Alejandro Cesarco succeeds in productively linking the language of American Conceptual Art and tales of crime with great originality. In so doing, he uses a variety of forms including text, photography, the spoken word and the artist‘s book, integrating them into his installation. In his prize-winning work The Streets Were Dark With Something More Than Night or The Closer I Get To The End The More I Rewrite The Beginning, 2011, we hear the unmistakable voice of Lawrence Wiener, with which Cesarco reinforces his investigation into the Conceptual Art of American artists John Baldessari, Louise Lawler and Andrea Fraser. He creates a space of multiple associations and narratives in which viewers easily lose themselves.

The installation consisting of wall texts, a slide show, photographs and a booklet was officially presented to mumok Wien, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, in addition to the Baloise Art Prize 2011.

Living in New York, Cesarco tries to convey in his works the connection between words and images, between what can be said and seen. How do readers perceive or invent the meaning of a story? How do memories and history, fiction and facts interlace? Cesarco’s conceptual art addresses these issues in reference to the narrative and literature-related compositions by artists such as John Baldessari, Marcel Broodthaers and Lawrence Weiner or Félix González-Torres and Louise Lawler.

Gallery Murray Guy, New York, USA

Jury members:
Karola Kraus, Director, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; Petra Roettig, Director, Galerie der Gegenwart, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Daniel Birnbaum, Director, Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Thomas Olbricht, me Collectors Room, Berlin and Martin Schwander, Fine Art Advisor of the Baloise, Chairman of the jury.