Pilar Quinteros Dossier 2015

Statement 2015

In my work, I use building materials such as cardboard, wood, fiberglass, and plastic, among others, many of which had been discar-ded, to create volumes with by hand. The latter represents an important aspect of my work, as I value the thinking and understanding that emerge from a direct relationship to the production processes. By involving myself both mentally and physically in the process of creation, the result is ultimately the product of my daily routine and a full life experience. At the same time, I turn to video to record the actions and interventions that I undertake in diverse contexts (public spaces, uninhabited sites, etc.) as a way of sharing with others.

My work is dedicated to understanding our immediate universe and the transformations it undergoes over time. This has led me to think and analyze how all the things that we are used to (cities, objects, cultural imaginaries of all kinds) change with the passing of the years. My aesthetic and visual analysis of these transformations takes as its point of departure the idea that the collective imaginary is a construction in the widest sense of the word, able not only to create fictions, but also to believe them.

Selected works

1. Restauración I (2010) Restoration I (2010)

Instalation, performance and video (14:33 min.) (To see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FHTz8-OaA4) Museum of contemporary art (MAC) (Santiago, Chile)

In May 2010, following the massive earthquake in Chile in February of that year, I temporarily restored, with card stock, the façade of the Contemporary Art Museum (MAC) of the University of Chile, in light of the urgent need to repair one of the most emblematic buildings of the early twentieth century modernization project of the city of Santiago, using the limited means I had available to me.

The action was recorded in a video called Restauración I (Restoration I), which shows an allegory of the repair, always half-achieved, of national buildings together with a gesture of real interest by someone without any direct relationship to the institution. Following the action, the installation, at the request

of the museum, was stored in one of the museum’s warehouses, in order to be reinstalled for National Heritage Day, an event that was publicized beforehand in the press. The museum had been unable to raise funds even to remove the rubble from the entrance after the earthquake. For this reason, the card stock restoration was used by the MAC as a way to raise awareness about the problem and make it visible, which later helped the museum to secure the funds necessary to clean up the building’s entryway.

The intervention remained in the stairway of the museum until it was completely destroyed by others.

Restoration I

2. Reconstrucción Estación Pirque (2010) Pirque Station Reconstruction (2010)

Instalation, performance and video (20:03 min.) (To see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tthd5DZHDjY) Cardboard installation outside Baquedano metro station (Santiago, Chile)

Reconstrucción Estación Pirque (Pirque Station Reconstruc-tion) is the video recording of an art action, produced during the second half of 2010 and completed on December 19 of the same year. The video shows me constructing, in white card stock, part of the façade of the now-demolished Pirque Station, at a 1:1 scale.

Inaugurated for the Chilean Centennial in 1910, and demoli-shed three decades later, the Pirque railway station, designed in the French neoclassical style by architect Emilio Jequier, was located in what is today the entrance to the Baquedano subway station, at the geographic and symbolic center of Santiago. The card stock reproduction was installed in the same site, after

being transported piece by piece by a group of people, on foot, through Bustamante Park, where the train tracks used to pass into the now-vanished station. The card stock façade was then left at the site formerly occupied by the station, where it remai-ned for as long as the material allowed, subjected to the effects associated with exposure to the elements, to the city.

In this sense, the work makes visible, through an interpretation based on photographs (and thus partial), a piece of the fragile history of the city, which is written and rewritten everyday, ne-ver allowing us to get used to the places that we inhabit because they are, for better of for worse, in constant transformation.

Pirque Station Reconstruction

3. 504-508 Casas de Irarrázaval (2011) 504-508 Houses of Irarrázaval (2011)

Performance and video (20:44 min.) (To see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHTzNsjvJnw) Trek through the neighborhood around Irarrázaval (Santiago, Chile)

504-508 Casas de Irarrázaval (504-508 Houses of Irarrázaval) is a research-based work, involving architectural observation, undertaken in the area around the Irarrázaval subway station, near the center of Santiago. This investigation resulted in two exhibitions. The first was carried out in Espacio Flor, Caja Negra, which is a group of artist studios located along Irarrá-zaval Avenue. The first show consisted of a series of drawings, models, and a reproduction in carved wood and acrylic of two houses located on the corner of Irarrázaval Avenue and Emilio Vaisse Street.

