Meyer Vaisman

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  print Summer 1995

  VENEZIA/VENEZUELA: A PROJECT FOR ARTFORUM

  The Venezuelan artist Meyer Vaisman, elected to represent his country in this year’s Venice Biennale, proposed a project consisting of two housing units, each of a type familiar in the Venezuelan landscape. One structure, Verde par fuera, roja par dentro (Green outside, red inside), which was previously installed at tile Galería de Arte Nacional, would have replicated the kind of rancho or shanty in which most of tile country’s urban population lives. Inside the makeshift structure of hollow bricks and mortar, the artist would re-create his bedroom from his adolescence in Caracas, complete with

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  print April 1992

  OPENINGS: JOSÉ ANTONIO HERNÁNDEZ-DIEZ

  IN VENEZUELA, A LARGELY CATHOLIC country like much of Latin America, the most important event of the year is the “Miss Venezuela” pageant. Broadcast into every home, from the largest Italianate villa to the smallest Latinesque rancho (shanty), via the miracle of television, it is an event of epic proportions—the coming of the new madonna. The winner’s name is known to everyone, daily incantations of it making it as important a part of the Spanish language as the ever-growing slang. No Miss Venezuela, it should be noted, has ever married. These beautiful women become the mistresses of bankers