He fled Pinochet’s Chile and now makes art that tackles the horrors of our age, from torture to genocide. As he hits Edinburgh with sandwich boards, he explains why he’s never really happy with the results
Two light-box tables, like the ones a photographer would use to look at slides and negatives, are set in a corner of Alfredo Jaar’s airy studio in Manhattan. One is suspended from the ceiling, the other standing on the floor directly below it. Over the course of a minute, the suspended table is lowered to meet its twin. A thin black shadow is cast on to the studio’s walls at the moment of closure. As the table rises, the artist is brightly lit again, just as visitors will be when the piece, Lament of the Images, goes on show in Japan (Tate has an earlier version).
There are no slides on the table, something that often confuses spectators, even those too young to have seen a slide. And that’s the point, says Jaar. The piece illuminates the onlookers in “a failed attempt to try and get people to see each other”, he says. Jaar is big on failure.
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