ARTS & CULTURE A Why Alfredo’s work is pure magic!

The solo exhibit by pioneering Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar has been launched at the West Bretton attraction.

And it will play an important role in the park’s 40th anniversary celebrations taking place this year.

Jaar is widely regarded as one of the world’s most politically engaging yet poetic artists.

He sheds light on humanitarian trauma and the politics of imagemaking, creating visually and emotionally stunning works that have an exceptional aesthetic.

Frequently using appropriated media images and film, his challenge is “how to make art out of information most of us would rather ignore”.

Born in 1956 in Santiago, Chile, Jaar lived with his family in Martinique until the age of 15 and is now based in New York.

Trained as a magician and subsequently as an architect, he often uses constructed spaces and light to navigate what is seen and what is not.

At YSP, seminal installations transform the Underground Gallery and its open air concourse.

The exhibition includes a major new commission, The Garden of Good and Evil, which is visible through the glass façade of the gallery.

On entering what appears to be a beautiful grove of trees, visitors experience elegantly fabricated steel cells.

These reference the often unlawful detention and covert questioning of individuals at ‘black sites,’ or secret detention facilities operated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), around the world.

It’s a work that Jaar has wanted to realise for some years, and YSP is