Alfredo Jaar, Chilean, b. 1956, Park of the Laments, 2010, limestone, Gabion baskets, concrete, plants, wood. Commissioned by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Lelong, New York.

The form of Park of the Laments is a square within a square, one rigid and made of limestone-filled Gabion baskets, the other soft and organic, made of indigenous, trees and shrubs. Visitors enter the work via an underground tunnel. Moving towards the light, they climb stairs that lead them above ground into the center of the park. Visitors are invited to occupy this quiet contemplative space, which Jaar describes as a refuge, a place for lamentation and purging the global atrocities of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

Project Documentation

About the Artist

Born in Chile and now based in New York, Alfredo Jaar (b. 1956) is internationally recognized for his provocative installations and public projects investigating contemporary socioeconomic issues. Trained as an architect and filmmaker, he incorporates photography, film, text and sculpture into works that look to the relationship between ethics and aesthetics. Jaar’s public artworks include a 1987 Public Art Fund commission A Logo for America, which appeared on the Spectacolor Lightboard in New York’s Times Square. Since then, Jaar has made works drawn from first hand witness and research of such issues as toxic waste in Africa and the genocide in Rwanda. Recent exhibitions include solo presentations at Telefonicam in Santiago, Museo d’Arte Contemporaneo in Rome, and Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts in Lausanne.