JULIETA ARANDA

BILL’S ART WORLD
2005
Digital c-print (76.2 x 101.6 cm), vinyl text appliqué

TEMPORARY SOLUTIONS
2005 - 2006
Installation based on revolutionary propaganda purchased in Mexico City, wall text, slide show, variable dimensions

My work is focused on the aesthetic potential of the role played by circulation. Not being media-specific, I manipulate existing circulation formats, in an effort to generate viable propositions for alternative transactions of cultural capital. These explorations have taken several forms, including printed media, installation, video and the creation of alternative spaces.
Circulation tends to be understood as the implicit enabler in the production / consumption cycle. While this understanding may be useful, it is nonetheless a simplification, which creates an artificial equivalence that excludes other functions and potentials that may be embodied by the art object. Since circulation networks tend to follow the logic of desire, I think that by interfering in them it is possible to complicate the exchanges and interject a measure of productive confusion into the prevalent modes and models of operation. It’s a way to introduce resistance and disruption as malfunctions, rather than crises.
I believe that for art, to be truly political, is not to support an ideology, but to present a possibility for autonomy within a given context. So, as artists, how can we generate disruptions within the structures, as they are now? Is it enough to take the parts of the system and reassemble them in a different way? Or do we want to propose a new system altogether? Do we care about the quality of the base materials? Maybe we don’t want to bring anything new to the table, but rather work on complicating existing relationships, in order to propose a model that can function on several levels: producing subjectivity while avoiding the full disclosure of fixed narratives, and without trying to attain absolute specificity.
We always think about revolutionary movements in terms of crisis: a force that surges above ground and ruptures the structure (REPLACES the structure). But one should question the usefulness of such an approach, since the force that comes above ground never becomes aware of its own weaknesses, and eventually it also has to be replaced. I believe on artists/cultural producers operating as moving targets, since this implies establishing a set of diagonal relations within the field; never fully within, never fully without. No ruptures but disruptions, no breaking the parts, but changing their function.
(J.A.)

JULIETA ARANDA (1975, Mexico City, MX) received her MFA in 2006 from Columbia University in New York and her BFA on filmmaking from the School of Visual Arts, New York in 2001. Her work has been exhibited internationally in venues such as The Kitchen, New York, 10th Lyon Biennial, Solomon Guggenheim Museum, New York (upcoming solo presentation, 2009), Conspire, Transmediale08, Berlin, 2008; 2nd Moscow Biennial, 2007, Dictionary of War, Muffathalle, Munich, 2006; Trial Ballons, MUSAC, Spain, 2006; An Image Bank for Everyday Revolutionary Life, REDCAT, Los Angeles, 2006 and many others. Together with Anton Vidokle, Julieta Aranda put together Pawnshop and e-flux video rental, which started in the e-flux storefront in New York, and has traveled around the world (Portugal, France,Turkey, Spain, Hungary, Belgium, Korea, Germany, USA). She is currently based in New York and Paris.