In this text, María Luz Cárdenas explains the curatorial vision underlying the third Salón Pirelli and she attempts to address how at that event, new forms of representing and grasping reality on the basis of visual perception [were evident]. More specifically, she defines and analyzes vision as a means of cultural interaction rather than as a means of capturing reality. On this premise, she contemplates the phenomenon of vision in relation to each of the works presented at the event. Cárdenas also points out connections between technological advances and ways of seeing and reproducing reality.   

Critic and curator of Venezuelan art María Luz Cárdenas (b. 1952) discusses the major cultural changes brought about by the advent of new technology. She argues that in appropriating new technological resources, young artists address an array of contemporary issues. The basis of her approach to each of the themes in the third Salón Pirelli is vision and visual perception. However, she argues that the art object, like the society that produces it, is plural and open to interpretation. “Vision,” in any case, depends on a given cultural reality and therefore, is looking as a means of cultural interaction influenced by a wide range of factors: language, instinct, societal, the allocation of roles, history, memory, the unconscious, symbolic order, human law, and others. Cárdenas places the participating artists and their work into the following categories: visual/perceptive configuration from a functional perspective; urban structures as a means of perception; visions of the cosmos resulting from mental processes based on the nexuses between man and nature; the inner eye suggestive of imagination and desire; the relationship between vision and power; advances in optical technology; customs as a decisive factor in pre-established ways of seeing; vision as a means of approaching the communication between artwork, surrounding space, and the viewer.

For other texts by Cárdenas on the Salón Pirelli, see “De la ilusión óptica a la desilusión cultural: “Arte desde el exilio: Enfoque metodológico y pautas generales de aproximación al II Salón Pirelli de jóvenes artistas y lenguajes” (doc. no. 1161345), “Nuevas realidades, nuevos conceptos para un salón de jóvenes” (doc. no. 1161393), and “Apostando a futuro: Notas sobre del V Salón Pirelli” (doc. no. 1162038). See as well, “Salón Pirelli: Primera aproximación al arte joven en la década de los noventa en Venezuela” (doc. no. 1161411) by Ruth Auerbach, a critic and curator of Venezuelan art.