In the second exhibit, held in the former Sala Cero (Galería

Animal), I presented a video of a trek I made through the neigh-borhood around Irarrázaval, dragging the model houses behind me on wheels, until I reached the original houses and met their inhabitants. In the area surrounding the Irarrázaval subway station, there are many car dealerships; in a number of cases, the owners of the dealerships have opted to use the residential house located on their property as the dealership, while in other instances there is nothing left of the original building, which has been replaced, in many cases, by steel and metal structures.

This is the context in which the two houses used to develop this project can be found.

4. Feel Flows (2012) Feel Flows (2012)

Video (17:58 min.) (To see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6IhMUsunZA) Valparaíso, Chile

Feel Flows is a work that proposes a utopian, yet threatening, superposition of the sea over the city of Valparaíso, Chile, throu-gh performance and video. The video sequence opens with a wide shot of the sea, followed by cut-ins of a construction made of debris, and an organic, abstract, saturated blue object. From the beach, a route linking the ocean with the city is established. Valparaíso faces a very deep bay, which has provided a natural barrier against possible tsunamis. Despite this, for many, the fear of this type of catastrophe remains a latent threat. This fear has led to videos, for example a show produced a few years ago by the National Geographic Channel that offers (and subjects) the viewer to an unprecedented natural disaster, in which the city disappears completely beneath the waters of the Pacific. Feel Flows responds to these fears, presenting the situation as both absurd and impossible.

The name of this work is taken from the song of the same name by the California band The Beach Boys, from the album Surf ‘Up (1971). The song doesn’t refer to anything concrete, but rather is composed of a series of suggestive and enveloping passages that speak of memory, of figures in nature with the clouds and the wind, of roads left to travel, of something anony-mous and latent that threatens to break the calm, and of constant sensations and flows. The relationship that I established between Valparaíso and the Beach Boys was immediate, not only because it is a band I always have in mind, but also because of the place they refer to, California-- San Francisco and Valparaíso were, at one time, two of the major ports along the Pacific shipping route, and both cities are situated in extremely seismically active regions.

5. Restauración III (2010) Restoration III (2010)

Video (12:57 min.) (To see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0cj5Ky0Axs) Santiago, Chile

The intersection of Santa Isabel and Vicuña Mackenna streets in Santiago, Chile is a remnant of a half-completed urban re-newal plan organized and designed for the area in mid-2000. Before the project, many of the houses in the neighborhood, originally built for residential use, were gradually abando-ned by their owners, who left for more upmarket, emerging neighborhoods. Thus, the district began to deteriorate and fill with brothels and squatter houses. The rest of the houses were demolished or slowly fell into a state of disrepair. As a response, in order to give the neighborhood a makeover, a plan was formed to allow the construction of high-rises in the area, rather than refurbishing the existing houses, many

of which have a decades-long history. The result of this incomplete urban renewal project is a mix between the old houses (a sort of mausoleum), vacant lots, and huge new buildings.

With Restauración III (Restoration III), I propose the possibility of restoring these old and abandoned buildings, to give them life again. The house I chose to restore had balustrades, which I considered close to (although not strictly or purely) neoclassical in style, and white card stock proved to be a good option for intervening in the house, given the tendency towards monochrome in this style of building.

6. Muerte al estado (a propósito de Restauración III) (2012) Death to the state (regarding to Restoration III) (2012)

Performance and video (20:24 min.) (To see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1A8CeDaP4Q) Santiago, Chile

Muerte al estado (Death to the state) is a video recording in which I board up the windows of an abandoned house on Santa Isabel Street. Although I previously worked with the façade of the same house, in order to highlight its architectu-ral particularities, this aim is supplanted in this second work. In Death to the State, I seek to shed light on the current con-dition of abandonment of the building through the negation of its windows. Color is also crucial in this work, given that I

took color samples of the wall to paint the wood that I then used to cover the windows.

