Alfredo Jaar: It is Difficult

Alfredo Jaar, an artist, architect and filmmaker known as of one of the most uncompromising, compelling and innovative artists probing issues of global concern today presents his first lecture in New Zealand, on the occasion of the exhibition Space to Dream: Recent Art from South America.

Jaar will introduce his most recent projects realised around the world, including places such as Fukushima, Buenos Aires, Montreal, Leipzig, Santiago, and New York, among other locations. He will also present a selection of his most iconic works, including A Logo for America (1987), his historic public intervention restaged in 2014 in New York’s Times Square, and The Skoghall Konsthall (2000), the world’s first paper museum, which he created only to burn to the ground 24 hours after its creation in order to ignite a community’s yearning for a space for culture.

Alfredo Jaar’s installations and public interventions have earned him international acclaim. His work has been shown extensively around the world. He has participated in the Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007, 2009, 2013) and Sao Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010) as well as Documenta in Kassel (1987, 2002). Important individual exhibitions include The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York; Whitechapel, London; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Rome; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. A major retrospective of his work took place at three institutions in Berlin: Berlinische Galerie, Neue Gesellschaft fur bildende Kunst e.V. and Alte Nationalgalerie. In 2014, the Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki hosted the most extensive retrospective of his career.

The artist has realised more than 70 public interventions around the world. Over 60 monographic publications have been published about his work. He became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a MacArthur Fellow in 2000.

His work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim Museum, New York; the MCA in Chicago; MOCA and LACMA in Los Angeles; the Tate in London; the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris; the Centro Reina Sofia in Madrid; MACBA in Barcelona; the Moderna Museet in Stockholm; MAXXI and MACRO in Rome; and dozens of other institutions and private collections worldwide.