Trial Balloons

The proposal stems from the very definition of Trial Balloons, non-manned balloons that measure temperatures and winds and provide other environmental data at different altitudes, and from the social and political use of the term, which means to tentatively put forth an idea or anticipated plan to test public reaction. Considering what is inherent in the term and its shifting into other applications, and within the context of some important trends and practices developed over the course of the last five years in the contemporary art world, the curators strive to elaborate, according to Pérez Rubio, a metaphor that forges paths, experiences sensations and once again considers those other realities lost after the years of documentary and verite art. The very atmosphere of the project is that which joins these balloons, taking into account that perhaps the obsession with the new and the conspicuousness of a still unknown present already weighing us down are very much alike, which should rise and grasp these or other ideas, concepts and personalities emerging from the broad scenery of contemporary art.

For Octavio Zaya Trial Balloons is neither a homogeneous entity nor a consciously directed movement. It is instead a space, a condition, a predicament where competing intentions and effects, diverse social and intellectual tendencies and lines of force converge and clash. Trial Balloons is an open project and therefore unstable, contradictory, partial and going in several directions. There are no hierarchies no preferences because it flirts and weaves itself equally with the unquestionable, the unpredictable and with failure. Trial Balloons is a process of the potential, of the still possible; scenarios we can speculate with and structures that can be crossed out, changed, interchanged and reinterpreted. They are not fixed representations but spaces of spontaneous encounters and collaborations. Trial Balloons is a polyphony of this moment. This is not an efficient project but one full of complexities, accidents, and errors, and unresolved, doubtful and undefined questions.

Within this context, in the confusing and unbalanced situation caused by the flood of information brought by mass media as well as the globalization that threatens to homogenize cultures, Yuko Hasegawa wonders, How can one maintain the freedom of spirit and relate ones self to the outer world? The artists in this exhibition -answers the Director of the Contemporary Art Museum, Tokyo (Japan), herself- will present us their simple solutions to these questions. Their sharp manner of observation on something usual, ordinary, and vernacular is beautifully balanced with their unusual and extraordinary transformation through their outstanding manner of intervention or juxtaposition. That will not create a pre-established harmony, but instead, a richly transformed expression will be generated through the exposition of their naked sensibility to the reality while taking nourishment from it. It can be called the survival of sensibility. https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/41355/trial-balloons-at-musac/