“Labyrinths”, at Fundación Proa, appeals to visitors due to the emotional proximity it establishes with them. “Labyrinths”, at Fundación Proa, appeals to visitors due to the emotional proximity it establishes with them. Who has not faced labyrinthine dilemmas once? Curators Cecilia Jaime and Mayra Zolezzi chose works by national and international artists and writers to reflect on these extremely complex constructions, with a center, paths and crossroads. “It is curious that man builds a space to lose himself,” wrote Jorge Luis Borges, a key figure in the curatorial narrative.
An impressive 360° video installation, “LABIRINTI. Storia di un segno”, begins the exhibition tour with a succession of wonderful images, while narrating the origin of the labyrinth, with texts by Umberto Eco and Franco María Ricci. It begins with the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, continues with the labyrinth as a religious symbol, then it is placed inside the human being, until reaching “the labyrinth of the Internet, considered the largest in the world.”
The city as a labyrinth, in Room 2, shows pictures of the ancient and biblical city of Jericho, engravings from the 18th century by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, reproductions of images of labyrinths by Sandro Boticelli, Leonardo Da Vinci, in dialogue with works by notable artists contemporaries such as Edgardo Giménez, Xul Solar, León Ferrari, Pablo Siquier, Regina Silveira. In the center, Dan Graham’s transparent circular structure is designed so that the viewer enters and feels like going through a maze.
In Room 3, the labyrinth in literature and cinema presents texts by Borges (see box), Eco, Cortázar and Mujica Lainez and the surrealist magazine “Minotaure” founded by André Breton, whose cover illustrations -by Duchamp, Ernst, Miró , Man Ray, Magritte, and others- are exhibited and photocopies of which are available to viewers so they can view the content. The room adds an auditorium to see the 35-minute compilation made by Ananda Rigoni Aller, with fragments of films with labyrinths, from “Metropolis” (1927) to “The Sinister Island” (2010).
Javier Bilatz’s interactive proposal in Room 4 uses technology -a digital labyrinth modified by each visitor who faces it- and introduces the theme of the labyrinth in the body, with works that refer to the human brain, the labyrinth of the ear, the reflection of oneself , of each spectator like a Narcissus in the water, in the center of the installation by Michelangelo Pistoletto. At the end of the visit, many will have to agree with Adriana Rosenberg, president of Proa, who concludes that, given the difficult dilemmas of these times, “it is important to remember that all labyrinths have an exit, some, even two”.
