ENGLISH

Alfred Wenemoser: Spacial Conflicts
by Jesus Fuenmayor


Alfred Wenemoser (Graz, Austria, 1957) has lived in Caracas for twenty years. He is an artist whose work has not attained major notice thus far. Artists who exhibit within the Latin American circuit are often confined to a niche which Wenemoser has managed to break free of. The international arts scene generally includes this niche within the classification systems of the so–called production of the periphery than as that construct which is often called “Latin American art” (1). Wenemoser’s work is also subject to the conflict inherent in its local readings which, together with his international experience, transforms him and his work into an example of the tensions between globalization and multi-culturalism, two terms which advance along different paths in spite of the attendant confusion which surrounds them.
As it is impossible for him to be global, Wenemoser has avoided, at least provisionally, many of the resources used to promote the art of the periphery on the international scene. His work is not terribly convincing within the framework of multi-cultural arguments, its purpose is not to affiliate itself with a mestizaje (interbreeding) of the senses, it concedes no special interest to stereotypes, it does not pretend at all to reference any kind of cultural hybrid, nor has it ever bothered to formulate an artist’s trauma of exile.
Due to his status as an artist alien to the most common conditions that determine the local, his work is not easy to distinguish in the strategic terms used by artists who make context a self–referential problem. His work, though, can be read within the notion of nomadism (because it has distanced itself from its European roots in the dominant vanguards (2) and also because it is work that is very sensitive to the places where it unfolds). Wene-moser’s work may considered as being inscribed within the European Diaspora, as one of those European artists who came to the Americas and whose contribution has been significant for the development of the local scene (3) (in his case, Wenemoser collaborated with a group of performance and experimental language artists who gained a certain degree of acceptance in the constructivist movement in Venezuela in the mid 70s). Wenemoser, in a manner similar to other artists who are accepted as innovators, rejects the notion of local color in all its forms, and does not limit himself to the specificities of a single medium. In summary, one might say, Wenemoser’s spirit of identity degree zero has allowed his work to remain indeterminate in relation to the context of its production.
But the relativism of his contextual relations might make us invert that double approach. We might say that what connects him to the local also separates him from it, and that what distances him from the international context is also what brings him closer to it.

II
It is possible to fully grasp Wenemoser's work only upon reception, but his resistance to reception is quite strong. His work, therefore, embraces failure. There is, at once, no better image of the artist to exemplify and personify failure. Wenemoser has pulled off this act with certain mastery. His work is so hard to get a hold of that he has managed to exhibit it with the work of other Latin American artists with whom he has no manifest correspondence. At the same, time his work can always be examined from other perspectives without involving ethical or aesthetic conflicts such as those that characterize generational changes or geographic interest. This is what this essay aims to do in part: to duplicate his hermetism through this medium. The artist himself has explained it this way: “Find readings, from multiple perspectives, of an organic vision where there are no a priori answers or truths. I seek total openness, contradiction, the void, tricks and false appearances.”
His work appears to exploit confusion to its fullest. It is this confusion which inexorably leads him to conflict, to the failure produced by a public reception. This is due, on the one hand, to the manifest oppression in his works, which incorporates the element of the exit tunnel in an emblematic way, and on the other, to his need to footnote his work, which opens up an infinite and incomprehensibly large number of readings while at the same time encouraging the idea of incomplete or unfinished projects. According to Wenemoser: “One of my fundamental principles is expectation and its frustration. I don’t always provide answers and explanations; I may not even formulate questions.”

