Demostrationräume: A Case Study is part of a series of exhibitions conceived by El Cartel, a group of curators, artists and friends committed to finding new ways of presentation according to the current realites of Venezuela’s political and artistic culture. Fuenmayor’s exhibition intends to investigate, from a curatorial stand, specific conditions of production and frustration. A case study reflects upon frustration as a psychological disorder associated to artists’ dysfunctional role in society in contrast to utopian idealistic constructs. Frustration, therefore, is here conceived as a paradoxically destabilizing artist’s resource that keeps alive a minimum degree of criticality in relation to social demands. From a psychoanalytical point of view, frustration is the most painful, and stimulating drive.

The issues of frustration are evident in this group of artists projects specially commissioned for this exhibition. Those issues include glamour, as in Diana López’ video – performance piece, Cocktail, in collaboration with José Gabriel Fernández; the theatrical approach of Alfredo Ramirez’s set of photos regarding decapitation; or mass media nonsense in Javier Téllez’ video performance piece of a Volkswagen Beetle full of as many people as possible in a charade of a Venezuelan TV entertainment show of the 70’s, trying to brake the registered Guinness record. Muu Blanco’s piece will introduce a thrift shop version of his own music and clothes store on Margarita Island in Venezuela, including a diversity of memorabilia of his activities as DJ, bodyboarder, store manager; and artist. Carlos Julio Molina is sending an impersonator, Chuki Molina, a 30 inch high replica of the artist as MC of his internationally renowned music band, La Corte; Meyer Vaisman’s hourglass sculptures, consist of a kind of alcoholic allegory of time. The pieces are recycled liquor bottles filled with sand emulating a sand clock. All of the artists taking part in this exhibition have gained an international and national recognition and they are widely considered as part of a generation of Venezuelan artists that defined the most radical and vital issues in art practice during the last decade.