Performance by TM Sisters

Museo de Arte de El Salvador (MARTE)

MARTE Contemporáneo

Presents:

"Things Will End Before They Start"

By TM Sisters

Thursday, August 12^th, 2010 @ 5:30PM

Monica and Tasha López de Victoria, 28 and 26 years of age respectively, best known as the TM Sisters, are shining Miami siblings that have been artistically enthused since very young. Their parents home-schooled them and they grew up immersed in discussions regarding profound topics such as relationships, conduct, and creativity, which undoubtedly, triggered their ability to produce great multimedia and interactive art pieces.

The Sisters’ works have been presented in various renowned international exhibits, such as “Uncertain States of America: American Art in the 3^rd Millennium” curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Daniel Birnbaum, and Gunnar B. Kvaran; the 2^nd Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, and in PERFORMA 07. Plus, their pieces have also been published in L’Officiel Magazine, The Guardian, NY Times, Vogue Italia and other well-known publications.

As part of the MARTE Contemporary Program, the Museum of Art in El Salvador is pleased to invite art enthusiasts to this one of a kind performance by the TM Sisters: "Things Will End Before They Start", that will be held on Thursday, August 12^th at 5:30pm. The presentation is a short video performance where the TM Sisters are the live characters in a paper cut out animation. The piece is about how one must close chapters of running life to make space for the new, bright, and exciting potential.

Photos: Digital video performance in "Uncertain States of America; American Art in the 3rd Millennium",

Serpentine Gallery, London. 2006. photo (c) by Declan O'Neill

OPTIC NERVE – MOCA North Miami

Museo de Arte de El Salvador (MARTE)

MARTE Contemporáneo

Presents:

OPTIC NERVE

July 1^st through August 29^th, 2010

Optic Nerve is a very popular festival organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami - MOCA. This annual event presents videos and short films created by some of the most innovative and emerging artists from the South Florida area, which are selected through an open call for proposals. These proposals are, then, reviewed by a jury of professionals specialized in art and films; the selected videos are displayed, each year, at this museum. One of the videos presented in each issue is acquired by the MOCA, for its permanent collection, through funds provided by the coffee company Starbucks.

In this sample of our MARTE Contemporary program, and thanks to the collaboration of the MOCA, the works of the following artists were shown: Towbridge Kyle, Jiae Hwang, Phillip Estlund, Jen Stark and TM Sisters (Natasha and Monica Lopez de Victoria). Their videos were selected for 2005 and 2009 Optic Nerve issues.

The Museum of Contemporary Art - North Miami

Known as the museum "where the new art is discovered," MOCA is internationally recognized as an institution that promotes the identification of new trends and directions in contemporary art. The museum plans and implements most of its exhibitions, and it presents an exciting range of emerging and established artists. Visitors from around the world are guided to be placed in its permanent collection that reflects the most important developments of contemporary art. MOCA has a continuous program of lectures by renowned artists and critics, film screenings, concerts and art performances. Plus, it is an institution that has attracted the attention of the American public for the originality of its educational programs, which have enabled the accessibility to the contemporary art that is enjoyed by people of all ages.

Semántica - April 15th to June 13th 2010

Semántica

Museo de Arte El Salvador

MARTE Contemporáneo Program

April 15th to June 13th 2010

Semántica is a multinational collective project involving emerging/contemporary artists from Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador, the United States and Mexico. This exhibit originates as an idea from a conversation between six artist friends, in October 2008. The group came up with an investigative proposal that would attempt to find out if a multinational art exhibit could do without a curator, high production costs and burocratic paperwork regarding exports and imports of art as a good.

This proposal consists in creating an artist selection chain in which each artist, from an initial list, would choose the next individual, and this person would select a third individual. Each participant is given an identical blank book that he/she will work on. There are no rules to this game, or any limitations, and each artist can determine what his/her book contains or how his/her book is manipulated. These books were completed in September 2009 and started their journey around various countries, native to the artists, in April 2010.

Semántica interprets the concept of “the artist’s book” from 18 different perspectives. For some of the participating artists, this is their first artistic book; meanwhile, for others, this is one of the many art books they’ve created throughout their artistic life. The exhibit portrays books that have turned into diaries revealing the daily life of the artists, and others that have been transformed into art objects. Even if artists are strangers between themselves, they will come together through an intimate dialogue that leads to a collaboration representing the similarities and differences between the participating countries.

Semántica questions the separation that innovative media technology creates between the creator and his/her work of art, in this way, erasing implicit rules that separate the public from its experience at a conventional art gallery. As a consequence, this exhibit makes use of the traditional medium – “the artist’s book” – to express the need that is still present in various artists: to maintain a direct contact with the creation. The books are tangible objects with which the participants coexist for numerous months; turning them into valuable objects. This significance and worthiness of the object is what makes the artist not want the public to come into contact with the creation. Then again, Semántica is complete, as a work of art, only when the public, does actually, come into contact with the books. The public stops being a mere spectator to convert him/herself into an active participant of this sensorial experience.

Ironically, the exhibit takes advantage of the same media it questions in order to convert itself in a reality. All the communication between the participants takes place through digital media that shortens the distance, frontiers and political complications between countries. However, this first exhibit is still affected by shipping complications and the financial limitations some of the artists face. As a consequence, 6 books that were intervened by the participants from the Habana, Cuba, are still there; we certainly hope that they can be present in the upcoming exhibit.

Ana Urquilla

General Coordinator

Semántica