III
The work I am describing with which I would like to identify Wenemoser are those he has called "auxiliary works." These are works which are complementary to other works, works which are generally not noticed, areas in which Wenemoser’s work is heightened, where tributary gestures are abandoned, where the work has to stop being read as part of an agglomeration indebted to experimental languages of another era. My reading is based on the fact that his work seeks to coalesce finally in the person of the viewer.
This explains why I have chosen to discuss works in which Wenemoser’s work is heightened, where tributary gestures are abandoned, where the work is no longer read as part of an agglomeration indebted to experimental languages of another era.
Wenemoser has incorporated into his work an experience which is unique in Latin America, since the viewer can only gain the possible significance of the work by having direct contact with it (while engaged in the illusion of establishing an unmediated contact). Nevertheless, I have stated that the majority of his works fail and that they do so in an attempt to establish a direct relationship to the spectator. The failure happens in terms of the story or context that replaces the work, while he attempts to incorporate these elements. These elements are not products of the tension. They are the tension itself.
The works of Wenemoser we have chosen dramatize this perspective. These are the unknown works (some have never been seen, others have never been made) of an unknown artist.
As in a colophon, we have wanted to introduce a brief list of auxiliary works that assume the conclusion the viewers are awaiting, though not without pointing out that frustration is not a product of the works’ mystery, of the aura that protects their meaning (we might even speak of a certain transparency of meaning in these proposals). Each situation in which they are involved finds the way for their fate to project itself like an involuntary desire, like a blow of bad luck, thanks to the viewer’s accusation, the uncertainty with respect to Wenemoser's own inadequacy, the absence of urgency, the lack of aesthetic appeal, the lack of risk, the loss of shame, and all those little things that affect the figure of the artist.
The order of this list is arbitrary. In some cases the infor-mation was not available with which to draw a more complete profile. What one is interested in here — rather than establishing an order that allows for an investigation of the work in a context contrary to the investigations that have predominated heretofore (as I have already mentioned, the works have been included in exhibitions that represent a very specific vision of art within which they never manage to fit altogether) — is in leaving room enough in the works' comprehension for the liberation it may be ultimately crying out for. How else can we approach an autonomy which is prisoner of its own autonomy?
1 Animal Today, 1991-93
At CCS-10 / Arte Venezolano Actual, Galeria de Arte Nacional, Wenemoser made MIRACARIBE (SEE CARIBBEAN), which represents six ((C)(A)(R)(I)(B)(E)) [(C)(A)(R)(I)(B)(B)(E)(A)(N)] of the artist's unfinished, frustrated or planned projects. Among these are (C)ARIBE, (C)onducta en la obscuridad [(C)onduct In the Darkness], 1980, proposed for the Galeria de Arte Nacional, which consists of a darkened space covered in undeveloped photographic paper. C(A)RIBE, (A)nimal hoy [(A)nimal Today], 1991, proposed for the Sala RG, is another project which has tattooed pigs eating pig meat. CA(R)IBE, (R)eina [(R)egina], 1981, proposed for the Museo de Bellas Artes, has a woman giving birth in the museum’s galleries before a drugged lion. C(A)RIBE, (I)nfantes aleluya, [(I)nfants Alleluia], 1978, proposed for Brdo, in the ex-Yugoslavia, has a chorus of children that sings facing a wall. In CARI(B)E, (B)ahorrina [(R)abble], 1983, a proposal for the Sala Mendoza in Caracas, Wenemoser proposed that a group of vagabonds consume tomatoes which have been deformed in their growth by molds. Finally, CARIB(E), (E)jecutamos [We (E)xecute], 1992, planned for the abandoned site set aside for the new construction of the National Gallery of Art, is a project to be performed in concert with the armed forces, by temporarily converting the exhibition space into a army training camp. Some of these projects (the chorus, the deformed tomatoes and the pigs) were totally or partially carried out as part of MIRACARIBE (SEE CARIBBEAN), and others are awaiting realization.

2 Jacquet (CAP), 1997
For the exhibition “Re–readymade” at the Museo Alejandro Otero in 1997, a giant window display was constructed to purportedly contain the history of the readymade in Venezuela. Wenemoser decided on this occasion to ask the two–time President of the Republic, Carlos Andrés Pérez (CAP), for one of the jackets he made famous during his two presidential campaigns. The work was exhibited together with other supposedly found objects.

3 RM Guyana, 1994-95
RM Guyana is a work that created extensions of vertical elements in the existing architecture. In the first version of the work at the Guyana Biennial in Ciudad Bolivar, Wenemoser made four replicas of the city cathedral tower which were installed, in the manner of a nautical compass, in the belltower of the cathedral itself. In the Caracas version of the work, Wenemoser prolonged infinitely the extension of the main stairwell of the Museo Alejandro Otero. These works were accompanied by a video of the Guri dam (one of the largest hydroelectric complexes in the world), which Wenemoser proposes in one of his texts to turn into a mausoleum. A chorus of empty chairs accompanies the video presentation in the galleries. The idea is to throw the ashes of those who died in the construction into the dam so that they might circulate among us through the electrical system which the dam supplies (the dam supplies power for almost the entire country and for part of Brazil).

