MultipleCity. Art Panama 2003
20/03/2003 - 20/04/2003
Arte & Panamá Foundation (ARPA)
Radical International Urban Art Event
Image: Gustavo Araujo, Things are tough
Organized by the non-profit Art&Panama Foundation (ARPA),
MultipleCity.
Art&Panama 2003 launches as a challenging new international urban
art event. The event, co-curated by New Museum of Contemporary Art adjunct
curator Gerardo Mosquera and ARPA director Adrienne Samos, is timed with
the Republic of Panama’s 100th anniversary of independence.
During four
weeks of public programming, site-specific installations and
performances
by 14 leading international and local artists will debut at various
times,
provoking a Latin American metropolis full of contrast into a dialogue
that will have a lasting impact on the city and its inhabitants.
“MultipleCity is not conceived as a long interactive experience of
foreign
artists with the city and its communities but as a response to its
fragmentation, hybridization and rapidity,” says curator Gerardo
Mosquera.
“What we wanted is the artists’ reactions to the urban
environment of
Panama, both as passersby and natives.”
One of the most anticipated performances will be Cildo Meireles’
humorous
play with Panama’s great historical icon, the Panama Canal. On
April 19,
the Brazilian installation art pioneer will navigate
“Panamini”, a scale
model of the large Panamax ships that cross the canal, by remote
control,
beating the world record of the smallest ship ever to pass through the
canal.
Other highlights include Panamanian artist Brooke Alfaro’s video
projections of two opposing street gangs in one of the most dangerous
neighborhoods, featuring them singing the same song by popular local
musician Rookie. Mexico-based Francis Alÿs will provoke pedestrians
crossing a specific public site in the city into asking each other for
silence, thus forming a public “1 Minute of Silence”, while
local artist
Gustavo Araujo will invade empty billboards with the phrase “La
Cosa está
dura” (“Things are tough”), an ironic twist of a
common Panamanian idiom.
Cuban artist Yoan Capote inverts aesthetic as well as social values by
upholstering a dozen garbage containers in various parts of the city,
and
New York-based Ghada Amer will work with six painters to interpret
Chinese
proverbs on a billboard placed strategically in a different urban site,
where each proverb will act as a critical comment on the city’s
contradictions at that particular place.
MultipleCity. Art&Panama 2003 will be accompanied by a series of
lectures
and documented in a 15-minute video by American video artist Rich
Potter.
Later this year, a bilingual (Spanish/ English) catalog, edited by
Alberto
Gualde, Gerardo Mosquera and Adrienne Samos, will be published. The
300-page volume will not only document the event itself but also include
essays by diverse scholars and experts, to examine the complex dynamics
of
Panama City and assess the pressing urban problems of Latin
America’s
metropolises.
For more information, the complete list of works and an event
calendar,
please visit www.arte
panama.org/ciudadmultiple/english
Participating Artists
Brooke Alfaro
Born in Panama/ lives and works in Panama City
Francis Alÿs
Born in Belgium/ lives and works in Mexico City
Ghada Amer
Born in Egypt/ lives and works in New York City
Gustavo Araujo
Born in Panama/ lives and works in Panama City
Gustavo Artigas
Born in Mexico/ lives and works in Mexico City
artway of thinking (Stefania Mantovani/ Federica Thiene)
Born in Italy/ live and work in Venice
Yoan Capote
Born in Cuba/ lives and works in Havana
Cildo Meireles
Born in Brazil/ lives and works in Rio de Janeiro
Juan Andrés Milanés
Born in Cuba/ lives and works in Nueva Gerona
Rafael Ortega
Born in Mexico/ lives and works in Mexico City
Jesύs Palomino
Born in Spain/ lives and works in Seville
Humberto Vélez
Born in Panama/ lives and works in Manchester
Gu Xiong
Born in China/ lives and works in Vancouver
