After perusing through countless articles on numerous blogs, a series of pictures featuring unimpressive piles of segregated rubble in a gallery space caught my attention. This is the work of Lara Almarcegui, a Spanish-born artist whose artistic fancy lies in "wastelands" - those nostalgic patches of land marking the desecration of a past structure that is slowly being reclaimed by nature, on which societies are deliberating what should be done with them so that, for the time being, they remain wastelands. The press release for her show "Bauschutt Hauptraum Secession" in Vienna (2010) is found on the Contemporary Art blog.
Lara's message (according to the press release which appears to quote her) is, in summary, to emphasize the importance and value of these wastelands that are in a transitional period: not only do they reflect nature's capability of reclaming past territory, they are something that reflects both the past and the possibility of the future and that only exists temporarily; constantly changing. Lara attempts to document the locations and images of these wastelands all over the world - this is her art.
First of all, I would like to make a statement against the exhibit featuring these piles of rubble she has amassed and labelled "art": when first I saw this picture, what drew my attention was "What on earth has happened? What lunatic has managed to fool the curators into believing that several hundred rocks piled together, without facing any other skillful alteration by the person, are deserving of this gallery space?" It wasn't until AFTER I had painstakingly read the review that I even began to understand Lara's statement through this gargantuan display (although its significance still escapes me): she piled recycled materials that were used in previously destroyed buildings and that would be used for construction in the future - again, a transitional period that at the moment presents itself as a wasteland. Because I've yet to hear of anybody - artist or otherwise - investigating this transitional period, I find it to be a rather interesting subject. However, do not agree with the approach: Lara has chosen to display strictly symbolic items that, without accompanying explanation, offer little to no insight pertaining to their specific meaning to the viewer. I, for instance, would not have arrived at the conclusion of "transitional wasteland" had I not read the accompanying review, and because these works are so strictly centered on this underlying theme, I find it to be crippling for the piece's stature as "artwork". If I were to walk past these piles of rubble in a gallery space, I would immediately assume that somebody made a critical error; that this gallery space was actually in the midst of construction, and I would thus pass them by without a second thought. Outside of the gallery space, nothing would differentiate these piles of rubble from any other, so why is it that we call them art? Is it because Lara arranged them in order to convey a message?
And furthermore, I do not appreciate the manner in which these art reviews are presented: in Lara's case anyways, the review is highly biased towards her case which manipulates the reader into finding an appreciation for her work without looking and feeling for themselves. In order to instill their own opinions into the reader, the author of this article utilizes such manipulators as, "a poetic work awaits the visitors", "Lara Almarcequi renders visible what we otherwise fail to regard, see or notice", etc. The author even treads on my personal pet-peeve by writing "...an organism of social structures that pervades them——and fills them with meaning". This is the most VAGUE statement any analytical writer could possibly make when conducting a review; it is absolute bogus and leads the reader to think "ah, meaning, that's so deep!" without really thinking about what "meaning" the writer could possibly be talking about!
I am not one to judge an artist based solely on the analytical capabilities of one review author: I appreciate Lara's statement and find it to be both unique and interesting (although I maintain my stance of disagreement with the piles of rubble in the gallery space...). For the most part, I wanted to play devil's advocate towards this review since it was so pointed towards Lara's work. This is yet another reminder of how manipulative ANY media text can be, and how we as a society must view everything through eyes unclouded by bias, in search of truth and not opinion.
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