Alejandro Cesarco’s Statements
{NOTA_BAJADA}


“Language is the most important cultural property that we have. We live, remember, talk, think, work, dream through language. We are immersed in language, we have inherited it, and we built our identity from it. Existence out of language is impossible. Thinking visual work from this viewpoint is a mode of abstraction. If I paint or photograph a red, the reference is that red, but if I write red, then there are infinite possible tonalities. I believe that my place as a cultural producer transits the limit, or the complicity, between reading and writing. My practice develops different methodologies, grammars, reading protocols. We are used to reading about art, yet we are much less used to reading as art. Reading is overall a visual act, every letter has a physical image, and every narrative has an image.”
“I’m interested in cataloguing, classifying, appropriating and reinterpreting ―and this relates to thinking about art as a great déjà vu. My work thus presents itself, at least formally, as a reformulation of historical conceptualism. Of course, difference is produced in such a repetition, and repeating does not necessarily mean a desire to go back to historic conceptualism. Translation and the notion of history, more precisely, the notion of translated history, is a recurrent motif and is explored through different narrative constructions.”

“I’m interested in the manner in which meaning is displaced, the manner in which discursive circumstances are recontextualized through memory, recognition and the opacity that is natural to language. Something I often repeat is that the strategic emphasis of my work is not placed on the transmission of information, but rather on the ways in which meaning is felt.”
Jacqueline Lacassa, “Alejandro Cesarco: El lenguaje es la propiedad cultural más importante que tenemos”, La República, Montevideo, 12 de abril de 2005.

Lo único permanente son los cambios
By Jacqueline Lacassa

La República (Montevideo), 12/4/2005
http://www.larepublica.com.uy/cultura/172699-lo-unico-permanente-son-los-cambios

Envíos
By Ana tiscornia

2/2002
http://www.cesarco.info/textforenvios.htm

Jorge Mendez Blake’s Statements
{NOTA_BAJADA}

“I’ve worked in the past with an extended concept of the library, in which it becomes a micro-system about a specific subject. These small systems, which include sculptures, drawings or models, have attempted to bring together different aspects of the topic in a open-ended arrangement and relationship, which creates new meanings and connections between things.”

“I think the idea of the library as the sacred storage of written culture has to evolve into an open democratic state, in which people interact and transform the way we organize and have access to culture and knowledge. We can no longer sustain the idea of culture as just one unique volume. The idea of the library as a sole institution has to move towards an ever-changing, constantly reshaped form. Just as literature cannot be seen as a homogeneous discipline, I think the “building” that contains it should be approached in a similar way.”

“I think objects are themes in and of in and of themselves. I’m interested in objects that go beyond their material nature. For example, it’s impossible to separate a book from its content. But if this book is placed in a different context and interacts with other elements in space, it begins to expand its definition and brings it into relation with the site. I’m interested in the way classic literature—as a popular cultural reference--can interact with everyday elements, such as buildings and urban space. In my work, architecture and literature create hybrids that stand in the middle ground between the disciplines.”

Jimena Acosta, “Interview with Jorge Méndez Blake”. August 5th, 2009.