Venezuelan artists Ángela Bonadies and Mariana Rondón participate in the 2014 FAU Research Triennial: New World(s): The Reinvention of the Latin American City
JUNE 30 – JULY 4, 2014
Caracas, Venezuela
The School of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU) at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) and Backroom Caracas are delighted to announce two art projects: PROYECTO INVERSO, a workshop and art exhibition with visual artist Ángela Bonadies, and SUPERBLOQUE, a workshop and interactive video installation with filmmaker and visual artist Mariana Rondón. Both will take place during the 2014 FAU Research Triennial: New World(s): the Reinvention of the Latin American City.
In line with its quest to foster interchange through the artist residency program La Silla del Diablo, presents PROYECTO INVERSO by Venezuelan artist Ángela Bonadies. “The idea is to begin a series of architectural projects by working backwards, inversely: not to start with a vacant plot, plan or idea, but to use photographs of existing buildings that can be considered ‘exceptional,” says Bonadies. This research initiative dovetails with the Triennial’s theme: New World(s): The Reinvention of the Latin American City.
The artist, who studied architecture in the Faculty that will host her project, will present participants with a series of “exceptional” constructions she has been photographing over time. Participants will then choose one of the images in order to create “a project that intervenes in the photograph, to repair, deconstruct, or disarticulate it, according to the needs of the project. This process will transform each of these exceptional structures (a border fence, a modern house, a house in ruins, a dilapidated garage, an empty building) into a project or different possibility which will redeem the meaning of construction in its full sense, even if what is postulated is deconstruction or demolition.”
Following a period during which the artist will provide advice and support and a three-day workshop coordinated by architecture professor Viviana Mujica, with professor Fabio Capra, the participants will present their final projects in the Sala A of the FAU. The results will be exhibited from Wednesday July 2nd at 5:30 pm. The PROYECTO INVERSO exhibition will be open to visitors to the Triennial, university students and the general public until July 17.
SUPERBLOQUE by Mariana Rondón «is an interactive installation that posits a ludic meditation on social space and intimate space. The visitor enters a darkened room and is confronted with the projected image of a huge residential block in Caracas. Its 560 apartments have small balconies that create an infinite mosaic. The viewer uses a sheet of paper as a screen to hunt down details of the balconies in the projected image and also appropriates sound, which can be heard clearly, almost like a whispering of everyday conversations in the ears. The voyeur gives herself up to the secrets of the other. Solitude, silence, friendship, family, sex. The visitor decides what to see. She has “in her hands” the power to enter the other’s life through the intimate realms of the people who inhabit the block.»
SUPERBLOQUE «also reflects on these residential blocks, which are emblems of Latin American modernity – the utopian cities inherited from Le Corbusier.»
SUPERBLOQUE was produced during the filming of Mariana Rondón’s PELO MALO, winner of the «Concha de Oro» at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 2013. The first SUPERBLOQUE installation took place at the Sala Mendoza (September 2012) and then in the Centro Cultural Justiça Federal de Rio de Janeiro (April 2014). It is a work comprising paper, HD video, a mise-en-scene, documentary and sound installation. Mariana Rondón, through La Silla del Diablo residency program, is opening up her creative process to students and the general public who have an interest in rendering space through fiction and revisiting through film the University City created by the same architect who conceived the Super-bloques: Carlos Raúl Villanueva.
About the artists:
ÁNGELA BONADIES was born in Caracas, Venezuela. She is an artist who works with photography to interrogate memory and its relation with power, objects and their discursive possibilities when organized, as well as displaced people and spaces. Her most recent solo shows include «Días explosivos y el afinador de pianos» in la Galería La Plataforma, Barcelona, Spain (2014); «La Recámara – Diálogo con el archivo del fotógrafo Tito Caula, 1926-1978» in Galería TRESy3, Caracas, Venezuela and «La Torre de David» in La Sala Lugar de Arquitectura Contemporánea, Maracaibo, in 2013. Her recent group shows include «Global Activism,» ZKM (Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie), in Karlsruhe, Germany. Among her many recent international distinctions are the artist residency at Addaya Centre d’art Contemporani, August 2013 in Mallorca, Spain; the DomusWeb Best of Architecture 2011 for the project «La Torre de David,» the Best Architecture and Landscape Projects of 2011 in Polis magazine for the project «La Torre de David» and the Ayudas prize for creativity in 2008 for the project «Inventarios Ideológicos» awarded by Matadero de Madrid, Spain.
MARIANA RONDÓN was born in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. She studied film, animation and video art with William Wegman in Paris. In 1986, she enrolled in the first cohort at Cuba’s National Film School. As a visual artist, her installation «Y yo que la quise tanto» (2000) was awarded a Special Mention at the IV Salón Pirelli, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas. In 2002 «Te estoy buscando» and «Llegaste con la brisa,» the latter of which has evolved into different versions over the years until it became a complex project using robotics. Initially exhibited at the Exposición Colectiva de Arte Contemporáneo Venezolano Fragmento y Universo, Fundación Corp Group, Caracas, 2003; at the Musée Ranquete at the festival VIDEOFORMES 2004. In 2005, a residency at the Centro Multimedia del Centro Nacional de las Artes in Mexico for the new version of «Llegaste con la brisa 1.5» exhibited in DataSpace, Laboratorio de Arte Alameda, Mexico 2005 and at the Plataforma Bienal de Arte Electrónica 2006, Puebla, Mexico. In 2006 she continued to work on «Llegaste con la brisa 2.0,» awarded the Fundación Telefónica VIDA ARTIFICIAL 8.0 prize, Spain 2006, and presented in Emergentes, LABoral, Gijón, Spain, in November 2007. She also participated in SYNTHETIC TIMES – A BEIJING OLYMPICS CULTURAL PROJECT, National Art Museum of China, 2008. «Llegaste con la brisa 3.0» concluded Rondón’s robotic works with an exhibition at Periférico Caracas in June 2011.
La Silla del Diablo: The School of Architecture and Urbanism and BACKROOMCaracas recently signed an agreement to establish the artist in residence program La Silla del Diablo with the goal to build an art and education program inspired in Villanueva’s vision of the synthesis of the arts. Renowned international artists will get to work side by side with students, professional architects and artists. Such a program is one that allows for a rich exchange of ideas and talents and is focused on bridging private and public institutions. This artist residency program is named after a sculpture Calder gifted Carlos Raúl Villanueva. Calder built La Silla del Diablo as an homage to the devilish entrepreneurship of the Venezuelan architect.
SUPERBLOQUE and PROYECTO INVERSO are made possible with the joint effort of the FAU-UCV and BACKROOMCaracas, and the help of the architecture firm adjkm, Professors Viviana Mujica and Fabio Capra of Unidad Cero-FAU, the Fundación Sala Mendoza, Cerveza Zulia, Foto Florida, C.A. and a generous contribution by Frank Cooper, Maquinarias y Herramientas.
