Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck in collaboration with Paolo Gasparini and Media Farzin, Architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva in Collaboration with Alexander Calder. Aula Magna auditorium, Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas, 1954 (Purple). From the series 'Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions', 2006–2009, C-print from faded 1954 Kodachrome attributed to Paolo Gasparini, wall label with narrative text, Framed C-print: 184 x 184 cm. Installation dimensions variable
Galerie Martin Janda is showing new works by Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck made in collaboration with art historian Media Farzin. The artist, born in Caracas (VE) in 1972, explores the political and economic interdependencies of the post-war modernist period and the political and hegemonic interests of a state and its propaganda.
In the pieces on show, Balteo-Yazbeck makes reference to works by Alexander Calder, linking the latter’s aesthetic formalism with the political events under way at the time of their creation. He works in a variety of media including photography, film and installation, often making use of found material, for example photographs, maps and newspaper cuttings. His works question and analyse propaganda strategies of the post-war western world, when contemporary artworks were used systematically to convey such values as freedom, prosperity, security and utopias. Balteo-Yazbeck combines this set of concerns with US interests in petroleum and the contingent economic and political ties which have persisted to this day