Of Bridges & Borders: From Real to Surreal

Of Bridges & Borders is a cross-border multidisciplinary cultural project originating from a publication that brought together artists, musicians, architects and thinkers from 17 countries. It consists of a set of contributions that materializes in exhibitions, urban interventions, concerts and conferences, with formats that vary between installation, video art, cinema, architecture, music and performances. Through five chapters developed during 2011 Of Bridges & Borders seeks to provoke new forms of reading by proximity, difference, comparison and contradiction in the cultural sphere of the City of Buenos Aires "From the Real to the Surreal", the last phase of this project curated by Segismundo Vajay, is carried out at the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires. It presents for the first time in Latin America four international visual artists: Yuan Shun (China), Carsten Nicolai (Germany), Liam Gillick (UK) and Hans Op de Beeck (Belgium). His works have been produced specifically for the MAMBA space. The exhibition addresses the theme of bridges and borders between illusions, fictions or realities. Questioning both the real and the surreal, images occupy a priority place, without neglecting narration and perceptions, as in the case of sound. The selection of artists aimed to bring together those creators who work minimalist aesthetics with simple and powerful works. About the Of Bridges & Borders project

Of Bridges & Borders is a cross-border multidisciplinary cultural project that was born from a book produced and co-edited by a Swiss and a Spanish association in October 2009. Through this publication, artists, musicians, architects and thinkers from 17 countries came together to present a wide range of artistic positions and visions.

Of Bridges & Borders is, thus, a set of contributions that reaches its material realization in exhibitions, urban interventions, concerts and conferences, with formats that vary between installation, video art, cinema, architecture, music and performances. Through five chapters developed during 2011 Of Bridges & Borders seeks to provoke new forms of reading by proximity, difference, comparison and contradiction in the cultural sphere of the City of Buenos Aires Chapter I. An exhibition at Fundación PROA in the month of January constituted By works by eight international visual artists, he started Of Bridges & Borders in Buenos Aires. The textures and formats that each artist used in this project were universal, achieving a visual journey that ranged from minimalism to chaotic art with content and themes addressed from a formal, political or aesthetic point of view. Chapter II. “Beautiful Bridge, # 1”, was the intervention of the Swiss artists Lang / Baumann under the bridge of the Faculty of Law on Av. Figueroa Alcorta. Chapter III. “Fronteras en Mutación” took place at the CCEBA at its headquarters in San Telmo (ex Padelai) and in Paraná, with an international exhibition that brought together a selection of 16 outstanding national and international artists who created specific site projects.

From various backgrounds and generations, these artists combined different visions and vocabularies to tackle a theme that has become increasingly important in recent years: globality.

This third stage focused his attention on the morphology of the borders, not only from a geographical point of view, but also from a poetic and aesthetic perspective. He offered the Buenos Aires public the experience of a world in permanent connection, in which the borders have become both virtual and political, invisible but latent. Through a multidisciplinary approach, the visitor had access both to intangible fragments of his daily life in the contemporary world, and to the possibility of lending himself to new universes, which have a strange correlation with the current one. Chapters IV. & V. Of Bridges & Borders, “Rain of spiders over the Creek” and “From the Real to the Surreal”, are two high-level events with the presentation of 6 international artists, a sound collective and a Buenos Aires visual artist. An ambitious project in dialogue with various places in the city, San Telmo, Villa 31, the surroundings of La Boca, the Riachuelo, and the urban ecosystem. The events are made up of an exhibition at the MAMBA that will open on November 10 and will be open until mid-March 2012 and a sound and light intervention that will take place on November 12 within the framework of the Night of the museums, involving 3 recitals performed by electronic musicians with classical musicians on the bridge and on a floating stage.