(Guadalajara, 1997–1998) formed after a request to Jalisco’s Secretary of Culture denied the group of artists use to the abandoned art gallery Dr. Atl. Adorned with a businesslike name while likewise referencing a common Spanish term for masturbation (to “pull one’s self), Jalarte A.I. toyed with expectation throughout their twelve realized projects in Trojan-horse-like fashion. Their shared interest in architecture informed much of the practice, using abandoned buildings and creating bizarre alternative spaces in which to present their work and confuse an already unwitting audiences through opaque artistic gestures and happenings which upset familiar ways of experiencing art. Past projects include Cóctel numerológico pitagórico (Numerological Pythagorean Cocktail Party) at the Campo Minolta, Guadalajara (1997), which required its attendants to send a fee and personal data used to devise individual numerological charts and soccer jerseys with numbers pertaining to the individual’s personality, mind, body, soul, and past life. The first room the visitors entered invited self-reflection with displays explaining the significance of each number. The next room contained a playable, but silent, organ. Upon entering the final room, guests were greeted with drinks, a disco ball, and soccer balls to play with, and the realization that the organ in the prior room was broadcasting to the space they now congregated in. Another project, Concierto de cámara de Jalarte (Chamber concert of Jalarte) at the Roxy Cultural Center, Guadalajara (1998), was a musical performance that lasted one hour and featured an improvised composition structured on 3600 metronomic beats at 60 beats per minute. It was performed by the members of Jalarte and artist Rubén Méndez on violin, hand saw, trumpet, computer, piano, metal sheets, small electronic organ, voice, and turntables and broadcasted out on Guadalajara’s classical music station. Jalarte’s members were Rodrigo Aldana, Francisco Balzaretti, Omar Guerra, Alejandro Ramírez Lovering, Lourdes Méndez, Daniel Navarro, and Fernando Palomar.

tags: architecture, alternative spaces, happenings