Opening: Thursday, September 18th, 6:30 p.m Fragmenting Obsolescence is a curatorial project comprising a series of exhibitions produced within the framework of BIENALSUR 2025. The project explores works and artists that challenge the modern notion of technological progress by suggesting potential fragmentations, ruptures, and fissures. This progress has led us to an unprecedented crisis, making it essential to imagine alternatives to the linear temporality that we adopt for objects, materials and beings. Our attention is mostly focused on anything with volume that is defined as an object or is made of matter. These observations, which are fundamental to the project Fragmenting Obsolescence, include a broad spectrum of material states and the extension of the life of objects. However, Ways of Observing Space addresses what is seemingly invisible and immaterial: space itself. If we observe the universe, we can see that the ratio of matter to vacuum is comparable to one second in a million years. This astronomical proportion suggests the existence of an invisible force that compresses, unites and contains matter: gravity. From the simple act of a sheet of paper falling to the ground to the movement of planets and galaxies, gravity is a fundamental power that shapes existence and transformation and defies obsolescence through its infinite persistence. In light of these ideas, a common thread emerges among the works: the desire to render visible what has become naturalised. This includes such things as natural rhythms in profound disequilibrium and destruction, accumulating layers of pollution, silent magnetic forces and cosmic imagination. Rather than viewing space as a conjunction of straight, measurable lines, they approach it as a fragmented, circular or even invisible sequence. The materials–steel, magnets, cement and ropes–become the essential medium used to highlight the forces contained within space, revealing the inherent vitality and active role of the forces that shape existence.
Image: David Franco, Imposibilidad Física 01, 2024