The exhibition A Place in Two Dimensions reformulates these concepts through two independent, autonomous shows installed in a single exhibition space. This project features, on the one hand, representative works from the collection of Eugenio López Alonso (including sculptures, paintings, installations and videos made by over fifty different artists), and on the other, a solo show by American artist Fred Sandback (1943–2003). Thus, sixty-one objects made with different lexicons and media are superimposed and connected to nine installations made with yarn characteristic of the minimalist artist’s practice. The simplicity and agility of Sandback’s projects contrast with the strong visual and physical presence of the pieces from the Colección Jumex.
The design of an architectural space must cater to the needs and plans of rational subjects. For these subjects, the constructed spaces must channel the flows and actions required by the users. This is why a public building significantly encourages one type of mobility over another. Some architectural projects have the ability to contest this rule by generating installations that introduce two different situations at once in a single space. The best analogy for this strange possibility of construction is in nature itself, where, in theory, two or more realities can coexist simultaneously. One of the more interesting aspects of the concept of the “multidimensionality of worlds,” formulated by quantum physicist Hugh Everett (1930–1982), is the idea of “parallel realities”—of worlds abutting each other on a multiple differentiated level. Thus, parallel realities or dimensions are possible for all those not subject to the limitations imposed by a single system. The principle of dimensional simultaneity establishes that two or more physical objects, realities or perceptions can coexist in the same space-time outline.
Today we know that the system in which we live does not function in a linear way, given that events do not always occur as a chain, one leading to the other. Our world is actually structured along multiple tracks, like the various tracks on a single length of audiotape. On the tape, channel 1 runs parallel to channel 2 and they remain invisible to each other, but they are real and tangible for someone who perceives the recording in its totality. So we can understand how the greater universe can also run along two or more parallel tracks of reality.
This is the absurd, contradictory concept of the show at the Museo Jumex. With such celebrated figures as Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Andy Warhol, Maurizio Cattelan, Francis Alÿs and Gabriel Orozco, the show disobeys a universal principle of logic in order to introduce a dialectical order of things, productively reconciling two entities of very different natures. The architecture of A Place in Two Dimensions complicates the notion of specificity and expands it in other directions, permitting two spatial extensions to merge or mix in a single phenomenological diagram.