Ricardo Rendón's wall-sized sculpture visually blocks access to Shifting Constructs, the new exhibition at the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO).

Its placement is an apt metaphor for this display of conceptual art by eight Latin American artists who received foundation grants and commissions in 2008: The ideas behind the artwork are as important as the visual presentations, but they're not always immediately accessible.

Rendón's Black Work (Obra negra), is, at first viewing, a striking minimalist sculpture of concrete block, cement and black pigment. But only after a viewer scans the wall texts and watches an adjacent video does he understand that the artist is referring to methods used to build low-cost housing in Mexico. Rendón has effectively turned the gallery into a workspace, counter-intuitively using construction materials and techniques as evidence of his creative process.

BRIDGING THE GAPS

Fortunately for exhibition visitors, the extensive wall labels and accompanying brochure bridge the gap between the ideas underpinning the works on display and their presentation. In his brochure essay, Elvis Fuentes, a curator at New York's Museo del Barrio, notes that conceptual works ``generally limit themselves to illustrating the debate [between form and content] without really contributing to it. This is why it is refreshing to find examples that stand out because they confront the same themes from a point of view that is both diaphanous and searching.''

Two videos -- by Colombian artist Oscar Muñoz and Ecuadorian Juan León -- are prime examples of conceptual work that succeeds visually and intellectually.

The video at the heart of Muñoz's Archive by contact (Archivo porcontacto) is a mesmerizing series of rapidly changing images projected onto the running waters of the Cali River. The images are culled from a series of more than 300 portraits taken by street photographers between 1950 and 1970 from the Ortiz Bridge. That source emphasizes the transitory nature of life in the city, remarkably enhancing the visual experience. Also on display are many of the original photographs, plus a video that relates stories from passersby.

``From the point of view of re-presentation through the photographic portrait,'' Muñoz says, ``there has never been an element so charged with power and recurring evocation as the genre of the portrait. Nonetheless, and because of this phenomenon, absence is also stronger and that which is forgotten more overwhelming.''

León tackles the theme of time and change in a different way. On a screen split horizontally, he pairs 1960s documentary footage of suburban growth in Guayaquil with contemporary re-creations of the same scenes. The passage of time is evident between Rolf Blomberg's original film and León's updated version, even without the background, but that information unquestionably enhances the video's impact.

The ease of tipping the precarious balance between concept and visual presentation is also evident in other works by CIFO grant recipients.

Colombian artist Gabriel Antonínez offers Growth and Decomposition (Crecimiento y descomposición), an installation comprised of four components, each of which is more successful than the grouping. The minimalist Rotten (Podrido), a walk-in sculpture of brown yarn, wood and glass, evokes a range of responses from claustrophobia to a comforting cocooning sensation. Salt (Sal), a series of small, meticulous graphite drawings of a snail being desiccated by salt, is a forceful if somewhat macabre reminder of the power and impact of artwork in more traditional media.

Miguel Amat of Venezuela is represented by a series of digitally altered infrared photographs of historic battle scenes from which all traces of human presence have been removed, calling into question the sites' historical value. Suwon Lee, also from Venezuela, presents The Clash, 75 photographs about the Korean experience in Venezuela, juxtaposed against a room illuminated by colored fluorescent tubes.

OTHERS' CONCEPTS

Two of the works on display arguably achieve neither visual nor intellectual resolution. Most striking about both is the way the artists have built upon someone else's concepts. Brazilian Dora Longo Bahia's audiovisual installation is a re-staging of Andy Warhol's video Vinyl which, in turn, was based on Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange. For his interdisciplinary installation The Progression of Influence, Peruvian José Ruiz, who runs a community art center in New York, appropriates five unrealized proposals that had been submitted and invites viewers to develop the artwork as their own.

The works on display were selected from more than 250 submissions by CIFO's international advisory committee and board of directors. Despite or, perhaps, because of its missteps, this challenging exhibition is well worth a visit, especially by anyone interested in the directions cutting-edge art is taking in Latin America.

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