In the text “Espacios paralelos de recepción,” Jaime Iregui, project director at the gallery Espacio Vacío, writes about the dissemination of two contemporary art projects. He leads off with the Proyecto Tándem (1990−91) as “a space for the convergence of ideas and information with other pictorial, media and interdisciplinary models.” Then he writes a brief review of “Espacio Vacío” (1997−2000), a space he created with the journalist and arts editor José Hernández, and Carlos Salas. The article is divided into several sections: (i) Tandem Project (ii) Doing It Yourself, Publishing, Promotion; (iii) Exploring, Experimenting, Observing; (iv) The Spirit of the Space; and (v) Overflowing, Subverting, Transgressing. Thus, this article is a series of analyses and brief reviews of exhibitions for which he describes the different ways of disseminating and joining forces with other communications media. This includes the Bogotá daily newspaper El Espectador, the Internet, and exhibition spaces such as museums and galleries. The subtitles incorporate the key concepts based on which he articulates his support for the practices of contemporary art. Iregui recapitulates some experiences he has had with exhibitions in both the spaces reviewed. Examples are: La Mirada Expuesta, La colección de la cuadra, Ejercicios de Calentamiento, Atractores Extraños, Traducción simultánea (all in 1999) and El Estado de las cosas (2000), among many others.

This manuscript written by Jaime Iregui (b. 1956), Colombian artist and arts manager, is a contribution for scholars studying the emergence of new exhibition spaces in Colombia during the 1990s. Moreover, it provides an example for anyone interested in the matter of coordination between the communications media and art, including the development of community art projects. On the one hand, this text is evidence of the transformation of arts management, now assumed by the artists themselves. It also reveals the role played by the Internet in disseminating arts events in the year 2000, as an alternative, so viewers may experience exhibitions via photography. Finally, it becomes a report, since it records information on the exhibitions and projects of Tándem [see doc. no. 1134126] and Espacio Vacío. 

The 1990s saw the emergence of several alternative spaces in the Colombian art world as a response to a search for sites to be used for contemporary art practices. Examples are Gaula[doc. no. 1098991], La Rebeca [doc. no. 1129310], El bodegón, El parche, La Bienal de Venecia de Bogotá [doc. no.1133738], Al cuadrado, and the Programa Nuevas Propuestas: Contemporary Colombian Art from the Alianza Colombo-Francesa (established by the French embassy in Colombia) [doc. no.1098451,doc. no.1130006,doc. no.1129686,doc. no.1132304, anddoc. no.1130918]. 

Jaime Iregui earned his master’s degree in the History and Theory of Art and Architecture at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Since 1999, he has been the editor at esferapública (www.esferapublica.org) [see doc. no. 1132000] and El Observatorio, [doc. no. 1132949], both independent networks for thinking and discussion on the Internet. In 2007, Iregui was invited by the curator Roger Buergel to the documenta in Kassel, Germany (Twelfth Round), where he represented Colombia with the Internet discussion space esferapública. 

Iregui is the author of the book El Museo fuera de lugar (2008) and the article “Las esferas de lo público,” published in the journal Cuadernos Grises No 3. As of 2010, Iregui was coordinator of the Área de Proyectos Culturales of the Art Department at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. [For further information on the artist’s other projects, see doc. no. 1132933].