The Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO) is a non-profit organization that promotes education through cultural exposition. It was founded in 2002 by Ella Fontanals and family and presently continues to diligently promote education through the effective use of visual artistic vectors. The exhibition currently on display at CIFO, named Being in the World: Selections from the Ella Fontanals-Cisneros Collection, was curated by world-renowned curator Berta Sichel. It features 7 media-based works, contributed by Chantal Akerman, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Muntean/Rosenblum, Shirin Neshat, Robin Rhode, Bill Viola and Francesca Woodman, respectively.

The central theme of the exhibition seeks to epitomize the views of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who believed that the present of an individual is influenced (implicitly dictated) by both past and present; a factor mostly constituted by people (e.g., friends, acquaintances, and strangers). Conclusively, the exhibition successfully transmits Sartre’s fundamental view that art only genuinely belongs to individuals if, when beholding it, they become illusioned as a result of the interplay between the aforementioned elements which contribute to the reality of an individual (according to Sartre).

The Aesthetics & Values 2009-2010 class attended the exhibition this past Friday, January 29, 2010. Upon entering, we were immediately struck by the seemingly modern, yet ironically ‘traditional’ piece, Disco(2005), by Muntean/Rosenblum. The piece successfully attempted a modern recreation of Théodore Géricault’s Le Radeau de la Méduse. The video was adequately complemented by a musical piece in the Baroque style and collectively portrayed, in my opinion, particularly significant emotion. The exhibition then progressively (and successfully) walked us through a series of impressive pieces, ranging in theme from human camaraderie subsequent to disaster, a species of habituation through the perspective of a female prostitute, to the generic feeling of individual difference within society, among others.

The exhibition as a whole was both impressive and incredibly enjoyable. Certainly one of the most significant modern exhibitions I have visited thus far.