Untitled (detail), from the series Searching for Africa in LIFE, 1996, Alfredo Jaar, chromogenic prints mounted on Plexiglas
Courtesy Alfredo Jaar and Galerie Lelong, New York. © Alfredo Jaar
Transcript
Female Narrator LIFE Magazine was the first American news magazine to rely on images to tell stories. When the magazine was launched in 1936, publisher Henry Luce stated that its purpose was to “see life, to see the world.” Yet artist Alfredo Jaar says the world the magazine saw was not comprehensive.
[expressive music depicting Africa]
Alfredo Jaar Basically Africa was not on his radar.
Female Narrator To make his case, Jaar assembled all 2,128 covers of LIFE magazine that were published from 1936 to 1996.
Alfredo Jaar When you search for images of Africa in LIFE magazine, in these 2,128 covers, [music ends] if you're lucky you might find 5 covers and they all represent animals.
Female Narrator Unlike many contemporary artists, Jaar says what he is doing is not appropriation.
Alfredo Jaar What I do is just a displacement. I displace them from within the field of media into the field of art. I want people to see them under a new light. But I don't do anything to them. They're identical to the original.
[expressive music depicting Africa]
Female Narrator Raised in the French African island of Martinique, he feels an affinity to Africa and Africans.
Alfredo Jaar I lived 10 years of my life in a small French island called, Martinique, which is a black island. And this is the birth country of Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon, the founders of the anti-colonialist movement called Négritude. So, that experience made me create very strong links with the African race, and when I moved to New York in the early 80s, I immediately realized that in spite of what I had read about the Civil Rights struggles and so on, there was still an enormous amount of racism in the United States and I decided to focus on this subject.
Female Narrator When asked if he thinks it is better today, Jaar reflects.
Alfredo Jaar I wish I could say yes, but no. Unfortunately, no. And what's happening in the streets of our cities is the most terrible demonstration that we are still living in the middle of a quite racist society.
[music ends]