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The pieces included in Farsites range in media and subject matter from more straightforward photographs of city streets (some in various stages of ruin), all eerily void of figures (Thomas Struth, Catherine Opie, Dean Samshima, Eduardo Consegura, Geraldine Lanteri) to more conceptual sculptural works often made from or referencing discarded items from city streets--be it thrift store furniture tied together in sculptural form (Damián Ortega), a column of cardboard boxes (José Dávila) or a structure built onto the facade of a museum referencing shanty town construction (Hector Zamora). Additionally the heightened sense of paranoia that effects city dwellers as a result of crisis can be seen in Marcelo Cidadesís cardboard replicas of surveillance cameras, Kendell Geerís photographs of middle class homes equipped with security apparatuses in post-apartheid Johannesburg, and Armin Linkís photographs of security precautions taken for the 2001 G8 convention. Personal crises are also explored through works such as Félix Gonzáles-Torres' who tracks his decline in health. Other artistsí works pose possible (fictional) solutions to crises, as Marjetica Potrcís Dry Toilet and Carlos Garaicoaís mythical reconstruction plans. Finally, there are those who try to facilitate change within the city through social action including el Taller Popular de Serigrafía which installs a press and screenprints images during protests in the streets of Buenos Aires and Eloisa Cartonera, a publishing house, also based in Buenos Aires, that purchases used cardboard from vendors and employees children to transform them into books. Overall the museum exhibition, like the Interventions and Scenarios, tries to bring awareness to and link the struggles and crises endured throughout international cities, and in some instances, to provide solutions or methods for coping. There is something oddly disjointed in discussing urban crisis in the wealthy Balboa Park neighborhood of San Diego; a problematic not facing the Tijuana exhibition that somehow complicates the curatorial program.
Judi Wertheim (Argentina) closed the weekendís festivities Sunday night, August 28, at Blends, a sneaker boutique in San Diego, with the launch of Brinco (Jump), sneakers designed to meet the needs of migrants as they attempt to cross the border illegally. These hightops given to migrants for their journey across the border (and sold to a San Diego audience for $210 a pair) are decorated in the colors of the Mexican flag with an Aztec eagle motif embroidered on the exterior sides and the image of a saint on the back, and come complete with a compass, map, flashlight, pain medication, and quarter tucked into a pocket for the bearer to call the artist once s/he has crossed the border so that she can buy back the shoes from him/her. Her work critiques material culture and demonstrates the disconnection between the production of retail goods (the shoes were manufactured in China) and the consumer.
Wertheimís intervention, like many of the artistic endeavors included in inSite_05, focuses on border matters as they directly impact its populace, with an emphasis on the greater hardships endured by the inhabitants of Mexico, especially by those who dream of living on the U.S. side of the border. Largely omitted from the projects were the greater issues that plague the entire region: the more intricate social, economic, and political networks that connect both sides of the border. The disparity between the modes of labor and living conditions in the first world and third world are revealed throughout Farsites and Bypass. Many of the projects were created to help these factions of the community by raising awareness to certain hardships or by providing goods or services to help, but by and large inSiteís ability to reach this constituency of the public has been missed. This project, as in the majority of biennials/large international art expositions, reaches a specific audience. During a "Conversation" held in a lavish private estate on Sunday, many of the artists themselves debated who the intended audience of inSite was and whether or not it was being reached. Although the overarching goal of this artistic endeavor was to experience a "‘publicí constructed of disparate entities that are unknown to one another," much of the interactions between groups felt staged and became a game of spectator/spectacle.(2)
While inSite should be commended for its theoretical stance, it can also be criticized for only being apprehensible to a small constituency. Instead of challenging inherent power hierarchies within the border region, it seemingly reinforces many of them. Collectors from the U.S. were overheard criticizing the city of Tijuana, emphasizing the only reason they were there was to see art. Furthermore, many projects were situated in work sites where viewers served as obstacles to those trying to go about their day. There was not, for the most part, a natural or smooth interaction between artists, participants and connoisseurs. Perhaps this is what the directors and many curators of inSite were aiming for, but for those in attendance, the benefits that could have risen from this type of interaction were barely achieved.
InSite originally served as an alternative to the large scale museum survey and biennial project. This grew out of necessity following the controversial La Frontera/The Border: Art about the Mexico/United States Border Experience exhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla (MCA). During the planning phases of La Frontera/The Border, members of the Border Arts Workshop/Taller de Arte Fronterizo accused MCAís curators of stealing their ideas and directly quoting their materials without citing them, raising larger questions of who had the right to serve as the voice of the border and under what circumstances. Although inSite provides an expanded field for artists and scholars to work through border issues, that understandably can only be taken so far before becoming repetitive, recent incarnations of inSite still raises questions around representation and how these issues should be confronted. Itís perhaps, ultimately a dilemma of place that cannot be avoided.
(1) Mí¥ns Wrange, The Good Rumor Project>El proyecto del buen rumor. San Diego and Tijuana: InSite; Art Practices in the Public Domain, 2005.
(2) Osvaldo Sánchez, "Bypass: Curatorial Statement." inSite_05. http://www.insite05.org.
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