However, the façade had been repainted in the meantime. The identity of the person who maintains the façade of this abandoned building is a mystery, and the graffiti that emerged over the course of the video gives rise to a series of possible readings and meanings.

7. Leviathan de los Desiertos, el volátil desconocido (2013) (Leviathan of the Deserts, the Volatile Unknown) (2013)

Photographs, nstallation and video (15:40 min.) (To see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-TH3S60OtQ) Santiago, Chile

The investigation that led to the first video in the series and the scale models of Lebiathan de los Desiertos, el Volátil desconocido (Leviathan of the Deserts, the Volatile Unknown)consisted in an effort to collect diverse representations of UFOs throughout the history of our civilization. Later, I analyzed this collection through a series of representations, in a variety of media such as cardboard, plaster, and metal, resulting in scale models and audiovisual prototypes. During this research phase, I was able to observe that the aforementioned aerial objects vary in shape and form as they pass from one historical epoch to another. In this way, by keeping pace with the aesthetics of each period, they give themselves away or reveal themselves as a product of man rather than evidence of alternative dimensions or worlds (unless in the “world beyond” unknown beings gra-pple with materials and styles at the same time that we do).

Imagination always contains a trace of verifiable life, thus I propose an analysis of the models in relation to how they func-tion as the result of human imagination and interpretation of an “other” as a way to resolve or calm, barely, human anxiety to know more than what is already known.

There is a pattern in both the form and condition of how these flying objects are described, presented and represented. Most have a circular or ovoid structure and float. Other times they are simply lights, although these are often confused with the signals from the aircraft at night or with naval exercises. That is why I have chosen to limit my work to the first class “ships” that I mentioned, which is dish-shaped and more intriguing because of its unique appearance.

8. El último de los ídolos (2013) The Last of the Idols (2013)

Materials: plastic sleeves and wood 3 meters tall X 70 cm. wide

El último de los ídolos (The Last of the Idols) is an interpretation of Scottish artist Eduardo Paolozzi’s “The Last of the Idols” (1963), a representation of a robot in primary colors.

In his day, Paolozzi created a series of colorful robots that referred to the imagery of science fiction and the pop style of the time. His questions about the future, science, and technology were more concerned with visual rather than functional qualities; in the case of “The Last of the Idols”, the artist emphasized a representation of synthetic forms composed of primary colors rather than a detailed representation, in terms of composition and

structure, of the machines he depicted. As a result, it is difficult to imagine what function the robots could have had, as designed by the artist.

The version of “The Last of the Idols” exhibited at the 11th Me-dia Arts Biennial attempted, to the extent possible, to represent the same color palette used by Paolozzi and stick to the original dimensions. With regard to materials, by contrast, “El ultimo de los ídolos” is made of plastic, while Paolozzi´s original robot was made of steel.

9. Fundación Arrieta/Ferretería Los Tigres (2014) Arrieta Foundation / The Tigers Hardware (2014)

Materials: Parchment paper, metal chains, water-based enamel paint, and aluminum Sheeting 4.50 meters tall Installation in the main gallery of Matucana 100 (Santiago, Chile)

The Arrieta Foundation was a social, entertainment and recrea-tion center, which served as a theater and circus, founded by Luis Arrieta Cañas, the sixth mayor of the borough of Ñuñoa in Santiago, Chile, at the turn of the 20th century. The Arrieta family owned much of the land in the borough of Peñalolén (also located in Santiago) where they had their summer home and held literary and musical gatherings and hosted many intellectuals passing through the country.

This cultural activity, in addition to the community support

offered by José Arrieta, came to a halt with population explosion in Santiago. In the 1930’s, large areas of the Arrieta’s land were subdivided, and the local government began to build housing there. The Arrietas’ stake as landowners began to dwindle, until their land was completely sold off in 1954.

Today, the building where the Arrieta Foundation promoted and hosted cultural activities in the area near Américo Vespucio and José Arrieta Streets is a waste collection center and building material vendor.

