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September 11, 1973 (Coke)
Photos, 1974/1982
Alfredo Jaar’s work addresses the politics of memory and representation in the media, often confronting the challenges of depicting historical events too immense to be represented by photography or traditional forms of representation. In September 11, 1973 the artist takes the Coca Cola calendar and transforms all the dates after the coup d’etat to the number 11. Through this simple act the historical reverberations of that event are made clear while also underscoring the collusion of the United States through the multi-faceted collaboration of the State Department, U.S. corporations and the military in both Chile and the United States, whether covertly with arms or through the various means utilized by the CIA and Operation Condor.
BE AFRAID OF THE ENORMITY OF THE POSSIBLE
Neon, 2015
The title comes from Emil Cioran’s A Short History of Decay, published in 1949. Written in the dark shadow of the atrocities of World War II, the Romanian philosopher’s work is a reflection on how to make sense of a world in which the unthinkable has occurred. Cioran writes,
…we are afraid of the enormity of the possible, not being prepared for a revelation so huge and so sudden, for that dangerous benefit to which we aspired and before which we retreat… if there are no limits to inspiration and to our whims, how avoid ruin in the intoxication of so much power?
Created over sixty years after the original text, Jaar’s work brings this warning to a different world, but one in which the possible is still equally fraught.
Alfredo Jaar is an artist, architect, and filmmaker who lives and works in New York. His work has been shown extensively around the world. He has participated in the Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007, 2009, 2013), Sao Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010, 2021) as well as Documenta in Kassel (1987, 2002).
Important individual exhibitions include The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1992); Whitechapel, London (1992); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1994); The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1995) and The Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome (2005). Major recent surveys of his work have taken place at Musée des Beaux Arts, Lausanne (2007); Hangar Bicocca, Milan (2008); Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlinische Galerie and Neue Gesellschaft fur bildende Kunst e.V., Berlin (2012); Rencontres d’Arles (2013); KIASMA, Helsinki (2014); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK (2017) and SESC Pompeia, Sao Paulo (2021).
The artist has realized more than seventy public interventions around the world. Over sixty monographic publications have been published about his work. He became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a MacArthur Fellow in 2000. He received the Hiroshima Art Prize in 2018 and the Hasselblad Award in 2020.
His work can be found in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum, New York; Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; MOCA and LACMA, Los Angeles; MASP, Museu de Arte de São Paulo; TATE, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Centro Reina Sofia, Madrid; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; MAXXI and MACRO, Rome; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlaebeck; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art and Tokushima Modern Art Museum, Japan; M+, Hong Kong; and dozens of institutions and private collections worldwide.
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