Hoping To Be Internationally Known

Summer has brought a number of internationally themed exhibits to galleries and museums throughout the city, from "Traditional Korean Crafts" at the United Nations to Paula Trope's collaborative photographs of Rio de Janeiro "street kids" at the Americas Society.

But these shows serve a higher purpose than simply livening up galleries in August. Curators say they also play a key role in helping foreign-born artists gain recognition in the New York art world.

Vienna, Austria, for example, has a thriving art photography scene, unbeknownst to most Americans, the director of the Austrian Cultural Forum, Christoph Thun-Hohenstein, said. