“It is enough for the poet to be the bad conscience of his age,” stated Saint-John Perse in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Something similar could be said when artists address the vicissitudes of society. We should not ask or measurable political action when their role is to point out, to render evident, to shake us from indifference. Art may not provide answers, but most of the time it interrogates, proposes uncomfortable issues, almost like rubbing salt in a wound. Artists are seldom celebratory, nor do they usually provide solutions-art’s potency lays in the symbolic efficacy of the actions it proposes more than in the practical effects they entail. Paraphrasing Ferreira Gullar, art exists because life is not enough…
A comprehensive look at the Jorge M. Perez Collection reveals a tendency towards art with an interest in social change, art that examines the conflicts and. contradictions of contemporary society, art that critically analyzes historical events and reframes them in the present. An interest in the marginalized, the marginal and the margins (of society, of history) is what brings together the works in this exhibition. We have highlighted those works that address these issues through allegory, metaphor or veiled allusion, thus eluding direct illustration. Many of the works included in the exhibition, due to their size or complexity have never been exhibited and will be shown together for the first time.
Time for Change is structured around themes, or “nuclei,” that organically establish a dialogue and correlations amongst the pieces yet are not necessarily contained by argument.