Lenni-Lenape Indians is a performance and video I made during a stay in New York that lasted for two and a half months. After a trip through a big area of the city I felt a need to find a quiet place, and, because of that, made myself questions about the past of the City of New York. That is when I found a book in a books-tore named Mannahatta that tells about the deep geographical transformations that the island of Manhattan has been through

across the years, as if we were talking about plastic surgery on a colossal scale. It also has some chapters about the original in-habitants of Manhattan, whose descendants now live in reserves close to the city and in the city itself. All of this is the starting point of this performance and video about different ways of see-ing, and trying to know and understand a city, in the perspective of a tourist, an artist, and outsider, etc.

10. Lenni-Lenape Indians (2014) Performance and video (10:14) (To see the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRP1NULOl3I) New York City, USA

Friendship of Peoples Fountain is an intervention in Indepen-dence Square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti) in Kiev, Ukraine that consists of the construction and installation of a white cardstock reproduction of the now-absent Friendship of Peoples Fountain.The work is also a performance in which the object was carried through the city to the site of the intervention by a group of people from Kiev.

The original Friendship of Peoples Fountain is a national symbol of Ukraine that was almost destroyed in 2001 during a renova-tion of Independence Square. Today, the space once occupied by the Friendship of Peoples Fountain is used by a cupola, which is part of an underground shopping centre. This substitution is

quite significant, given that the square is often used for mass political and social protests, making the shopping centre seem quite forced and out of context—or perhaps simply a last me-asure to transform the use of the square. Whichever the case, a symbol like the Friendship of Peoples Fountain (and not only as a symbol, but also as a work of art), should perhaps have a space in the nation’s capitol, for which it was designed and created. This is why I reconstructed part of the fountain on cardboard : so that it once again constituted part of Kiev, even if only for a little while.

Today, the real fountain is located in Buki, a town approximately 180 kilometers from Kiev.

11. Friendship of Peoples Fountain (2014) Instalation, performance and video (41:55 min.) (To see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZ5xBHk6JeE) Kiev, Ukraine

Friendship of Peoples Fountain (video frames)

Friendship of Peoples Fountain (video frames)

12. Cementerio indio (2015) Indian cemetery (2015)

Instalation, performance and video (to see the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ka5FYphndw)

Text still not available in english...

“La maldición del cementerio indio” es una idea común que surge cuando un lugar aparentemente carga con mala suerte. Tener muertos enterrados debajo de la casa no es bueno. Pero al parecer es peor si son indios.Tener un cementerio indio debajo de la casa es producto del loco crecimiento de las ciudades que crecen tanto a sus anchas como sobre sí mismas…

En el 2014 registré en fotografía la demolición de una casa cerca de mi edificio, ubicada en Pedro de Valdivia con calle Europa en la comuna de Providencia, Santiago, Chile. Una de las líneas nuevas de Metro va a pasar por ahí, por lo que en el terreno de la casa instalarán un ducto de ventilación. Poco después de sacar las fotos salió en las noticias (sólo una vez) que en ese mismo terreno habían encontrado un cemen-terio de la cultura Llolleo; muchos cuerpos y vasijas. Eso me pareció muy emocionante, porque me hizo pensar en Santiago cuando no era Santiago. Sin embargo, también me hizo pensar en la mala suerte que significa para las constructoras encontrarse con algo semejante, porque si hay decencia de por medio deben dejar de construir temporalmente. Mala suerte. Como sea, creo que se trata de una buena oportunidad no

solo para conocer sobre nuestros antepasados más antiguos (sabemos poco de lo que fue del valle de Santiago antes de Pedro de Valdivia), sino que para preguntarnos por la manera en que crece la ciudad que habitamos.

A partir de este descubrimiento, que también sentí como propio , ya que, sólo por casualidad saqué fotos de una casa que ocultaba 60 cuer-pos humanos, decidí investigar sobre el procedimiento y las opciones que se tienen al momento de dar con un descubrimiento arquelógico como este. Todo esto para saciar mi curiosidad y para compartir esta información con quienes pasan por fuera del terreno en obras sin saber qué pasa dentro. Para eso construí una caseta de informaciones que fue (y será) atendida por mí y que está pensada para ser instalada en la esquina del terreno de Metro.

