats, the exhibition proposes a visual trail from minimalism to chaotic art, where content and subject matter are approached from a political and esthetical viewpoint.

International artists from the same generation offer different perspectives and languages to deal with the same topic: that of globalization of everyday life, an important matter in contemporary symbolic concerns. The project does not only draw evident bridges between the artists and their works, but also clearly establishes the borders of contemporary art trends, languages and conflicts.

Of Bridges… sets itself up as a productive process of works conceived specially for Fundación Proa’ s spaces and their geographical and socio-political context. The artists were invited to think their work in this spaces, and, in most cases, relate to the institution’s characteristics.
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Sigismond de Vajay was born in Paris (1972) and lives in both Barcelona and Buenos Aires from where he works as curator as well as artist on projects for institutions and cultural festivals in different countries.
www.intervals.org
www.ofbridgesandborders.com

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