Eduardo Navarro is an artist who approaches social spaces and draws lines between reality, representation, and experimental art works. He creates works with a sense of naivete that acts as a starting point and allows viewers to experience the work. In one work, La Sede, he constructed a wooden shack that religious groups used as a meeting space. In another work, Primer Maraton Antitabaco, he organized an anti-smoking marathon as an art project that relied on real participants showing up. His most recent work, El Dorado, appropriates a gold mining enterprise and questions the line between reality and art by establishing a real mining operation located hours from a biennial exhibition.

1. Eduardo Navarro
Works 2004-2009
La Sede
On-Off
Primer Maraton Antitabaco
Shelter Shelter
Colleagues
Anexo
Fabricantes Unidos
Art Center Chapel
From Your House To My House
Estacão Auto-Suficiente De Agua Purificador
El Dorado
Statement
I approach social spaces, and draw a line between reality, representation,
and the staging of an experimental art work. I create works that have a
certain amount of naivete, this naivete acts as a start point in the
development of my practice and is a pre-requisite for the viewer that
experiences the work. While I create and transform environments where
the surroundings of the artwork are taken into consideration and
contemplated upon, I search for alternatives to pre existing structures in
society and alter them in subtle ways.

2. La Sede (2004) is a wooden shack. Inside a group of Mormons used this space to share their speech in front of an audience. This space was created to be used by religious
groups. Wood 3 meters by 2,50 meters by 4 meters height. The cabin at the right functioned as a kitchen, it was mobile thanks to the wheels it was placed on.

3. The Book of Mormon contains doctrinal
and philosophical teachings on a wide
range of topics, from basic themes of
Christiannity and Judaism to political and
ideological teachings.
Inside La Sede at one of the meetings

5. See short version: www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTBnXGAqJ5o

6. Primer Maraton Antitabaco
2005
In the work "First Marathon Against Smoking" I started
attending anti smoking meetings, I decided to organize a
Marathon that would function as an anti-smoking
campaign. Ones I had arranged the stadium where the
Marathon would take place, having constructed the props
that would be used as the identity/signe of the project
and having advertise in the news paper the event, I took
part in the marathon, making a opening speech, running
and giving out the medals. What is important to underline
in this project is that the marathon could not have
happened unless "real" participants, who I did not
previously included in the project had not showed upon
the day of the event. This condition is what I intended to
appropriate, it is in this moment where I myself withdraw
in order to give up control to the dynamics that go beyond
my self as an individual producer. This event done at a
public open space (the event occurred on Saturday at 10
am)

7. List of participants that signed in for the marathon

8. "Shelter-Shelter”(2006) was created by a lake at the residency Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. This space did not have a slogan or any indications on how it had
to be used. Shelter Shelter was created and existed in parallel to "Colleagues”. This space was meant to be found with out any previous notice and allowed participants to
escape from the residency facilities. The structure sustained itself floating from the ground with sliced logs that acted as columns. This added slices allowed the floor to be
lifted until it became horizontal and independent from the irregular landscape. During the night the light was left on. It was 28 feet by 9 feet and 8 feet tall, It is made entirely
with wood and mosquito netting.

9. After dinner

10. Colleagues 2006

11. "Colleagues" is an exchange of values. I participated at
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. While I was
there I invited a therapist to give counseling to the
participants during this two month period. I turned my
studio into a counseling office, adding a carpet, sofas,
lamp, curtains, a plant, painting the walls and closing the
roof to create a more private atmosphere. Dr. Leigh
Haskell accepted to work in this space and also accepted
that her honorariums where paid with art work. She also
agreed to exhibit these art works at a show open to the
public at her official office in the town of Skowhegan,
Main US

14. Annex 2006

15. ”Anexo" was constructed at a
group show at a news paper
basement, the show was called
"Jardines de Mayo".
The inside of this space acted as
an empty office, it had two
entrances and two main spaces
and a functioning telephone line.
It's surface was 202 square feet.
The curator of the show was in
charged of a drawing workshop at
a Women's Prison in Buenos Aires.
She invited a women that had
very recently left prison to visit
the exhibition. I met her during
her visit and invited her to visit
the inside of Annex and think if
this space could be useful for her
in any way. I asked her if she
would like to use the space to
develop an activity or spend time
in it. We decided to meet ones a
day and use the space to make
drawings. After some time she
decided to invite two more friends
that had recently being released
from prison as well. The space
became a meting point and a
drawing space. After some time I
asked them if we could make
drawings of the moment that got
them in prison. We also did videos
recreating this moments, in some
I play the victim and in others the
police man.

