Artist: Alexander Apóstol
Yamaikaleter
August 13 – September 27, 2015
CAPC Contemporary Art Museum of Bordeaux
Bordeaux, France
The CAPC contemporary art museum of Bordeaux continues its program The Screen: Between Here and Elsewhere dedicated to films and videos by international artists, the museum will present from august to september the film Yamaikaleter made by the venezuelian artist Alexander Apóstol.
This program is conceived by the guest curator, Anne Sophie Dianant.
Alexander Apóstol’s work is concerned with the consequences of South America’s political and cultural heritage. Using film, video and photography, the artist often introduces the relations between architecture and city-planning with regard to history. The film Yamaikaleter draws inspiration from Simón Bolivar’sThe Jamaica Letter, written in English on 14 May 1815, in which the Venezuelan statesman, an emblematic figure in the emancipation of the Spanish colonies in South America, developed his ideas.
Because the legacy of The Jamaica Letter has often been used to support any manner of political tendency, the artist has it read out loud by residents of a poor Caracas neighborhood, themselves leaders of different political groups (chavistas and anti-chavistas). These protagonists do not understand English, so the reading swiftly turns into a form-focused performance, a parody of a charisma-free discourse which seems devoid of meaning, but where we rediscover the corporal language and the intonation usually adopted by leaders. The artist proposes a deconstruction of the political discourse, keeping just the elements and codes to do with representation—the body language and the vocal intonation which punctuate the film.
Commissioned by the Goethe-Institut in 2009, Yamaikaleterwas screened at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011.
Alexander Apóstol was born in 1969 in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. He lives and works between Madrid and Caracas. His solo exhibitions include Centro de la Imagen, Lima, Peru, 2011; MUSAC, Castilla y León, León, 2010; Arratia+Beer Gallery, Berlin, 2010; Harvard University, Boston, 2007 and Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, 2006. He has taken part in the following group exhibitions: Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today, 2013; Manifesta 9, Limburg, Belgium, 2012; 54th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy, 2011; The End of Money, Witte de With, Rotterdam, 2011; Photographic Typologies, Tate Modern, London, 2010-11; Atopia: Art and the City in the 21st Century, Centre de Cultura Contemporània, Barcelona, 2010. He was awarded the prize of the Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio, Italy, 2012.