STOPOVER
Lia Menna Barreto, Fabiana de Barros & Michel Favre, Sylvie Blocher, Marcos Chaves, Helena Ignez & Fabio Delduque, Paola Junqueira, Jorge Macchi & David Oubiña, João Modé, Rivane Neuenschwander & Sergio Neuenschwander, Rivane Neuenschwander & Cao Guimarães, Nils Nova, Tomás Ochoa, João Onofre, Maria-Carmen Perlingeiro, Ana Roldán, Eduardo Srur, Julio Villani
February 18-April 30, 2006
Frt-Art, Kunsthalle Fribourg
Petites-Rames 22, CH 1701 Fribourg
Tel. 41(0)26 323 23 51
Fax 41(0)26 323 15 34
info [at] fri-art.ch
The exhibition Stopover is akin to Fiction ou réalité? (2003) and Shifting Worlds (2005), presented over the past years in the Centre dart contemporain in Fribourg. Stopover queries not only the notion of migration and movement; it also highlights the fact that identities are shaped by real life experiences, and that they change throughout life. Confronted with the three original questions: Where do we come from? Who are we? Where are we going? Every individual tirelessly attempts to identify and recompose the fragmented image of his or her own condition. The artists of Stopover all pass through this infinite scenery be it near or remote, composing and associating their vision with that of others. Their works reflect the difficulty of identifying with a homogeneous culture and launch a dialogue between breach and tradition.
Stopover itself is a migrant exhibition subject to constant metamorphoses. It expands and mutates depending on locations and contingencies. Entitled Espace urbain X Nature intrinsèque, it was organized in 2005 with Lia Menna Barreto, Fabiana de Barros, Michel Favre, Marcos Chaves, Joao Modé, Rivane Neuenschwander, Sergio Neuenschwander, Cao Guimarães, Maria-Carmen Perlingeiro and Eduardo Srur – for the Espace Topographie de lart in Paris by curator Evangelina Seiler, with Adon Peres as initiator and warrant of these migrant shows. Today it assumes a new form, grows and makes a stopover in Switzerland before bringing its travels to an end in São Paulo. Like the viewers strolling at will through the Fri-Art exhibition, it addresses the notions of transition and movement. However, the aim is to review, at close or distant range, the discovery of the Latin American continent, experimenting with a hybrid and anthropophagous culture in poetic and humane terms (like cultural mixity, the anthropophagist movement which developed in the 20th century as part of Brazilian modernism, calls for the deconstruction of foreign cultures by the assimilation of their ideas and values generating an original vision of the world).The exhibition also takes a sociopolitical approach via documentaries and the cinema. Artists and film makers interweave viewpoints from different cultures, exploring the wealth and diversity of a sharply expanding world. São Paulo, Mexico City or Buenos Aires these megalopolis bear witness to the fascination and urban brutality which the opulence of a globalizing world wishes to impose worldwide.
Has Latin America not always personified the promise of a new world, while laboring under its own tragedy, the destruction of ancient civilizations and vast expanses of land? Is not this dual and unfinished trajectory its very strength? And does it not offer us an imaginary, multi-facetted voyage in a world that is more than real? (For more information on the artists, please check our press release on our website www.fri-art.ch )
WITH THE SUPPORT OF: the Coriolis Promotion, the State of Fribourg (DICS), the Loterie Romande, the Federal Office of Culture, the Foundation Nestlé, Pro Helvetia
