Structural Patterns

Mario de Vega presents a machine that drops coins equivalent to the minimum wage of the various states of Mexico.

As a conceptual premise, TRANSITIO seeks to question what is community, how is it constructed as a social concept and as physical reality. The museum Laboratorio Arte Alameda houses two curatorial projects Im_polis…(Place of Relation) curated by Ale de la Puente, Rogelio Sosa, Ivan Abreu and Karla Jasso and (dis)COOMmunities curated by Laboratorio 060 both are part of TRANSITIO. One other curatorial grouping Free Synthesis is primarily located at the Center of the Image. The three curatorial endeavors began nearly a year ago as Jose Luis Barrios lead a seminar that reconsidered the modes of art exhibition. As the seminar proceeded the participants formed curatorial groupings with varying perspectives and TRANSITIO began to take shape.

“Bright Future Ahead” (2006) by Jan Verbeek is a four-channel video installation in a white cube. The videos have been shot in Japan and present sequences that toggle between nature and saturated urban spaces.

The phrase “El Trabajo Embellece” (Labor Beautifies) by Jose Marti is superimposed upon the floor of the museum and a sander activated by museum visitors erases the phrase from the floor over time.  This is a work by the Mexican artist Gilberto Esparza.

“Moving” (2007) Raquel Kogan is a black cube video installation. The video projected onto one wall follows an open air moving truck, filled with home goods – mattresses, a television, other furniture and at the very rear of the truck a mirror. The truck drives through the streets of Sao Paolo. A few feet before the mirror is a spot light intended for the viewer to step into and when one does, the viewer’s image appears on the mirror.

Jaime Ruiz Otis has created a Zen Garden in a traditional manner, but with non-traditional materials. He built a rake to lay down the design on to shredded silicon that composes the ground of the zen garden. amongst the gray ground of silicon are partly burried televisions. The zen garden presents a reflection of the waste generated by today’s popular technologies.

Australian sound artist and sculptor Nigel Helyer (a.k.a. Dr Sonique) has created a visually stricking installation in which a series of structures holding crickets are located between two projections, one that shows a pixelated video of a professor lecturing on crickets and the second a visualization of the audio as 200 crickets listen to the lecture.  The installation is titled “Host” (2002).

Toni Mestrovic has created a hypnotizing video loop with surround sound. The video consists of three superimposed sequences of a man’s hands forming a stone that will be part of his home. The three video sequences have a slight time difference to create a layered effect, but for a moment, all three sequences converge to create one single video image. The hands belong to Toni’s father who is currently reconstructing his childhood home. It is a stone home built in an ancient manner, without mortar or cement. Each stone is shaped by his hands to be placed as part of the structure. The sound is not clearly defined, but it suggests the sound of the hands against the rock as it moves throughout the side naive’s interior.

The designer and architect Jorge Perez designed an inflatable structure to serve as a hub for the various curated projects of (dis)COMmunities, since many of the projects are occurring on the street or between locations. The hub is also serving as a temporary meeting place for various organizations.

Other works include a beautifully shot video of a businessman with a briefcase riding a bull and eventually loosing all his documents as the briefcase flies open by Gonzalo Lebrija.  A sound installation titled “The Sound of Mercado Libre” by Ubermorgen.com.  A gorgeous video that only presents information – adds, billboards, icons, street signals in the streets of a European city, all else is black.  The work is titled “Kapitaal” by Studio Smack.