Alfredo Jaar
Alfredo Jaar, born 1956 in Santiago, Chile, lives and works in New York. After studying architecture and film in Santiago, Jaar moved to New York in 1982, where he turned his focus to installation art. His photo-based works, often presented in light boxes, confront political and social injustices. With pieces such as Gold in the Morning (1986) and the Rwanda Project (1994-2000), Jaar addresses global crises with striking urgency and emotional depth. His aesthetic – marked by clarity and minimalism – aligns closely with conceptual art, using pared-down visual strategies to provoke critical reflection and ethical engagement from the viewer.
Alfredo Jaar Editions
The Eyes of Gutete Emerita
1996/2024
From FACES
Two-part digital pigment print on Hahnemühle 300g rag paper, hand-torn, each 50 x 60 cm. Edition of 45 + 8 AP, signed on label verso of the second work, numbered on the print itself.
The Rwanda Project, a six-year project that served as a tribute to the victims lost in the Rwandan genocide and a critique of the Western world's indifference to one of the most violent conflicts of recent history, is one of Alfredo Jaar's best known works. On this project and the powerful image that his two-part edition The Eyes of Gutete Emerita is based on, the artist says: "I visited Rwanda to witness the genocide of a million people in less than 100 days, in the face of the barbaric indifference of the so-called 'world community'. I took thousands of pictures, some of the most harrowing scenes I had ever experienced. But I discovered later that I could not exhibit them. I had to create a new strategy to attempt representing the horror. This work for Faces is one such exercise."
EUR 3,000
Walking
2002
From Double Exposure
Two Fujiflex prints, mounted behind plexiglass, 61 x 40.5 cm (24 x 16 in) each. Edition of 45, signed on both images.
Alfredo Jaar on his edition Walking: "I witnessed this scene in 1994 in Zaire, today known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A refugee is walking. His appearance is similar to most refugees, with bare feet and a cane. He carries just one bag filled with old garments; he has lost everything. This man was just one out of four million Rwandan refugees seeking refuge outside Rwanda or being displaced within Rwanda. I was unable to assist this man in his desperate journey. I remember him walking."
Set EUR 1,800
Gold in the Morning 1985
2002
Published for Documenta 11
Transparency in light box, 35.5 x 96.5 x 9 cm (14 x 38 x 3½ in), edition of 30, signed and numbered.
Since the early 1980s, Alfredo Jaar's work has focused on photography as political witness. He has used his hybrid of installation, photography, text and sculpture to create metaphoric images dealing with the antagonisms between industrialized and developing countries. In the summer of 1985, Jaar spent several weeks in Serra Pelada, a gold mine in the Amazon. This edition, Gold in the Morning, is a portrait of seven miners, their gaze directed toward us. It is the artist’s way of claiming a place and its people, not as our own, but as something deserving of thought, action, and the dignity of identification.
EUR 10,000