18. These are some of drawings of the moments that took them
To prison

19. Fabricantes Unidos 2008
In the work "United Manufactures" I constructed a pudding
factory at the top floor of a huge commercial store. In this
store second hand artifacts are sold with out being subjected
to tax laws. I created a mimic of the precarious conditions of
labor and consumerism at this rough neighborhood in the city
of Buenos Aires. The pudding factory shop staged a proper
welcoming facade, where a formal looking store welcomed the
visitors. Ones the visitors steeped through the back door of
this office, they would see the raw working condition in witch
the puddings where produced, which mimic the conditions
prevalent in the "real" second hand shops on the ground floor.
I did not wish to make a denunciation of the context, I
intended to become apart of it and create a political work
from a naive perspective. The chain production factory could
be visited during the hours the store was open, and the visit
included a guided tour to the factory.
Video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn-WZKjPBCs

20. This stairways were situated at the end of the Galleria, they conduct
inside "Fabricantes Unidos". Ones you go up you find a reception hall
followed by a business office where the business took place. The
door at the office takes you to the inside a hall that leads of to the
chain production area, where the puddings where cooked.

21. This is the door that leads to the firsts hall ways. The first hallway leads to
two separated rooms. The first room is the elaboration room and the
second room is the cooking room, where the oven is. At the end of the 2
hall way you find third space where the decoration and packaging takes
place .

22. First room where the elaboration is done.
Second room Oven where the
pudding's where baked

23. Third wall way: Decoration-Packing-Deposit

24. Propaganda/Fabricantes Unidos
Propaganda is apart of "United Manufactures" I did street
advertisement in order to promote the enterprise and the
pudding consumption. Four waking Puddings visited
Shopping malls, Mac Donald's and different social realities

25. Art Center Chapel 2008

26. The work "Art Center Chapel" was created at exhibition at
the Frankfurter Kunstverein. This "real" chapel was
constructed with in the premises of the Kunstverein with
the purpose to offer a space for meditation and
contemplation. Before the opening of the exhibition, a
ceremony was held by a priest to initiate and consecrate
the physical space as an actual chapel. As in my previous
works I ones again take on a experiment which deals with a
social space that I have access to, transforming the given
space into a place for self meditation. In this work the
presence of the possibility for self-transformation of the
viewer through meditation as well as the physical
transformation of the art space into a a place of spiritual
value where both situated next to each other.
Ceremony Program

27. Holly Water
Sanctifying the space and thronging holly water at the walls

28. From Your house to my house (2009)

29. This work was created in Limerik, Ireland. I placed a pre made house
bought at Home depot between recycling garbage bins located on a corner
of a road. Anyone could access this city corner any time of the day, this
made the work very vulnerable meaning that the house could be
vandalized during the night (which eventually happened). I made a circular
cut in the front of the house at the same height that the other bins had
their holes. The only access door to the house was closed with a lock. Ones
the house was in place and had it´s own hole, I started working in the in
side, this meant, finding a mattress, a lamp, chair, etc. Simultaneously
every time some one approached the garbage bins to thought their
garbage I asked them if they could just thought it in side my house, this
took some time and explanation. It is important to mention that even do
this work was created in the frame of a group exhibition, there where no
explanatory signs at the site. Ones people started to get involved with the
idea and dumping their glass, plastic, and aluminum inside my house I
organized and separated each material in different boxes. The work
ponders the idea of recycling from a absurd perspective, becoming part of
it while generating a dyslexia in every day routine. During the day I lived
inside the house creating small sculptures from the garbage, ones they
where done I placed the sculptures in the house window. The next day
people could approach the house and see their every day rubbish
transformed into something ridiculous, like a garbage fairy. I was not
allowed to spend the night inside the house because of security reasons,
in the previous exhibition a work of art was lighten on fire. Mainly all the
garbage where beer cans and beer and wine bottles. Limerik is knowed as
the city with most number of bars in Europe.

30. Inside
View of the sculptures seened from the street

31. Estacão Auto-Suficiente De Agua Purificador

32. The original idea of this work consisted of creating a floating factory that purified the water
and then made this water into a drink beverage, mimicking for example Coca Cola that is
made from water that is supplied from companies that filter and recycle water from natural
sources. Beverage like Sprite, Fanta, etc are made from recycled water. As the idea and the
work developed during the production stage, I realized that i wanted the beverage idea to
become a hide idea, where everything was built around it but it with out underlining it or
making it obvious. In the end I decided that the factory shod become a station, where water
is analyze, purified with an inverse osmosis water filter and then returned back to the river.
In the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil (where the work was done) the sewers are dumped into the
Guaiba lake after being treated, simultaneously this same water is treated again to become
drinkable and being distributed back into the city, creating a loop where the same water is
used over and over again. I became apart of this cycle cleaning the water. On the one hand I
returned part of the purified water back to the river and meanwhile I used this purified
water to drink it my self and return it back to the river by peeing it back and becoming a
apart of this never ending cycle. In the end this station functioned as a water purifier, and
cleaned the waters of the lake Guaiba in Porto Alegre Brazil while simultaneously created a
precarious beverage that I drank my self, since they would not allow me to sell it

