About the exhibition
An architect by training, since become both artist and film maker, Alfredo Jaar was born in Chile in 1956, growing up during the military dictatorship of Pinochet, where he produced numerous works explicitly critical of the regime. In 1982 he moved to New York and for the next two decades participated in major international exhibitions. Over the course of his career, Alfredo Jaar has tirelessly investigated the ways that art can interact with the broader social and political context, addressing issues of great topical relevance, largely focusing on events of humanitarian urgency, political oppression, social marginalization, and human and civil rights abuse. He concentrates particularly on situations that the public conscience tends to ignore, and on the rhetoric with which the media manipulates and filters informations. The artist gets directly involved with these causes, giving voices and faces to the victims and witnesses. Jaar believes in a correlation between ethics and esthetics.