The curatorial essay for the exhibition Subdesarrollado [Underdeveloped] (2002) helps to understand and analyze the installations Aguardando [Waiting] (2002) and Curando [Curing] (2002) by Jaime Tarazona (b. 1975); both works are understood by the essayist as spatial experiments that question the construction of reality based on photographic images and installed objects. The installation proposes a transformation of the exhibition space that expands the area’s limits as a limited container based on both an optical interplay that tricks the eye and the viewer’s spatial feelings. The images in the document show how the installations, which are created with photographs and real objects, are articulated and (through optical illusions) generate a separate reality between them and the space. Curando [Curing] (2002) shows a real fan, in action, that is “drying” a photographic image of tobacco leaves hung on the wall. Aguardando [Waiting] (2002) shows a magnified image of the same fan (generator of a visual-spatial interplay) “drying” real coffee beans laid out in horizontal containers on the floor of the hall.
Iovino’s thoughts on what the work is suggesting are interesting because they reveal the conflict that exists between visual realities. She approaches the socio-political analysis of the objects-questions of the images as if it were a “denunciation” of a Colombian phenomenon such as the displacement of peasants caused by the country’s violence. Her initial analysis explores Tarazona’s desire to emphasize our culture’s icons, and views his subsequent “airing and drying” as traditional Colombian handcraft methods that lead to an interpretation of the work as a discourse on identity, since they question rural reality as a visual image generated in order to address concepts of belonging and national identity.
Jaime Tarazona (b. 1975) is a graduate of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia; he earned his Master’s in Fine Arts at the Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design in London, England. He was awarded the first prize at the XXVII Salón Cano [27th Cano Salon] (2000) and the IV Salón de Arte Universitario [4th University Art Salon] in Bogotá (1998). He currently lives and works in Bogotá.
Maria Iovino (b. 1961) is a Colombian curator. Her recent projects include Video Box (2009) and Volverse Aire [Becoming Air] (2003), the retrospective exhibition of works by Oscar Muñoz (b. 1951). She is currently an independent curator for several projects in Latin America and in Colombia through arte-cámara, a project sponsored by the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce for ARTBO, the Art Fair in Bogotá.