4 CIT, 1997
For his solo exhibition at the 204 space, Wenemoser produced a series of photographs of ambassadors from Japan, Turkey and Venezuela. The photographs were accompanied by a sign made out of little flags and by a logo placed on the floor. This is perhaps the first piece he realized in which he proposes the auxiliary work as the work itself. The tension of escape is then produced by contact with the persons portrayed. The idea of the pantheist union that underlies all diplomacy; the idea of moderate and controlled celebration emphasized by the little flags and the emblem, also contribute to this tension, which is further stimulated by the innocuousness which popularly characterizes the exercise of diplomacy.

5 OU, 1998
For the exhibition El casco de acero / Arte de instalación (The Steel Helmet / Installation Art) at Espacios Unión (an exhibition space which belongs to a bank) in 1998, Wenemoser proposed the project OU Banc(o) (U)nion [(U)nion Ban(k)], a performance carried out by 8 guards dressed in full uniform inside one of the two elevators ferrying viewers to the exhibition space. Each of the guards carried a disposable photographic camera. Every one of the twenty-seven trips they made (the number of possible photographs in a disposable camera is twenty-seven) was recorded by the cameras, while the viewers were asked to put ski masks, like those used by bank robbers, on over their faces. The photographs were taken simultaneously, so that at the end they show eight different angles at the same time.

6 IXI, 1997
This project consists of a series of photographs of the organizations which surround the Museo Alejandro Otero taken from inside the museum itself. Professional jockeys participated (there is a hippodrome next to the museum), guards and the museum's own administrative personnel, who posed next to an emblem and flags with the letters IXI. The work was not presented to the public.

7 Projective Gestalten, 1979
This work is an installation made in the Galerie Krinziger in Innsbruck and was made up of three parts. The first is the cartography space, where intervened city maps were exhibited. The second, was a space for descriptive geometric objects. The third was a space for the projection of the last two proposals as interventions in the city. The transit pathways in the maps are emphasized, resulting in anthropomorphic figures. This part operates according to a mental process of urban configuration through memory, without manipulating the physical shape of the city. In the part that includes descriptive domestic objects (processes of visual perception), there are five tables and five thick boards, four of them with different geometric forms. A circle, a square, a triangle and a rhomboid and the shape of a torso are repeated in both the table and the board (the latter connects the induction of the anthropomorphic forms onto the maps with the geometric forms). From the windows in the room with the geometric forms one can see only through telescopes, which are pointed towards silhouetted mirrors with the same shapes as the tables and the boards. The telescopes work as links between the spectator and the three different parts of the exhibition.

8 Untitled, 1998
In 1981, Wenemoser buried himself up to his neck at the Caobos Park (next to the Caracas museum complex) as a pre-event to invite the public to develop a piece next to the Plaza Bolivar (Persona a Persona a Personas [Person to Person to Persons], a performance in which the viewer had to enter a tent which only held the artist, and where, later, every viewer had to tell others what was taking place inside). For the event Formula 1 (performed on a set containing a fake gas station, which TEXACO installed in one of the most luxurious buildings of the city), Wenemoser reconstructed this pre-event, but instead of burying himself, he buried his 7 year old son, Anton. Television cameras captured the event.

9 CIPAPETRALAIMPRECODOS, 1991
In 1991, Wenemoser carried out his first solo exhibition at the CSS, titled Pasto Nada (Nothing Grass). The exhibition consisted of pieces of cloth covered in cement which in turn covered the entire floor. The pieces of cloth were folded in different ways which Wenemoser called creases. One of the auxiliary works (this is the point at which this term and concept, auxiliary work, appears) consisted of lights used to read invisible ink (like that used to identify counterfeit bills) employed to read the auxiliary CIPAPETRALAIMPRECODOS (perforated paper ribbons with invisible ink which is sensitive to ultraviolet light). These ribbons were arranged into two long lines on the wall. On them the artist wrote a letter in 18 chapters which was full of curses. The lights were called Auxiliary Element Confidence and were suspended from a moving cable from the room’s ceiling. The ultraviolet light allowed the visitors to reveal the texts written on the aforementioned ribbons.

