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paraphernalia used than a work presented in a more sober fashion. This was the case with the Colombian artists, whose extreme seriousness and integrity, coupled with a sober montage on the third floor of the Biennial, meant that they passed unnoticed in the overall scandal and exhibitionism which marked the event. The quality of the triptychs by Carlos Rojas was undeniable. As were the paintings by Manuel Hernández. I do not have the same respect for the set of work sent by Edgar Negret. Although his two Eclipses confirmed the best qualities of his work, the fabrics contained gratuitous elements, an unjustified transposition from three to two dimensions and a rather trite use of color. On the same floor as the Colombians, on the other side of the entrance ramp, there was an exhibition in homage to Alejandro Otero, who died recently. This was a firstclass museological project, which enabled the visitor to follow the career of the artist, from his early landscapes to the final computer graphics. Another well-known name (or pseudonym) on the third floor was that of the German A. R. Penck (1939), represented by five enormous canvases from the Michel Werner gallery in New York. Once an apologist for aggressive individualism in Eastern Germany, his painting is now looser and appears more playful than critical; his wire men have gained weight and the anguish of twenty years ago has lost some of its pain. To return to the installations, I should like to mention the works
BiII Woodrow. Stem, 1991. 59 4/5 x 131 x 90 in.
by Luis Pizarro, a Brazilian (1958) who created a regular structure in PVC covered with aluminum, a kind of gigantic scaffold reflected in a sort of apparently bottomless pool, all set in a darkened atmosphere; another Brazilian, Mauricio Bentes (1958), also used water, red and darkened neon lighting: three horizontal elements, at floor level, like tomb-ponds of iron cut with a blow pipe, suggested the reddish reflection of the light and only on the days following the inauguration the circulating of the water. Water was the nucleus of at least five or six installations in addition to those which have been mentioned. In the main hall of the ramp, the Japanese artist Ichi Ikeda
Max Uhlig. Mount Vegetation 2, 1990. 43 1/4 x 110 1/5 in.
(1943) constructed a work entitled Mirror of Water for São Paulo, the framework of a performance which the artist called “transformational”. Every three or four minutes, the mirror of water moved, thanks to an electrical-mechanical system hidden at the bottom, and seemed to boil, bubble and ripple gently. This was, I think, the public’s favorite installation at the Biennial. The painting by the Brazilian artist Jadir Freire was excellent; extremely weak, on the other hand, were the works of the Chilean Vergara and the Mexican Marín. There was some good sculpture by Osmar Dalio and the English artist Bill Woodrow. The work of many of the Japanese artists was a high point, although the collective project entitled