ALFREDO JAAR Chile / United States of America
Academy Cinemas

This film was born out of my love for African music. While organising my extensive collection of Angolan recordings, I discovered that I possessed six different versions of a song called 'Muxima'. And a film was born.

The first recording of 'Muxima' was in 1956 by Ngola Ritmos, a band formed to assert their Angolan identity when Portugal, the colonial power, was repressing cultural events linked to political demands. The song was written by the band's leader, 'Liceu' Vieira Dias, one of the founders of the Movement for the Liberation of Angola.

'Muxima' describes the tale of a woman who is accused of witchcraft and asks her accuser to go to Muxima for the truth to emerge. The chorus asks us to kill the madman and concludes that two madmen don't fight. The political reading of the song suggests that as Angolans felt defenseless, only God could save them and declare the truth to the indifferent world.

The Portuguese treated Angolans as primitives lacking culture, madmen. But Angolans, too, viewed the Portuguese as madmen, insisting on the violent and senseless occupation of another country. The chorus refers to this absurd and endless situation and demands the liberation of Angola.

- Alfredo Jaar

Background

Born in Santiago, Chile in 1956, Alfredo Jaar lives and works in New York. He has a substantial exhibition history dating back to the late 1970s, and works as an artist, architect and filmmaker. Recent solo exhibitions include Todo el Dolor del Mundo, Centro Portugues de Fotographia, Porto, 2004; Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom, Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Roma, 2005; The Eyes of Gutete Emerita, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2005; Muxima, Grant Arts Gallery, Kansas City, 2005 and Galerie Lelong, New York, 2006; Alfredo Jaar: Santiago de Chile, Sala de Arte Fundacion Telefonica, Santiago, 2006; The Sound of Silence, Fabrica, Brighton in association with the Brighton Photo Biennial, 2006; and Alfredo Jaar: The Eyes of Gutete Emerita, Hood Museum of Art, Darmouth College, New Hampshire, 2006. Selected group exhibitions include Sanctuary: Contemporary Art and Human Rights, Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow, 2003; At the Mercy of Others: The Politics of Care, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2005; The Hours: Visual Arts of Contemporary Latin America, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2005; and The Gold Standard and Into Me / Out of Me, both at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York in 2006. For further reading see, Patricia C. Phillips, "The aesthetics of witnessing: a conversation with Alfredo Jaar", Art Journal, Fall 2005.

www.alfredojaar.net