Leandro Erlich / Judi Werthein

Kent Gallery is pleased to present a collaborative photographic intervention executed in November 2000 on the occasion of the VII Bienal de la Habana in Cuba. Exhibited here will be a re-creation of the original installation, the photographs and polaroids realized during a 20 day residency, as well as a new publication documenting the project published by Kent Gallery.

In light of the resurgence of Cuba as a tourist destination, Tourism focused awareness on a unique paradox. Although Cuba has re-emerged as a major tourist destination, Cubans cannot be tourists. The cultural intervention documented here, part playful and part conscious-raising, allowed Cubans to transport themselves to a surreal vacation spot where they could experience being tourist for a fleeting moment and simultaneously preserve the memory with a photograph.

This installation involved the assembly of props to create a photographic setting of an unreachable Austrian Alps landscape to be transported by the artists from their Brooklyn studios to Cuba where it was installed. The project began as a performative intervention where the artists, Judi Werthein and Leandro Erlich, needed the participation of the Cuban community to complete the project. It was critical to the artists that Tourism be accessible to, as well as utilized by, the local community. The alpine backdrop was set up with artificial snow, skis, sleds and all other accompanying decorative items that helped create the magical illusion. Cubans residents were then invited to come and take their picture in front of the backdrop and thus completing the work of art.

We wished to compose an idea that would allow us to come into close contact with the people of Cuba. A project connected with the reality of the situation rather than the mere manifestation of an artwork that was alien to the Cuban context. We would transport a meeting place in the form of a landscape, a fantasized imaginary situation.

Judi Werthein, originally from Argentina and presently a resident of New York, has recently been featured by three exhibitions at Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Bahia Blanca, Ruth Benzacar Galeria de Arte, Buenos Aires, and Centro Cultural Gral Jose de San Martin, Buenos Aires. In addition, Werthein was recently a participant of Artists in the Marketplace, a program sponsored by the Bronx Museum of Art, New York.

Recent activities for Leandro Erlich include NEIGHBORS: an installation by Leandro Erlich exhibited in the Spring of 2001 at El Museo del Barrio, the recent installation entitled RAIN for the 2000 Whitney Biennal and the large scale installation of THE SWIMMING POOL at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi via Rialto which serves as the Pavillion for Argentina in the current 49th Venice Biennal.

Pressetext

Leandro Erlich, Judi Werthein: Turismo