“El Impacto de lo Perecedero. Encuentrame (Find Me)”

By Eduardo Laporte
Publisher by DIARIO Las Provincias, Valencia, Spain
Saturday, December 26, 2009

Rafael Doctor, former director of MUSAC, Leon, Spain, states: “Ephemeral is everything that has a living presence, not just a physical presence.” Fernando Rubio, artist: “It is a very subjective concept, something ephemeral can last one day or one year.” Fernando Castro Florez, art critic and professor of Aesthetics and Art Theory, comments that current art tendencies seem to be evolving away from the “eternal concept related to classical monumentality;” art seems to be “detached from its physicality,” and documentation (photographs) substitute for “museums and monuments.”

The truth is that ephemeral art which makes use of the city and turns it into a stage, that interplays with the residents of the area and that generates experiences, is growing strong. (…)

For the artist of the 21st Century, the studio seems too small, an ‘atelier.’ The city turns into the work’s surface. (…) The whole world seems to be not only reason for inspiration but also the biggest exhibition space.

Find Me

That’s how we understand the latest creative challenge by Gema Alava, artist from Madrid, resident in New York, who has presented a singular project entitled ‘Find Me.’ Alava convinced some of the most highly recognized artists in the USA and in the art market, such as Robert Ryman, Ester Partegas and Lawrence Weiner, to give her, generously, a small artwork, in order for her to hide the pieces -- a twist to ephemerality’s concept, which also plays with the idea of secrecy. Ester Partegas’ garbage bags -with different smiley faces- were ephemeral; as were the paper planes made out of one dollar bills by Lars Chellberg placed on trees; and Maria Yoon’s round cookies, with her portrait painted with colorants and sugar. Not so ephemeral (because they remain) were other artworks strategically placed in different locations of the North American geography.

On October 8th, the artist gathered the press and general public and invited them to participate in this original game -- food-for-thought for a Paul Auster or Vila-Matas novel. Several clues were given in order to discover the valuable objects; insufficient clues though since, as of today, many of the pieces remain exactly where Gema Alava placed them.

The artist herself traveled to San Francisco, to the conflicted Tenderloin District, and camouflaged five of the ten pieces of ‘Find Me.’ One of them is a book made by Alava entitled ‘Find Me 2.0.,’ which contains the exact coordinates where all of the artworks were released. This book remains hidden in the public library of the neighborhood. It is a kind of “Bookcrossing” with artworks by some of the best artists, instead of used books by anonymous readers.

ORIGINAL TEXT PUBLISHED BY DIARIO LAS PROVINCIAS. CLICK HERE