Wits Art Museum, Johannesburg
23.02.2016 – 10.04.2016
Alfredo Jaar: The Sound of Silence
Alfredo Jaar is a highly acclaimed Chilean born artist, architect and filmmaker. This large-scale installation is centered on South African photojournalist Kevin Carters’ famous photograph of a starving Sudanese toddler watched by a vulture. Published in The New York Times in 1993, it won the Pulitzer Prize and triggered an outcry questioning the photographer’s moral responsibility. Jaar’s work raises questions about our responsibility as consumers and producers of images.
Alfredo Jaar has been featured on Art:21. His work has been shown extensively around the world, notably in the Biennales of Venice (1986, 2007), São Paulo (1987, 1989, 2010), Istanbul (1995), Kwangju (1995, 2000), Johannesburg (1997), and Seville (2006). His work, Park of the Laments, was part of the 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park which opened in 2010 at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Important solo exhibitions include the New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (1992); Whitechapel Gallery, London (1992); Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (1992); Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1994); Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (2005); Fundación Telefónica, Santiago (2006); Musée des Beaux Arts, Lausanne (2007); and the South London Gallery in 2008. Jaar became a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985 and a MacArthur Fellow in 2000. He was also a 2006 recipient of Spain’s Premio Extremadura a la Creación.
