JULIETA ARANDA: BETWEEN TIMID AND TIMBUKTU

Julieta Aranda, one of artists participating in this year’s edition of Documenta, in Kassel, Germany, will have her first individual exhibition in Brazil: ‘Between Timid and Timbuktu’, scheduled to open on September 3rd at the Galeria Marília Razuk. Comprising an installation of mirrors with inkjet prints in a variety of shapes and sizes spread throughout the gallery’s exhibition area, it investigates the notion of time as a concept that cannot be measured.

The artist got the name for this showing from Kurt Vonnegut’s book, The Sirens of Titan – ‘Between Timid and Timbuktu’ is the title of the first chapter, where the relationship between time and space is discussed. The plot has billionaire Winston Rumfoord as a space adventurer, who, whilst in the proximity of Mars, penetrates a distortion in space-time with the result that he becomes an intermittent presence back on earth. In fact, For Rumsfoord, the passage of time is no longer applicable and he exists as if in a condition of simultaneity.

Taking the nature of time as the main crux of her investigation, the artist explores the conflicting propositions on the subject to try to grasp a temporal space that allows for a change, a temporal vacuum where themes, happenings and truth can be produced. According to Aranda, her work clamors for equivalence between “empty time” and “time without change”. In her own words, “time, independently of change, means that instead of the infinite interval, the present becomes a space of infinite actions, which are not necessarily linked to ‘what was’ and ‘what will be’”.

About the artist

Julieta Aranda (México City, 1975) divides her time between New York and Stockholm. She holds a Masters’ in Fine Arts from Columbia University (New York) and has had her work exhibited in such events and spaces as the Venice Biennial (2011); Liverpool Biennial, New Museum, in New York, MUSAC, in Spain (2010); the Guggenheim Museum, in New York (2009); the 2nd edition of the Moscow Biennial, 9th edition of the Lyon Biennial, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art (2007), and the 7th edition of the Havana Biennial, among others.