The Dialectic City – Document | Context « If it weren't for my horse…

“The urban phenomenon and urban space are not only a projection of social relationships but also a terrain on which various strategies clash”

Henri Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution

“To capture a city in an image means following its movement.”
Nicolas Bourriaud, The Radicant… The city is comprised of colliding elements; conflicting mechanisms that through movement create situations and actions. In constant flux and development, these dialectical relationships or strategies can be interpreted and reconsidered in spatial or temporal terms. Any given building in a city, measured through its façade and structural components, undergoes constant shifts in perspective defined by social, political or economic changes in the urban fabric. Insofar as social relations are concerned, we can sense a city’s identity, culture and problematics through its streets, collected debris, people, and things. The city is not a place of permanent encounters or exchanges, but a site of temporal conversations, actions and situations. It is always changing, constantly moving. To deny movement in the city would be to deny its very substance and subsistence; movement itself being nearly impossible to imagine without space and time.Taking as a point of departure this idea of movement and spatial/temporal transformation, “The Dialectic City – Document | Context” gathers a group of works from 11 artists who seize the city as site and catalyst for artistic manifestations. Directly referencing the conceptual artistic strategy of documentation, the works on display are documents implying very specific contexts, suggesting either explicitly or implicitly an action or situation that occurred in the city. They are context specific as well as time specific (Bourriaud), remnants and documents of the city, real or fabricated, continuously connoting motion, sign, and activity.-Carla Acevedo-YatesArtists: Francis Alÿs, Alexander Apóstol, Ivan Argote, Adriana Bustos, José Luis Cortés, David Lamelas, Jason Mena, Juan Alberto Negroni, Victor Sosa, Omar Velázquez, Norma Vila Rivero

Sponsors: Contempo Art Foundation Corp., Carlos and Christina Collection, Yellowmedia Group, GoPrint Puerto Rico, American Paper, Osviarte, Dsñotipo, AREA, Museo de Arte de Ponce