Choreographies of Salt
September 20–22, 2019
Faena Art is pleased to announce a new site-specific installation and performance by Argentine artist Osías Yanov (Buenos Aires, 1980), Coreografías de Sal (Choreographies of Salt), which will mark the first site-specific commission by an Argentine artist for the Faena Art Center Buenos Aires’ Sala Molinos–a space designed for monumental, immersive site-specific commissions by artists working across disciplines. The installation will be accompanied by immersive and participatory workshops and performances led by the artist.
Taking as their point of departure the concept of a fake archeological excavation of a fossilized mermaid on the shoreline of the Río de la Plata in Argentina, Yanov will transform the iconic marble floor of the exhibition space with sea salt to create a new territory for the hybrid and mythical body. From the false excavation, to the “news” of this finding which becomes viral through social media, to the recreation and deconstruction of a salt flat inside Faena Art Center, this work will be transformed by the bodies of participants and by the passage of time. The work will invite performers and the public to activate and transform it with their movements, encouraging participants and viewers to consider a bodily identity that concurrently envisions possibilities for the future and perpetuates mythology from the past.
Alan Faena said, “We have given Osías Yanov carte blanche to create a new project for the Faena Art Center’s Sala Molinos— providing them with a new platform for the development of a dream project that amplifies their practice and promising trajectory. Their work infuses disparate disciplines and different media with the same spirit that inspires the programming at Faena Art, which continuously seeks to transform, reinvent, and generate possibilities for new horizons.”
“In the context of excavations and discoveries, the skeleton can lead us to remember a dystopic past, and that is why I am using the mermaid’s bone structure as a narrative. It aids in the reconstruction of our history and enlightens our views for the future,” said Yanov. “In this installation, there will be an emphasis on performativity that stresses therapeutic and pedagogical processes. The performances and workshops open to the public will be the backbone of the finished work, which will, in turn, be guided through participants’ movements of improvisation and experimentation.”
Coreografías de Sal will build on Yanov’s exploration of the concept of otherness through corporeal movement, as well as decolonized and gestural narratives that activate the body’s ancestral memory and reimagine the codification of gender. The participatory workshops– based on methodologies developed by Yanov to open spaces to new embodied experiences—will organically transition to performances, blurring traditional “staging” formats and inviting the public to be part of the finished work. The project is at once participatory process, pedagogic exercise, therapeutic experience, and immersive performance.
This installation and performance are presented in collaboration with performers Florencia Carrizo, Melisa Chetto, Marta de la Gente, Martin Tchira, Meme Liebana, Julia Hadida, Alejo Petriz, Silvia Estrin and Bautista Viera.
Hours:
September 20, 2–9pm,
7pm Opening
September 21, 2–9pm,
4–8pm Workshops
7–9pm Performance
September 22, 2–9pm,
4–8pm Workshops
7–9pm Performance
Free and open to the public. More info
About Faena Art
Faena Art is a nonprofit organization that houses and produces post-disciplinary and time-based experiences. A catalyst for innovative, site-specific, and immersive creative practices, Faena Art is a transformative bridge across the Americas, between the south and the north, the popular and the experimental, activism and research. Faena Art fosters new models for performative social interaction that transcend the traditional boundaries of art, science, philosophy, and social practice.