33. 1-1-Water contaminated extracted from the river
2-This is how the water came out of the Inverse osmosis water Filter
3-Ones the water was filtered it had no minerals. We added Tang, that´s
why the water has that particular color, after adding tang the water was
perfectly drinkable
Inverse Osmosis water filter

34. Catalog Text:
¨In the work El Dorado Eduardo Navarro appropriates a preexisting structure in society and alters it in a subtle way. While he's committed enterprise
(located 2 hours away from the biennial) modifies the landscape with a real purpose (the pursuit of gold) simultaneously questions the line that
separates reality from art. This new project that can be read as Land Art must respond and face real needs. This needs such as fencing, guards,
contracting manual labor, electric generators, etc are fundamental and real, since the excavation is located at a opened field in a peripheral area of Sao
Paulo. If the enterprise was entirely fictional the possibility of finding gold would only be symbolic, that is why his work is a fiction prepared to face
reality. Again Navarro appropriates a structure that can incorporate the success or failure of the proposal. Within the venue of the biennial there will be
a cork wall where he will pin documentation and reports send from the excavation via fax during the course of the show. The work is a diptych, two
simultaneous situations where the viewer has to build the idea of the excavation in their head, exact location of the mine is never reviled¨
Gold Excavation.
Measures: 4 meters deep. 560 square
meters area
Location
Goggle Earth:
23°45'40.89''S
46°40'57.67'’W
29 Sao Paulo Biennial. Brazil 2010
El Dorado 2010

41. Dear President of the São Paulo Biennial
During the course of these months I have spend all my utmost attention and
dedication to the pursuit of gold, and I can say conclusively that I am approaching a
real possibility of being able to actually find it. At this time thanks to the use of
delicate instruments brought from the US I can promise that over the next few
months the first signs of a real possibility of finding gold will began to appear. For
the following reason I ask you to please consider extending my project ¨El Dorado¨
over the three months time of the biennial. I propose to extend my project and
simultaneously be considered as a possible Fund Raiser for the next 30 San Paulo
Biennial. In order for this to happen I need to leave my wall mounted during the
course of the next four years. I consider of great importance to have a physical
space for development and progress of the excavation. I do not think this will be a
major problem during the following events such as Fashion Week, this wall can be
surrounded by models and eventually used as a backdrop for a runway. Please find
attached in this email the following sketch where I explain how my wall can be used
as a runway wall during Fashion Week. I compromise my self that through the fax
machine installed in the wall I will send daily reports of the total amount of gold
total weight collected during the following years. I decided to bring to the biennial a
mountain of soil removed during excavation as evidence of progress during these
months. This mountain of earth symbolizes the unprecedented union between art
and the ability to exploit its economic potential. I consider with blind faith that in
this mountain of earth at least there is a 50 dollars worth of gold. I believe that even
though my proposal as an artist may seem naive or somewhat irreverent to an art
context of this magnitude simultaneously it considers the following issues with the
utmost care and seriousness that applies to this situation:
1-A new way to approach the Fundraising of the next Biennial. If my calculations are
correct profit rates for excavation within the next years will grow and multiply
exponentially from 1.2 million per year to 12.3 million (after deducting income
taxes). For this reason the 30 Biennial de San Pablo can count on my financial
support, since I'll be able to sponsor them with the sum total of: $ 31 million dollars.
2-The gold at the moment is the only element that has a stable value in the
international market, due to the great economic crisis that the world is going
through I think the project I'm embarking can be a pillar and an example for future
economic development. I am not scared to propose my project ¨El Dorado¨ as an
economic model for future biennials.
3-Colonialism, industrialization, deforestation, exploitation, natural resources.
Please feel free to contact me in case you have any questions, I would be glad to
meet you in person and discus more in detail new ways to approach Fund raising
alternatives.
Yours
Eduardo Navarro
ESQUIMALROTO@GMAIL.COM
Measures: 7 meters by 3 meters cork wall
3 meters by 3 meters palets surface, covered with plastic, 700 kilos of filtered soil from the
excavation
←shaking hands with the president of
the Sao Paulo Biennial at the opening
In this cork wall I pinned: The emails I exchanged with my producer, list of materials, budget, my
contract with the biennial, a map of Brazil, sketches, photographs and a letter to the president of
the biennial. I also had a fax machine so I could fax reports from the excavation. These faxes will be
added to the wall during the show. I also brought a mountain of soil from the excavation
At the Biennial