Desechos (residues, or “un-facts” translated literally) relates to Mexico based conceptual artist, Ana Bidart’s last two years working as an artist assistant. Handling works at art fairs and biennials around the world, she became increasingly interested in the spaces and objects that were essential but not necessarily visible to those events. Empty crates, packing materials, residues of all kinds are the vocabulary of Bidart’s semiotics of quasi-objects. Artworks used to be sedentary and passive, now they are nomadic and hyperactive. Tracking numbers and shipping containers contaminate a new calligraphy inside and outside the frame. Bidart’s Pasaportes of oil and canvas examine access and identity. Artworks are granted entry to exclusive art fairs and biennials by simply displaying the correctly encoded documentation, and destination is reduced to formula, with completion subject to legibility. Pasaporte detail transforms strict information to quickened gestures, and Round trip is looped in an infinite shipment with necessary information bound within.
[text via Josée Bienvenu Gallery]
Ana Bidart lives and works in Mexico City. Select exhibitions include CCE-MEX Spanish Cultural Center, Mexico City; SOMA Open Studio, Mexico City; Harto_espacio, Buenos Aires; and Goethe Institut Montevideo. Selected awards include National Visual Arts Museum, Paul Cezanne Award, Montevideo; Antonio Gala Foundation, Residency Program, Córdoba; and National Visual Arts Museum, Salón Nacional de Artes Visuales.