1 Alfred Wenemoser participated in Cartografías, América / La Novia del Sol (Cartographies, America / the Bride of the Sun) and in Inclusion / Exclusion, some of the referential exhibitions that have collected part of the artistic production of Latin America in the manner of the center–periphery canon. Only two other Venezuelans participated in these relatively scarce projects. Very few of these projects have gained an international presence.

2 It is understood that this distancing refers more to Wenemoser’s abandoning the possibility of having his art circulate in that context than to a renunciation of the background he had assimilated. Wenemoser belonged to the generation that came after the Viennese post–Actionism, a movement he participated in his youth.

3 Artists like Gego and Gerd Leufert in Venezuela, Mira Schendel or Lasar Segall in Brazil, Lucio Fontana in Argentina and Mathias Goeritz and Francis Alys in Mexico, while they do not represent a large contingent of immigrants, have been influential in a way that connects with other more temporary but nonetheless decisive presences. In my opinion Wenemoser’s decision to emigrate to Venezuela is more (and not less) important because of the few artists who come to Venezuela.

SPANISH

Alfred Wenemoser: Conflictos espaciales
por Jesus Fuenmayor


Alfred Wenemoser (Graz, Austria, 1957, residente en Caracas desde hace 20 a os), es un artista que ha pasado desapercibido a pesar de haber sido expuesto en esa corriente del circuito internacional donde se pr ctica la categor a Latino Americano, un circuito que generalmente incluye a sta categor a m s como un nicho dentro de los sistemas de clasificaci n de la llamada producci n perif rica que lo que espec ficamente suele etiquetarse en el rubro "arte latinoamericano" (1). La obra de Wenemoser est sometida tambi n al conflicto de sus lecturas locales lo que aunado a su experiencia internacional lo convierten en un ejemplo de las tensiones entre globalizaci n y multiculturalismo, dos t rminos que, como ya ha sido se alado, avanzan por caminos diferentes a pesar de la confusi n en la que con frecuencia se nos presentan.
Por la imposibilidad de ser global Wenemoser ha eludido, al menos provisionalmente, muchos de los recursos que se utilizan para promover al arte de la periferia a escala internacional: su obra es poco convincente dentro de argumentos multiculturales, no tiene como objetivo alinearse a un mestizaje de los sentidos, no concede especial inter s a los estereotipos, no pretende hacer referencia a alguna forma de h brido cultural y ni siquiera se ha tomado la molestia de formular alg n trauma de artista en el destierro.
Por su status como artista ajeno a las condiciones m s comunes que determinan lo local, su obra no es f cil de distinguir en t rminos estrat gicos de muchos de los artistas que hacen del contexto un problema autoreferencial. Su obra se puede leer dentro del nomadismo (tanto por haberse distanciado de sus ra ces europeas en las vanguardias dominantes (2) como por ser una obra sensible a los lugares espec ficos en donde acontece). Se le puede considerar como una obra inscrita en la di spora europea, como uno de los artistas venidos a Am rica cuyo aporte ha sido significativo en el desarrollo de la escena local (3) (en su caso, Wenemoser contribuye con un grupo de artistas del performance y de los lenguajes experimentales que lograron un cierto grado de aceptaci n en medio del programa contra el constructivismo ejercitado en Venezuela desde mediados de los 70). Wenemoser, al igual que los artistas que son aceptados en calidad de innovadores entre nosotros, rechaza el colorido de lo local en todas sus formas as como no se atiene a las especificidades de un medio. En conjunto podr amos decir que esa suerte de grado cero de la identidad ha favorecido a que su obra se confunda en su contexto de producci n. Pero el relativismo de sus relaciones contextuales pudiera hacernos invertir este doble acercamiento: pudi ramos que lo que une a local es lo que lo separa y lo que crea un distanciamiento de lo internacional es justamente lo que podr a acercarlo.
II
La obra de Wenemoser, de la que es inseparable su actitud personal, queda siempre abierta y frecuentemente esta condici n se debe a una imperiosidad de la recepci n que va acompa ada de una fuerte resistencia, en pocas palabras, al fracaso al que parece dirigido el inter s de Wenemoser. Ese fracaso es su arma de doble filo: nadie mejor que un artista para ejemplificar y encarnar la derrota y l lo ha hecho con una cierta maestr a. Su obra es tan escurridiza que logr ser expuesta junto a otros artistas latinoamericanos sin que hubiera alguna correspondencia manifiesta al tiempo que pudiera ser examinada desde cualquier otra perspectiva sin que medien conflictos ticos ni est ticos como los que caracterizan a los cambios generacionales o de inter s geogr fico. Es en cierta medida lo que intenta esta aproximaci n: replicar su hermetismo a trav s de los canales de comunicaci n. El propio artista lo explica de esta manera: "Encontrar lecturas de m ltiples enfoques de una visi n org nica donde no existen respuestas o verdades a priori. Es la apertura total, la contradicci n y el vac o, la trampa, las falsas apariencias, lo que busco".
Su obra pareciera explotar al m ximo la confusi n. Una confusi n que lo lleva inexorablemente al conflicto, al fracaso que sucede en la recepci n. Por una parte, la manifiesta opresi n de sus obras en las que el t nel sin salida es un elemento emblem tico, y por otra, la necesidad de hacer apuntes, notas al margen de la obra, que abren una infinita e inaprensible variedad de lecturas al mismo tiempo que inducen a la idea de proyectos incompletos o inacabados. De acuerdo con Wenemoser "Uno de mis principios fundamentales es la expectativa y su frustraci n. No siempre doy respuestas, explicaciones, ni siquiera preguntas".

