Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck: Cultural Diplomacy: An Art We Neglect

20.11.–21.12.2013

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck
Exhibition View, Galerie Martin Janda, 2013

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck & Media Farzin
Model of Alexander Calder’s Cône d’ébène, 1933 + Saddam Cloud. From the series Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions, 2006-2009
Ebonized wood, metal, synthetic fabric and thread, vinyl lettering on wall and wall label with narrative text
Installation dimensions variable

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck & Media Farzin
Alexander Calder’s performing mobile Orange Fish (1946) at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. From the series Cultural Diplomacy: An Art We Neglect, 2007-2009
Framed C-Print, vinyl lettering on wall and two wall labels with narrative text
Installation size: 177 x 160,5 cm

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck & Media Farzin
Detail of Alexander Calder’s performing mobile Orange Fish (1946) at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. From the series Cultural Diplomacy: An Art We Neglect, 2007-2009
Framed C-Print, vinyl lettering on wall and two wall labels with narrative text
Installation size: 177 x 160,5 cm

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck & Media Farzin
Mobile for the Hotel Ávila, 1939–1942 and The Larger Picture, 1939–1942. From the series Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions, (Suite view) 2006-2009
Two framed C-prints, mock construction plan of Calder's mobile (print on paper) and two wall labels with narrative text
Installed suite 280 x 410 cm

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck & Media Farzin
Mobile for the Hotel Ávila, 1939–1942. From the series Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions, (detail) 2006-2009
Framed C-print; mock construction plan of Calder's mobile (print on paper) and wall label with narrative text
Installation size: 280 x 204 cm

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck & Media Farzin
The Larger Picture, 1939-1942. From the series Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions, 2006-2009
Framed C-print and wall label with narrative text
Installation size: 91 x 205 cm

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck & Media Farzin
Didactic Panel and Model of Alexander Calder's Vertical Constellation with Bomb, 1943. From the series Cultural Diplomacy: An Art We Neglect, 2007-2009
Installation dimensions variable

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck
Standard Creole with Bikini, 1940s. From the series Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions, 2006-2009. In collaboration with Media Farzin
framed C-print and wall label with narrative text
Installation dimensions 92,7 x 195 cm, framed C-print 92,7 x 156 cm

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck
Exhibition View, Galerie Martin Janda, 2013

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck in collaboration with Media Farzin & Paolo Gasparini
Architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva in collaboration with Alexander Calder. Aula Magna auditorium, Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas, 1954. From the series Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions, 2006-2009 (Rosé detail)
Framed C-print from unstable (1954) Kodachrome attributed to Paolo Gasparini, two wall labels with narrative text
184 x 184 cm (framed). Installation dimensions variable

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck
Architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva in Collaboration with Alexander Calder. Aula Magna auditorium, Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas, 1954 (Purple) From the series 'Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions', 2006–2009, In collaboration with Paolo Gasparini and Media Farzin
C-print from faded 1954 Kodachrome attributed to Paolo Gasparini, wall label with narrative text
Framed C-print: 184 x 184 cm. Installation dimensions variable

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck in collaboration with Media Farzin & Paolo Gasparini
Architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva in collaboration with Alexander Calder. Aula Magna auditorium, Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas, 1954. From the series Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions, 2006-2009 (Red detail)
Framed C-print from unstable (1954) Kodachrome attributed to Paolo Gasparini, two wall labels with narrative text
184 x 184 cm (framed). Installation dimensions variable

Alessandro Balteo-Yazbeck in collaboration with Media Farzin & Paolo Gasparini
Behind the Scenes, 1954. Architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva in collaboration with Alexander Calder, Aula Magna auditorium, Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas. From the series Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions, (detail) 2006-2009
Framed C-print from unstable (1954) Kodachrome attributed to Paolo Gasparini, two wall labels with narrative text
120 x 120 cm (framed). Installation dimensions variable

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Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck: Cultural Diplomacy: An Art We Neglect

Opening: Tuesday, 19 November 2013, 7 pm
Exhibition runs: 20.11.–21.12.2013

Galerie Martin Janda is showing new works by Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck made in collaboration with art historian Media Farzin from November 20 to Dezember 21, 2013. The artist, born in Caracas (VE) in 1972, explores the political and economic interdependencies of the post-war modernist period and the political and hegemonic interests of a state and its propaganda.

In the pieces on show here, Balteo Yazbeck makes reference to works by Alexander Calder, linking the latter’s aesthetic formalism with the political events under way at the time of their creation. He works in a variety of media including photography, film and installation, often making use of found material, for example photographs, maps and newspaper cuttings. His works question and analyse propaganda strategies of the post-war western world, when contemporary artworks were used systematically to convey such values as freedom, prosperity, security and utopias. Balteo Yazbeck combines this set of concerns with US interests in petroleum and the contingent economic and political ties which have persisted to this day.
The exhibition comprises works from Balteo Yazbeck’s Modern Entanglements, U.S. Interventions and Cultural Diplomacy: An Art We Neglect series. “Each work entangles art history and the global politics of oil and war to shape a narrative of unusual and intentionally-strained connections. The narratives follow the origins of the Cold War through visual juxtapositions that reveal the intersection of foreign policy and corporate interest that has controlled the distribution of global power since World War II.“ (Media Farzin)

Balteo Yazbeck uses models, plans and catalogues entangling specific Calder's works to visualize US interests in the oil market in South America and the Middle East. He takes advantage of the fragility and mobility of Calder’s works to link the complex political and economic dynamics underlying the petroleum as a raw material with the visual canon of modernism. The narrative in the series on the show ranges from Nelson Rockefeller as a hotel owner in Caracas to the 1940s’ MoMA, from nuclear tests on the Bikini atoll to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran and the architecture of Carlos Raúl Villanueva in Caracas.

Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck was born in Caracas (VE) in 1972 and lives and works in Berlin.
Media Farzin is a New York-based art historian specialized in language-based art of the 1960s and 70s.