ESPAI 13 - 1999-2000 season
Cycle: An oasis in the blue desert
Curator: Michy Marxuach

Presentation of the cycle to the Press: Friday, 8 October 1999, at 12.00.

On Thursday, 14 October, the Joan Miro Foundation will be inaugurating the new season's cycle in the Espai 13. The curator is Michy Marxuach, who lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico. An oasis in the blue desert - a metaphor for Puerto Rico as seen from Puerto Rico - will start with TuTran, an exhibition by local artist Charles Juhasz Alvarado.

One of the aims of the Espai 13 is to exhibit the work of experimental artists. By selecting different art critics every two years to act as curator, a wide variety of subjects and viewpoints is assured. A very different, and distant, cultural and geographical background adds to this creative wealth, as in the case of the present cycle, An oasis in the blue desert, which addresses Central America and more specifically the island of Puerto Rico.

This experimental component inherent in the Espai 13 can be found both in our immediate environment and in the use of new technologies - as was very evident in the previous cycle - but also in the most far-flung places. The viewpoint of a curator from a region such as the Caribbean that is so very "different", and the work of the artists she will be presenting, enable us to see how, in the final instance, subjects that may be far removed on a geographical and cultural level are in fact universal and very much closer to home that we might imagine.

The themes proposed by Michy Marxuach for the five exhibitions in this cycle are by no means unusual, for there are conceptual links between them and some of the proposals in previous cycles. The artists invited to participate reflect on the subject of transit and cultural exchange, centre and periphery, the public and the private, collective identity, frontiers and cultural borders. What is new here is the different viewpoint. Michy Marxuach sets out to analyse and reflect the reality of Puerto Rico as seen from Puerto Rico, but she is also looking for a dialogue with artists and viewers here. This play of successive mirrors and reflections, which is in fact the main thread of the cycle, will be picked up by those artists who wish to take part in the Open Space which, as in previous seasons, will bring the cycle to a close.

An oasis in the blue desert will open on 14 October with TuTran an exhibition by Charles Juhasz Alvarado. After him will come Adam de Ia Croix with Changing direction, dealing with the subject of identity. This will be followed by lgnacio Lang, who will be presenting a video installation on the concept of seeing; Chemi Rosado Seijo, with Concealing in order to reveal, on the manipulation of messages and visual communication; and finally, Dhara Rivera with an installation on the metaphor of the mirror and the dichotomy between the real and the imaginary.