If you happen to be in Mexico City in the next week, and pass Avenida Sonora 128, look to the rooftop, and you’ll catch sight an image by the German artist Wolfgang Tillmans on a giant billboard. The piece, titled ¿dónde estamos? (Where are we?), shows the entangled leaves of a plant sprawled over a green lawn with the question that makes up its titled. Up until May 31, the piece is located at Sonora 128, a public exhibition space sponsored by Mexico City gallery Kurimanzutto, designated so that everyone can experience art. The next exhibit, by Colombian artist Antonio Caro, will be up from June 1 through August 31. We spoke to Bree Zucker, who is in charge of programming for the space.
Wolfgang Tillmans, ¿dónde estamos?, 2016. (Images are courtesy of the artist and Kurimanzutto,... [+]
Why do you think a billboard is an effective way to expose the public to art?
In Mexico, it is often the case that to access contemporary art, you must first traverse a private boundary such as a gate, a wall, or even odd opening hours. If you do not know about these things, or do not know how the access the information, you often find yourself standing in front of a shuttered door. This can be off-putting to a large part of the public. Art should not be a kept secret, but available and free to all. The billboard was a way to comment on that and reference the tradition of former public art trailblazers such as the Mexican muralists. With this project, there is no doorbell, no security guard. We are open all hours of the day! For this reason, I think the billboard functions well as a display mechanism that is in fact an exhibition space. Additionally, a big democratic factor in Mexico, is traffic. No matter who you are, what vehicle you travel in, you are at some point getting caught in traffic. This billboard is located at a four-way junction where literally every type of traffic (cars, buses, peseros, tourist buses, trucks, bicycles, pedestrians, even dogs!) is caught in the crosshairs. At rush hour, you can be stuck at this light twice before moving. For this reason, you may glance up, out of boredom, frustration, or pure chance, and see this space, which may or may not inspire something in you.
Why did you select Wolfgang Tillmans for the first piece?
I really admire Tillmans for his constant ability to push his own practice and photography beyond its borders, and to show us a future, which perhaps we do not yet see ourselves. He is an artist who uses the potential of photography to speak about three-dimensional issues. As part of a generation that grew up with his work in magazines and galleries, I witnessed how Tillmans won over the hearts of different generations with his vision of life, freedom, dialogue, community and support of activist efforts. For us, this was an important consideration regarding not just the work, but the kind of all-inclusive audience we wanted to instigate from the very beginning. Mexico also has a strong photographic history (Graciela Iturbide, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Enrique Metinides), and I was interested in starting this project with a photographer who I also felt would emphasize the importance of photography, and in some sense, remind the public again of this incredible lineage within Mexico.
What is the meaning behind the piece?
Tillmans is an effervescent artist. Every time you grasp a new glimmer of meaning in the work, you discover something else. I would say, without a doubt, that this work is social and political. It is a reflection upon our current times, and a proposition about our daily reality. The question it asks is meant to point us towards ourselves, to the idea of togetherness (it says we, not you or I), and to our situation in the world. I believe is meant to make us think about our dark times (in which we may sometimes feel a bit lost) and the power of our voice together. (Just recently in fact, I also understood the question is connected to the slogans on the campaign posters Tillmans made with his assistants in opposition to the Brexit vote.) In terms of a relation to his larger oeuvre, the agave leaves wave in the air with the same organic pattern that a Tillmans abstract freischwimmer undulates across a photographic expanse. And I have often thought about how Tillmans photographs plants the same way he does skin or clothing, as a membrane between the body and the universe. Also consider the Tillmans ongoing use of fruits and plants as a universal living symbol, and that Tillmans is part astronomer. He has often looked to the sky, like in Venus in Transit, the Concorde Series. So part of the genius of this work, is that he lifted the surrounding immediate environment up into the sky. I saw it only after installation that he had elevated the park across the street and the treetops towards the greater universe. Life and power from the ground up.
What can we expect from the Antonio Caro billboard?
It was very important to us, to include a Latin American artist in the first year of this new project. For us, Antonio Caro is a guerilla conceptualist artist with a compelling history. We can expect an immediate reaction from his work, which will play with advertising motifs. This next project we believe will elicit a response from everyone who sees it!
For more information, visit sonora128.com.