III
Las obras con las que quiero identificar al Wenemoser que estoy describiendo son las que l ha llamado auxiliares: obras que son el complemento de otras, obras de las que Wenemoser requiere que un contexto las acompa en. La aproximaci n que estoy tratando de sostener es que su obra intenta consagrarse finalmente en el espectador. Esta es la raz n por la que he escogido aquellas obras que son las zonas por donde la obra se potencia, por donde abandona los gestos tributarios, en donde debe dejar de ser le da como parte de un conglomerado en deuda con los lenguajes experimentales de otra poca. Wenemoser ha incorporado a su trabajo una experiencia que es inca en Latinoamerica, puesto que s lo en contacto directo (en la ilusión de establecer un contacto sin mediaciones) con la obra es que el espectador podr constatar su posible significado. Sin embargo, he dicho que la mayor a de sus obras fracasan y lo hacen en el intento de su deseo de establecer esa relaci n directa con el espectador. Fracasan en el relato o contexto que sustituye a la obra, mientras l intenta incorporarlos. No son el producto de esa tensi n, son la tensi n misma. Las obras que escogimos de Wenemoser dramatizan este enfoque: obras desconocidas (algunas nunca vistas, otras nunca realizadas) de un artista desconocido. Como colof n hemos querido introducir un breve registro de los auxiliares y que sean ellos los que asuman la conclusi n que los lectores est n esperando, no sin antes destacar que en ellas se realiza la frustraci n no en cuanto a esa suerte de misterio, de aura que protege su significado (podr amos incluso hablar de una cierta transparencia de significados en estas propuestas). Cada situaci n en las que est n envueltas encuentra su propia v a para que el destino se proyecte como un deseo involuntario, como un golpe de mala suerte, por la delaci n del espectador, la incertidumbre sobre su propia capacidad, la ausencia de urgencia, la inapetencia est tica, la falta de atrevimiento, la p rdida del sentido del rid culo, y todas esas peque as cosas de las adolece la figura del artista. El orden de este registro es arbitrario. En algunos casos fue imposible disponer de la informaci n que permitiera dibujar un perfil m s completo. Lo que importaba era producir un impulso centr fugo y dejar que sucedieran.

