Counter-Geographies of Conceptual Art is the title of our latest dossier, in which Miguel A. López, Joaquín Barriendos, the Taller Historia Crítica del Arte, Fernanda Nogueira and Fernando Davis examine the different interpretations of “Latin American Conceptualism”, encouraging us to consider, in a political sense, other critical experiences in the field of art. Our Centre Pages feature interviews with Yoshua Okón, Esther Ferrer and León Ferrari.

In addition, the issue includes our regular CiberContexto, Cinema, Music, Books and Reviews sections, offering information on the most relevant exhibitions taking place this season: the Chile Triennial, Panorama da Arte Brasileira, John Baldessari, Modernologies and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, among others.

You can check out the contents page for this issue, and read the Page One, CiberContexto section and the articles by Miguel A. López as well as the interview with Esther Ferrer.

As can be confirmed by anyone who reads them, Carlos Labbé’s novels are unusual narratives which seem to be constructed around the confusion and feverish discourse of people undergoing extreme situations, presented from the limits of good sense and alienation. It is usual for a perfunctory reading of any of the three, published as “conventional” books until now –long although very interesting, where he spoke about his experiments in the medium of the internet -, namely: Libro de plumas (Ediciones B, Chile, 2004), Navidad y Matanza (Periférica, 2007) and the recently published Locuela (Periférica, 2009), to produce the idea of a twisted, crazy narration, more centred around the text, from tectus (fabric), than on the framework of the story that serves as an excuse for the novel; Labbé’s narrative, ultimately, consciously breaks with the conventional idea we have of a narration. In other words, he is perfectly aware of the fact that the surface of the narrative, the discourse, is what makes up its existence and in itself gives it entity. Putting it another way so that we may understand it better: a novel is not the story it tells, but the discourse that the author generates around that story.