Internationally acclaimed artist Alfredo Jaar will present his latest work \u2013 a three-channel video installation memorializing the 1994 mass killing of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and pro-peace Hutus in Rwanda \u2013 at the University of Connecticut\u2019s Contemporary Art Galleries March 24.<\/p>\n
Born in Santiago, Chile and now a resident of New York City, Jaar has exhibited scores of installations around the world. His provocative art installations and public interventions focus on human rights and contemporary socio-economic issues, combining elements of photography, architecture, and filmmaking. Since the 1980\u2019s, Jaar, through his art, has been revealing the public\u2019s desensitization to images of events such as genocides, epidemics, and famines.<\/p>\n
Jaar\u2019s latest work, specially commissioned for the Contemporary Art Galleries, is titled We Wish to Inform You That We Didn\u2019t Know.<\/em> Jaar is the 2010 Raymond and Beverly Sackler Artist-in-Residence at UConn and, in that role, has been mentoring UConn Fine Arts students while developing the exhibition.<\/p>\n The Jaar exhibition will be available for viewing in the University\u2019s galleries at 830 Bolton Road on the Storrs campus from March 24 to April 22. A special reception with Jaar is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in the galleries on March 24.<\/p>\n The UConn exhibition is a culmination of Jaar\u2019s previous work involving Rwanda. Jaar\u2019s The Rwanda Project<\/em> 1994-2000<\/em> was created in response to what he believed was the world\u2019s criminal indifference in the face of the genocide in Rwanda. The project lasted six years and included 25 different works that Jaar considers \u201cessays of representation.\u201d In 2008, Jaar returned to Rwanda to create a monument to the victims of the genocide. The UConn exhibition is a presentation of some of the new visual material he gathered during his return visit, and represents both closure for the artist and a continued expression of his outrage that the brutal genocide was not prevented.<\/p>\n Jaar will talk about his UConn exhibition in a keynote lecture scheduled for 4 p.m. on March 24 in the Konover Auditorium at the Dodd Center in Storrs. Jaar also will participate in a roundtable discussion about \u201cThe Arts and Human Rights: Perspectives from Latin America\u201d with Spanish artist\/photographer Marcelo Brodsky in the UConn Student Union Theater on March 24, from 10 a.m. to noon. The discussion is sponsored by The Dodd Center\u2019s Human Rights Initiative, the Human Rights Institute, the Foundations of Humanitarianism Program, the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at UConn, and Contemporary Art Galleries.<\/p>\n Jaar has received many awards, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award; a Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award; and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts; the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; and Spain\u2019s Premio Extremadura a la Creaci\u00f3n. His art has been featured in the biennials of Venice, S\u00e3o Paolo, Istanbul Kwangju, Johannesburg, and Seville. It has also been showcased at Documenta in Kassel. Jaar\u2019s politically motivated sculptures, installations, and public interventions have been presented worldwide, and he is represented in collections at the Art Institute of Chicago, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, The Israel Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mus\u00e9e Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Mus\u00e9e National d\u2019Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, and The Museum of Modern Art.<\/p>\n For gallery hours and additional information, please go to the Contemporary Art Galleries’ website<\/a>.<\/p>\n