Alfredo Jaar

“It is difficult / to get the news / from poems / yet men die miserably every day / for lack / of what is found there”. — William Carlos Williams

Alfredo Jaar approaches critical aspects of the postcolonial world in order to state our society’s institutionalized indifference towards events such as genocides, famines, marginalization, military conflicts and political corruption all over the world, as well as art’s incapability in facing them.

Alfredo Jaar’s exhibition "It is difficult" is accompanied by the book It is difficult Vol.1, special publication featuring a rich photographic documentation most of which previously unpublished from the artist’s archive, and the catalogue It is difficult Vol.2, available in English and Italian featuring texts by Paolo Fabbri, Paul Gilroy, Bartolomeo Pietromarchi, Gabi Scardi and Nicole Schweizer.

In these books, the contrasts between industrialized and developing nations, the rhetoric of the media, and the process of removing such themes from our collective conscience are analyzed by minutely documenting the complex reality of a situation in situ, and focusing the attention of the public on the possible relationships between ethics and aesthetics and the key-role of art in criticizing the way in which such serious events are treated in our society.

This book is also available in English.