Obras en Conflictos

1 Animal Hoy, 1991-93
En CCS-10 / Arte Venezolano Actual, Galer a de Arte Nacional Wenemoser realiz MIRACARIBE, que representa seis ((C)(A)(R)(I)(B)(E)) proyectos inconclusos, frustrados o planificados en el pasado por el artista. Entre los proyectos planteados est n (C)ARIBE, (C)onducta en la obscuridad, 1980, propuesto a la Galer a de Arte Nacional, que consiste en un espacio obscurecido tapizado con papeles fotogr ficos sin revelar. C(A)RIBE, (A)nimal Hoy, 1991, propuesto para la Sala RG, es otro de los proyectos planteados, en donde cochinos con dibujos tatuados consumen carne de cerdo. CA(R)IBE, (R)eina, 1981, planteado al Museo de Bellas Artes, en el cual una mujer da a luz frente a un le n narcotizado en los espacios del Museo. CAR(I)BE, (I)nfantes Aleluya, 1978, propuesta para Brdo, antigua Yugoslavia, con un coro de ni os que canta contra una pared. En CARI(B)E, (B)ahorrina, 1983, propuesta para la Sala Mendoza, Caracas, un grupo de vagabundos consumen tomates deformados en moldes durante su crecemiento. Finalmente, CARIB(E), (E)jecutamos, 1992, planteada para la construcci n abandonada de la nueva sede de la Galer a de Arte Nacional, un proyecto en conjunto con las fuerzas armadas para convertir temporalmente el espacio en un campo de entrenamiento del ej rcito. Algunos de estos proyectos (el coro, lo tomates deformes y los cochinos) fueron total o parcialmente realizados como parte de MIRACARIBE y los otros se mantienen a la expectativa de ser materializados.

2 Chaqueta (CAP), 1997
Para la exposici n Re-readymade, Museo Alejandro Otero, 1997, se construy una vitrina gigante que pretend a contener la historia del readymade en Venezuela. Wenemoser decidi para tal ocasi n pedirle al dos veces ex presidente de la rep blica y ex presidiario por corrupci n administrativa, Carlos Andr s P rez (CAP) una de las chaquetas que se hicieron famosas durante sus dos campa as presidenciales. La obra fue exhibida junto a otros objetos de supuesta condici n encontrada.

3 RM Guayana, 1994-95
RM Guayana era una obra que creaba extensiones de elementos verticales de la arquitectura existente. En la Bienal de Guayana, Ciudad Bol var, primera versi n de la obra, Wenemoser realizo cuatro r plicas de la torre de la catedral de la ciudad que fueron instaladas a manera de una rosa de los vientos en el campanario mismo de la catedral. En la versi n caraque a de la obra, Wenemoser prolong en una progresi n infinita el tope de la escalera principal del Museo Alejandro Otero. Estas obras estaban acompa adas por un video de la represa del Guri (uno de los complejos hidroel ctricos m s grandes del mundo), al que Wenemoser propone, a partir de un texto, como un mausoleo. Un coro de sillas vac as acompa a la presentaci n del video en las salas expositivas. La idea es arrojar las cenizas de los muertos en la represa para que vuelvan a circular entre nosotros a trav s del sistema el ctrico que surte la represa (casi todo el pa s y parte del Brasil).

4 CIT, 1997
Para su exposici n individual en espacio 204 Wenemoser produjo una serie de fotograf as de embajadores de Jap n, Turqu a y Venezuela. Las fotograf as estaban acompa adas con un emblema que se materializaba en banderines y un logotipo colocado en el suelo. Esta es quiz s la primera obra de sus obras en la que propone al auxiliar como la obra misma. La tensi n de fuga entonces se produce por el contacto con la gente que esta retratada. La idea de uni n panteista que subyace en la diplomacia. La idea de celebraci n moderada y controlada enfatizada por los banderines y el emblema, tambi n contribuye a esta tensi n estimulada por la inocuidad que caracteriza popularmente al ejercicio de la diplomacia.

5 OU, 1998
Para la exposici n El casco de acero / Arte de instalaci n, Espacios Uni n, 1998, (una sala de exposiciones perteneciente a un banco) Wenemoser propuso OU (Banc(o) (U)ni n), un performance realizado por 8 vigilantes con el uniforme de seguridad del banco dentro de uno de los dos ascensores que conduce a la sala de exposiciones. Cada uno portaba un c mara fotogr fica desechable. Cada uno de los 27 viajes que hicieron (27 es el numero de fotos que trae el rollo de fotos sin revelar) fue registrado con las c maras mientras los espectadores ten an que colocarse un pasamonta as como los que usan los asaltantes de bancos. Las fotos eran tomadas simult neamente, de tal manera que al final las fotos muestran 8 diferentes ngulos del mismo momento.

6 IXI, 1997
Este proyecto consiste en una serie de fotos de las organizaciones vecinas del Museo Alejandro Otero tomadas dentro del propio museo. Participaron jinetes profesionales (al lado del museo est el hip dromo), vigilantes, personal administrativo del propio museo, posando junto a un emblema y banderines que portan las letras IXI. La obra no fue presentada al p blico.

