Art and Globalisation - Alfredo Jaar

1
Alfredo Jaar is a Chilean artist who uses light, photography, text and large scale instillation and performance pieces to raise issues about a whole range of issues regrading cultural globalisation and it's effects on less dominant cultures and the way in which mass media and photomedia portrays this.
in an exhibition at Galerie Lelong in 2009 (reviewed by Nancy Princenthal) Jaar showed a series of works "The Sound of Silence" (2006), “Why” (2009) and "Searching for Africa in Life" (1996). Nancy Princenthal's review in "Art in America" magazine focuses on "the sound of silence" as the central to the exhibition and giving it its impact. this is clearly evident as she only makes a note of the other two works in contrast to the great detail in which she describes the sound of silence, as well as linking it back to a previous work.
Princenthal also comments on the spacial aspects of the work as an instillation and how Jaar has created it in a way that forces the audience into a certain space at a certain time. "This room presents its rear exterior wall to viewers first, a wall that is covered with a battery of ferociously bright white fluorescent tubes. On the other side of the structure is an entry guarded by a cross-shaped sign—one axis red, the other green, lit in alternation. Coming into the story in the middle is not encouraged." 2
the piece itself is a 14 by 15 by 30 metal box, florescent lighting at one end and an opening at the other which leads to the inside. inside the box is pitch black except for a projected video on the back wall. the video tells the story of Kevin Carter, a photojournalist from South Africa who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for a photo taken of a Sudanese girl crawling along the floor as a vulture over looked. the story tells of the circumstances under which the picture was taken, how he had waited a full 8 minutes for the vulture to spread its wings but eventually took the picture with wings unspread for fear it would fly away. other facts about the photo and it's uses are written up on the wall by the video. the video then tells of how after being criticised for not helping the child, just 3 months after the pultizer prize was awarded to carter, he committed suicide. there is a sudden blinding flash of light and an explosion like snapshot noise and then the picture carter took is revealed. here the video ends and starts a new.
the piece talks about the globalised media and it's effect on cultures. in terms of the two cultures present the western society is saturated with images of famine, war and all other atrocities to the point of desensitisation and where the audience of the photo media should be compelled to action they are only informed. in contrast to this the culture being observed has it's dignity taken away as not only is it presented to the global society as a victim but as Jaar says no definitive action is then taken on the point. the work somewhat tries to undermine this point as jaar forces the audience to think about photomedia and what the images represent not just what they show, this Jaar hopes will be more likely to spur people to action. it also symbolises the "haves" and the "have nots" as those in a western culture who can access the global media and services and those of the third world cultures who can't.


1. Alfredo Jaar, installation "The Sound of Silence" (2006), fluorescent lights, video projection and mixed mediums, 14 by 15 by 30 feet overall; at Lelong.

2 Nancy Princenthal, "Art in America" May issue, 2009, pg 146 (1)