Biennial of the End of the World

The exhibition website starts with: "Ethics is the true axis of the gathering that will attempt to link Art and Politics with Poetry, Ecology and Technology." For the first time, I love getting old. In my mind, I join these artists at the southern most city on the planet at the end of nowhere - Patagonia. Although I might be disappointed if I hopped on an airplane for Ushuaia, Argentina, I believe that I know this artistic spirit. A spirit to live directly in the true physical and political world and enjoy for a few days the company of fellow artists making new stuff.

I feel my younger days through these artists seeking new ways to make connections: intellectual, physical and social. They repeat projects that I have seen before and yet I am glad, not disappointed. I think I just stepped past middle age.

Most of the work in the Bienal del Fin del Mundo I don't understand since I don't read Spanish and don't know much about the conversation among artists in Argentina, Brazil and other parts of Latin America. Here are the links to explore.

Aesthetic Grounds Photo Compilation
Official Website of Bienal del Fin del Mundo
Website of Proposals for the Exhibition
Good Straight News Story in English

Three Artist Project Sites
Fred Forest
Studio Orta
Joaquín Fargas

My spirit is attracted to Ushuaia because public arts of my professional life have changed. Everyday, a new sculpture garden or temporary outdoor sculpture exhibition is announced in the most liberal and most conservative cities in the USA. Murals blossom across Los Angeles, Philadelphia and Lake Placid, Florida. Benches and shelters and lobbies and parking garages have corners or floors or facades for public art in 500 local and state governments.

Except for the old murals, these new civic artworks fail to address people about much of anything. They don't start from a position of speaking - and even less so - yelling. No challenge and more importantly, no invitation, is made.

Studio Orta

The artists of Ushuaia do talk to you. Their works are yelling or crying for common failures of human beings. Through the artwork, I can feel the failure and thing lost by the failure. Some artworks demonstrate the possibility of response - together.

The melting of polar ice is the primary physical proof of global warming - the most significant technological and political human failure ever. Ushuaia is the base camp of southern disaster and the artists have traveled many expensive miles to talk about it.

Blowing fabrics of bright colors dramatize the cold wind and barren landscape. Tents gather on the ice from all nations describing unified global action based in unified experience of the ice. Oars raise the furniture above the floodwaters and a wooden fish weir is preposition a few feet above current sea levels. A metal sunflower is required to record the climate change that might mutate real sunflowers. And my favorite, ice cream cones melt on the ground - a small luxury with high-energy cost that we won't give up. We don't even want to think about giving it up.

Virtually, enjoy the work and the sharp cold of Ushuaia. Enjoy your contemplation regarding this work and the work that is being spread across the planet in public plazas. And regret the fact that I am too afraid to pick-up my copies of Lucy Lippard's writing to find out how much all of this has been said before and better.

BGL Canadá, Escultura con Leche