Is one collector’s four-year perspective on a geographically specific slice of contemporary art (in this instance, hailing from Chile), interesting enough as a framing device for an exhibition? Rarely, given that market or personality issues tend to dominate such shows, especially when experienced in the belly of an auction house. Yet, surprisingly, perhaps, questions of how and why this collection has come about do not find much space in which to lord it over this extremely diverse group of works sensitively curated across two sites.
One of the major reasons for this is that the cultural politics of the region (from life under General Pinochet’s regime to the current wealth divide, both locally and internationally) is explored, in the majority of cases, via compelling personal narratives. And, the exhibition is peppered with the kind of issues affecting contemporary makers at large as opposed to those residing in or under a particular place or set of conditions. Alvaro Oyarzun’s OCD-impressive selection of drawings, for example, speak equally of art and authorship issues as the artist’s (excreta-punctuated) inner world, regardless of whether or not you can read the many Spanish annotations.
There are a couple of works (also at Phillips’s HQ) that conform to one’s expectations of non-Western political art taken up by BRIC market-makers in the recent past, notably Catalina Bauer’s visually effective but rather one-trick map of the world constructed from bags of water. It’s important to acknowledge, however, the (career) timelines (2001-10) of the works shown, the artists themselves and, not least, the 26-year-old patron and selector of this bunch, Juan Yarur.
Paz Errazuriz’s photographs of Chilean transvestites in the 1980s set the exhibition bar unrealistically high in the lobby of Howick Place. While certainly endebted to the likes of Diane Arbus, these images provide a sharp reminder that ‘the margins’ cover a large global territory and it’s not just American artists defining its photographic history. But there are other surprises: Josefina Guilisasti’s extraordinary installation, comprised of many photorealist paintings of found crockery, is worth the trip alone to the Saatchi Gallery and, elsewhere, I defy anyone not to fall, a little (despite themselves), for Malu Stewart’s 1:1 scale pipe-cleaner version of a detail from Monet’s ‘Blue Pond’.