The Art of Loving / Panopticon

Jorge Méndez Blake

21 November 2010

Installation

One of the inherent features of modern society is the free transit of goods and people. In this work, Jorge Méndez Blake creates an allegorical installation on capitalism, revolving around three main elements. We can cross a symbolic border consisting of bricks arranged in a line, and see a Swiss airport during the waiting time prior to a journey. Mirroring the literary connections underlying the body of work of this Mexican artist, this particular piece has borrowed its title from The Art of Loving, the well-known book by the philosopher Eric Fromm. In fact, this work is really about trying to come up with an answer to the problem posed at the beginning of that book, concerning the possibility of considering art as a space of freedom that questions what belongs to the effective domain of creation within the social.