The installation biennial

Art in America, March, 1998 by Eduardo Costa

Also at the Centro Historico, Brazil's Alex Flemming showed a furniture installation. His '50s-style sofas and chairs, upholstered in plastic colors too outrageous even for that ebullient decade, were given conceptual status by various inscriptions printed on their seats, backs and sides. The furniture did not invite the viewer to sit down, but rather to read (as do Jenny Holzer's benches). One of the chairs refers to cloning, another to mad-cow disease.

Laura Anderson Barbata, who is Mexican and American, used cane poles to assemble tall, lightweight shelves similar to those the Aztecs used to present war trophies in public plazas. On these shelves the artist exhibited innumerable corncobs featuring rows of what seemed to be human teeth instead of kernels. These compelling objects were deeply about eating and about food, but also about the way one culture can oppress another.

Martinique's Mare Latamie, who lives in New York, showed one of his characteristic sugar installations. Cumuli of the white crystals, partly dyed, occupied the center of the room; the heaps were dotted with life-size artificial butterflies. In one corner was a concentration of tin buckets which contained splashes of color or neon words like "sky." A light and tender piece, it was a joyful excursion into a world where pastels rule and dreams of a pure childhood extend into adulthood.

Originally from Argentina, Miguel Angel Rios, known for his pleated maps and pieces incorporating quipus (Inca knot systems used for counting), contributed a cartographic installation. The conceit was to cut a huge pleated map into strips and smartly crisscross them in the large exhibition space, allowing the viewer to wander around the fragmented representation. The overall effect was that of an enlightening Gulliver-like shift of scale.

Chilean Ismael Frigerio (who lived for many years in New York) showed two installations. One of them (usually on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santiago) consisted of a TV set, which constantly showed close-up footage of a fire, sitting on top of a mound of burned twigs. The other, a more recent work, combined text with neo-expressionist painting. "Knowledge does not enrich us, but brings us further away from the mystical world that was once our real fatherland" reads a fine written in Spanish across one of the walls.

The performers Casas-Lemebel, also from Chile, have collaborated for years in a unique class discourse with the accent on sex and politics. The Apocalyptic Mares, as the two men call themselves, were an exception at the "Installation Biennial," as they presented a performance. Aside from writing mostly autobiographical books which Candidly chronicle the Eves of a gay group in middle-class and working-class Chile in the time of AIDS, the duo has performed frequently and generated some memorable images, among them a campy tableau vivant of Frida Kahlo's painting The Two Fridas. The Apocalyptic Mares seem like spiritual siblings to the famous Mexican artist and sufferer.