Off / Fóra the 29th Pontevedra Art Biennial, 13.07- 03.09, 2006 in Pontevedra, Spain

Off / Fóra, the 29th Pontevedra Art Biennial, to take place between July 13 and September 3, 2006 in Pontevedra, Spain. Curated by the Argentine Victoria Noorthoorn, the Biennial includes 29 artists from Argentina, Chile, Galicia and Uruguay that explore the phenomena of emigration, mobility and difference today. It will be the first European Biennial to give Latin America, and, specifically the Southern Cone, such a central position.

Off / Fóra, explores emigration as a global, sociological, historical, cultural, and psychological phenomenon.
Off / Fóra considers the four participating countries as representatives of the problems of the contemporary being in a transnational market where the migrant plays a central role.
Off / Fóra delves into the question of how feelings of belonging, roots and place are constituted, and how ideas of nation, identity and tradition are problematized. These questions are explored from a wide perspective where the concept of identification is permanently re-constructed, and the stereotype challenged.
Off / Fóra explores the situation of the migrant or the exile, on the basis of the notion of the artist as a political figure and symbolic analyst of domains, ideas, forms, and languages.
Off / Fóra considers imagination of vital power for the subject; as it allows him to project change, to consider the possibility of migrating, and to visualize the existence of a different world for the future.
Off / Fóra proposes a crossing of boundaries, where the artist takes the limit as a place of debate and extends the frontiers of his own practice. One of the strategies to effect this leap is fiction, understood as an imaginary journey.
Off / Fóra establishes a dialogue in space that privileges resonance, echo, and disturbance over the refuge offered by narrative coherence or nationality.


Participating Artists:

Argentina: Eduardo Basualdo, Aili Chen, Marina De Caro, Ana Gallardo, Sebastián Gordín, Roberto Jacoby, Daniel Joglar, Patricio Larrambebere, Esteban Pastorino, and Judi Werthein.

Chile: Pablo Chiuminatto, Nury González, Josefina Guilisasti, Mario Navarro, and Bernardo Oyarzún.

Galicia: Xosé Artiaga, Vari Caramés, Din Matamoro, Holga Méndez, Andrés Pinal, Carlos Rial, Diego Santomé, and Xesús Vázquez.

Uruguay: Luis Camnitzer, Ricardo Lanzarini, Marco Maggi, Mario Sagradini, Martín Sastre, and Cecilia Vignolo.

Curatorial Team
Director: José Carlos Valle Pérez / Curator: Victoria Noorthoorn
Advisors: Cecilia Brunson (Chile) / Miguel Fernández-Cid (Galicia) / Gabriel Peluffo Linari (Uruguay)