Luego construí una reproducción de la casa que antes estuvo en esa esquina con cartón forrado. Esta casa la construí para crear un espacio en la sala de exposición que la gente pudiera rodear para ver el video que hice sobre toda la experiencia; desde fotografiar un edificio en demolición, el posterior descubrimiento de los cuerpos, las entrevistas a los involucrados y la construcción de la caseta.

13. Cathedral of Freedom (2015) Instalation, performance and video (link still not available) Ljubjana, Slovenia

The famous slovene architect Jože Plečnik, who also was in charge of redesign today’s “Three Bridges” in Ljubljana, Slo-vene, proposed in 1947 a design for a new Slovene Parliament in Ljubljana during the second Yugoslavia. However, his design was rejected because of financial, logistic (it would have been necessary to demolish a lot of medieval buildings) and style ma-tters. That is why another contest was released, this time with an open call, to find a final design and the winning project it’s today Slovenian Parliament. Despite of this, Plečnik’s design was re-corded in many slovene minds and today can be seen in 10 cent coin of Slovenia, even if the project never was developed.My project consist in reconstruct a model of Plečnik’s design in light materials (such as cardboard), which will be covered in

water proof materials. This is because the model will be installed on a raft made and sailed across the Ljubljana River by myself. This way it won’t be just the first time the building will have a volumetric presence in the city, but it also will “visit” different places without the possibility of been in one place for long, be-cause there is no room for it in the urban design of the city. My project it’s about a building with no space to be that will move aimlessly across the waters of Ljubljana. It will

be part of the city only graphically and virtually after photogra-phs and drawings made by me and other people about the model in different locations.

CV/Résumé

SOLO SHOWS

2015 Cementerio Indio (Indian cementery) Sala de Arte CCU Santiago, Chile

2015 Ephemeral replacement of a previous state Carlos/Ishikawa Gallery London, UK

2011 504-508 Casas de Irarrázaval /Segunda Parte: recorrido (504-508 Houses of Irarrázaval / Part Two: Trek) Sala Cero, Galería Animal (Animal Gallery) Santiago, Chile

2011 504-508 Casas de Irarrázaval / Primera Parte: modelos construidos (504-508 Houses of Irarrázaval / Part One: Built Models) Espacio Flor, Caja Negra (Flor Space, Caja Negra) Santiago, Chile

2011 Dome of the library in Escuelas Pías, Lavapiés Social Center La Tabacalera Madrid, Spain

2011 Presentation of Reconstrucción Estación Pirque (Pirque Station Reconstruction) Galería de Arte EMCO (EMCO Art Gallery) Santiago, Chile

2010 Screening of the video Restauración I (Restoration I) Contemporary Art Museum (MAC) Santiago, Chile

GROUP SHOWS

2015 Drawing by Numbers, dibujando con números Fundación Cultural Providencia (Cultural Foundation Providencia) Santiago, Chile

2014 Future Generation Art Prize 2014 (21 Shortlisted artists, third edition) PinchukArtCentre Kiev, Ucrania

2014 Gabinete 1 (Cabinet 1) Galería Temporal (Temporal Gallery) Santiago, Chile

2014 V Bienal de Performance Deformes 2014 (V Performance Biennial “Deformed” 2014) Factoría Santa Rosa (Santa Rosa Factory) Santiago, Chile 2014 Historias de Pasión y Desenfreno (Stories of Passion and Wildness) Vicente Vargas Estudio (Vicente Vargas Studio) Valparaíso, Chile

2014 Colosos, escultura contemporánea en Chile (Colossus, Contemporary Sculpture in Chile) Centro Cultural Matucana 100 (Cultural Centre Matucana 100) Santiago, Chile

