An exhibition curated by Claire Fontaine. Etcetera... was born as a response to a specific political moment. It raised from an unconscious need to forge a generational identity as a reaction against the colonization of culture by the rules of neo-liberal market all along the 90's.
Etcetera...is something that doesn't have to be defined
Something that comes next and it's not determined, it's the other name of the future.
Etcetera...from the Latin word "et , that means "and"; and "cetera/ceterum", "else".
The word used to interrupt the discourse suggesting the omission of what should be
told. It's represented by abbreviation etc.
Etcetera...is the word that breaks the linguistic system.
Etcetera...ends and starts the speech.
Etcetera...exists in all languages, that's why it is an ally all over the world.
Etcetera...is this present moment and its members cannot be counted.
Etcetera...is singular and plural, female and male.
Etcetera...may be added, subtracted, divided and multiplied.
In late 1997, some artists in their twenties started to experience a collective
desire to form a group and to be part of a movement that could interact with
different social contexts.
The action of bringing art into the public space of protest, was as important for
them as the one of displacing the same social conflict into other contexts whose
political content was obliterated by the heavy industries of culture and their
massive event machines.
Etcétera... was born as a response to a specific political moment. It raised from an
unconscious need to forge a generational identity as a reaction against the
colonization of culture by the rules of neo-liberal market all along the 90's.
Two experiences deeply marked its identity: in the winter of 1998 an abandoned house
was occupied by the collective. This building happened to be the old printing
workshop of the surrealist artist Juan Andralis (1924-1994) who during the '50 had
been part of Andre Breton's group in Paris and once back in Buenos Aires created
this workshop along with a publishing house.
This building situated in the neighborhood of Abasto was transformed into an art
laboratory, an auditorium and a library, in order to make experiences of
des-education and autonomy possible and shared. After the encounter with the
surrealist archives, the group made the practice of self-teaching, and the
investigation of the connections between art and life, the core of its research and
experimentation.
The other experience that marked Etcétera... was the participation with the group
H.I.J.O.S (Children for Identity and Justice against Forgetting and Silence) to the
organization of the Escraches. These practices consist in visiting regularly the
habitation of the unpunished torturers of the dictatorship and attracting the
attention of the neighbors and the passers-by through performances and symbolic
actions. In this theatrical and political space the struggle for justice and memory
opened up an occasion for hybridization and elaboration of social changes.
Neighbors, students, artists and political organizations could exchange about their
different strategies and their respective imaginary on a communal ground of action.
This experience turned into a precious laboratory revolving around the new forms of
militancy.
After ten years of work and struggle Etcétera... keeps acknowledging the same
inequalities masked by a growing political confusion. The work and its uncomfortable
position appear to be more necessary than ever. Blurring the borders between
sculpture and performance, between art and political action, between poetry and
realism, Etcétera liberates a space to question our habits, our categories of
judgment and their consequences on the social level. The construction of their
psycho-geopolical map of the present will touch Paris forty years after Mai '68, for
no commemoration or nostalgic gesture, but to claim that any space of freedom has to
be activated and questioned, today as much as yesterday, in Paris as much as in
Buenos Aires.
Opening Saturday April 12th, 2008 from 5pm to 9pm
Galerie Frank Elbaz
7, Rue Saint-Claude - Paris
Free admission