7 Projective Gestalten, 1979
Esta obra es una instalaci n realizada en la Galerie Krinziger, Innsbruck, y se desarrolla en tres estaciones. La del espacio de cartograf as, donde se exhiben mapas intervenidos de ciudades; la de objetos geom tricos descriptivos; y las proyecciones de estas dos como intervenciones en la ciudad. Las v as de tr nsito en los mapas, est n remarcados formando figuras antropom rficas. Est estaci n opera de acuerdo a un proceso mental de configuraci n urbana a trav s de la memoria, sin manipular la forma f sica de la ciudad. En la estaci n de los objetos geom tricos descriptivos (procesos de percepci n visual), est n dispuestas cinco mesas y cinco tablones, cuatro con formas geom tricas distintas: c rculo, cuadrado, tri ngulo y rombo y, un torso, tanto en forma de mesa como de tabl n (est altima conecta la inducci n de las formas antropom rficas sobre los mapas con la de las formas geom tricas). A trav s de las ventanas que est n en el espacio de las formas geom tricas solo se puede ver por medio de telescopios, dirigidos hacia espejos silueteados con las mismas formas de las mesas y tablones. Los telescopios funcionan como v nculos entre el espectador y las tres diferentes estaciones.

8 Sin t tulo, 1998
En 1981 Wenemoser se enterr hasta el cuello en el Parque los Caobos (junto al complejo de museos caraque os) como un pre evento para invitar al publico a una obra a ser desarrollada al lado de la Plaza Bolivar (Persona a Persona a Personas, un performance en el que el espectador tenia que entrar a una carpa en donde s lo estaba el artista y luego cada espectador tenia que contarle a los dem s que era lo que suced a adentro). Para el evento F rmula 1 (llevado a cabo en una bomba de gasolina falsa, escenogr fica, que TEXACO instal en uno de los edificios m s lujosos de la ciudad), Wenemoser reconstruy este pre evento pero enterrando a su hijo de 7 a os, Anton. La televisi n asisti e inform del evento.



9 CIPAPETRALAIMPRECODOS, 1991
En 1991 hizo su primera individual en CCS, Pasto Nada. La exposición consist a en unas telas ba adas en cemento que cubr an todo el suelo, algunas de las cuales estaban dobladas de diferentes maneras y que Wenemoser llama plegaduras. Uno de los auxiliares (es en este momento cuando aparece el concepto y t rmino auxiliar) consist a en unas luces para leer tinta invisible (como las que se utilizan para verificar la autenticidad de lo billetes) que servia para leer lo que hab a en los auxiliares CIPAPETRALAIMPRECODOS (cintas de papel perforado intervenidas con tinta invisible sensible a la luz ultravioleta). Estas cintas estaban dispuestas en dos largas l neas sobre la pare y en ellas el artista escribi una carta de garabatos a 18 cap tulos. Las luces se denominaban Auxiliar Confianza y estaban suspendidas de un cable corredizo sujetado en el techo de la sala. La luz ultravioleta permit a a los visitantes revelar los textos escritos sobre las cintas antes descritas.


Notas al pie
1 Alfred Wenemoser particip en Cartograf as, Am rica / La Novia del Sol y en Inclusion/ Exclusion, algunas de las muestras referenciales que han recogido parte de la producci n art stica en Am rica Latina tal y como es entendida por el canon centro-periferia. Valga recordar que s lo otros dos artistas venezolanos tomaron parte en este tipo de proyectos relativamente escasos y que son muy pocos los que han tenido una presencia internacional.

2 Se entiende que este desprendimiento se refiere m s al abandono de la posibilidad de hacer circular su arte en ese contexto que a la renuncia de lo que hab a asimilado. Wenemoser pertenec a a la generaci n post Accionismo Vien s, de la cual era una joven promesa.

3 Artistas como Gego y Gerd Leufert en Venezuela, Mira Schendel o Lasar Segall en Brasil, Lucio Fontana en Argentina y Mathias Goeritz y Francis Alys en M xico, si bien no representan un contingente migratorio numeroso, han sido influencias que se han agregado a otras m s pasajeras estad as pero no menos decisivas presencias. Considero, adem s, que la decisi n de Wenemoser de emigrar a Venezuela es m s y no menos importante por la escasez de artistas venidos a estos parajes.