2013 - Leviathan de los desiertos, el volátil desconocido (Leviathan of the Deserts, the Volatile Unknown) - El último de los ídolos (The Last of the Idols) - Sátelite de Madera (Wooden Satellite) (group project with the art collective MICH) 11th Bienal de Artes Mediales, Museo de Bellas Artes (11th Media Arts Biennial, National Fine Arts Museum) Santiago, Chile

2013 2013: GROUP 93 and GUESTS curated by Luciano Penay Katzen Rotunda Gallery, The American University Washington D.C., United States

2013 Screen Festival, Loop Barcelona Barcelona, Spain

2013 Un Esquimal con un zorro blanco que acaba de cazar, imágenes de Chile (An Eskimo with a White Fox He Has Just Hunted, Images of Chile) (group project with the art collective MICH) Casa de las Américas (House of the Americas) Havana, Cuba

2013 Proyecto casa tomada (Squatted House Project) Curatorial project on the second floor of a private home about to be demolished Santiago, Chile

2012 Sensación (Sensation) Local Arte Contemporáneo (Local Contemporary Art) Santiago, Chile

2012 Escombro (Debris) Galería YONO (YONO Gallery) Santiago, Chile

2012 Temblores de Tierra (Tremors of the Earth) (group project with the art collective MICH) arteBA 2012 contemporary art fair Buenos Aires, Argentina

2012 Historias de Destrucción y Desborde (Stories of Destruction and Overflow) Galería Casa E (Casa E Gallery) Valparaíso, Chile

2012 Show (group project with the art collective MICH) Deux ex Media, 10th Bienal de Video y Artes Mediales (10th Video and Media Art Biennial) Contemporary Art Museum (MAC) Santiago, Chile

2011 University Youth Art Competition Exhibition Contemporary Art Museum (MAC) Santiago, Chile

2010 Modelos de Construcción (Construction Models) Espacio Eduardo Vilches, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Eduardo Vilches Space, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile) Santiago, Chile

2010 Interuniversity Show Nuevos Imaginarios (New Imaginaries) Espacio Isidora Zegers, Universidad de Chile (Isidora Zegers Space, University of Chile) Santiago, Chile

2010 Operación Novela (Novel Operation) Librería de Santiago (Library of Santiago) Santiago, Chile

SCHOLARSHIPS AND AWARDS

2014 Finalist, Future Generation Art Prize (PinchukArtCenter, Kiev, Ukraine)2013 Third Place, CCU Art Scholarship 2013 (Santiago, Chile)2012 Jean Claude Reynal Scholarship (Fondation de France and the Fine Arts Museum of Bordeaux)

HIGHER EDUCATION

2008-2010 Bachelor of Arts degree, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Santiago, Chile)2006-2007 Bachelor of Arts program, Universidad Finis Terrae (Santiago, Chile)

OTHER EDUCATION

2013 Seminar in Cultural Management (Centro Cultural España, Santiago, Chile)2012 Color and Painting Course, Gerardo Pulido (BLOC Art Workshops, Santiago, Chile)2011 Seminar in Cultural Management (Fundación Cooperación y Ciudadanía de Castilla y León (León, Spain)

ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

2010- 2013 Teaching Assistant at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile in the following classes:• Color, taught by Professor Rodrigo Galecio• Thesis Workshop I, taught by Professor Rodrigo Galecio• Thesis Workshop II, taught by Professor Rodrigo Galecio• Integrated Workshop (Composition), taught by Professor Rodrigo Galecio• Drawing I, taught by Professor Carmen Pérez• Drawing II, taught by Professor Carmen Pérez• Figure Drawing, taught by Professor Carmen Pérez

2012 Teaching Assistant and the Universidad Alberto Hurtado in:• Color, taught by Professor Rodrigo Galecio

WORK EXPERIENCE

2010- Co-Founder and active member of the art collective MICH (International Museum of Chile), a group which creates and independently finances art projects in Chile and abroad.2013 Production Assistant, Gabriela Mistral Gallery (National Council for Culture and the Arts) Santiago, Chile2012-2013 Professional internship, Gabriela Mistral Gallery (National Council for Culture and the Arts) Santiago, Chile2009- Monitor in the Film Workshop for Children run by Alicia Vega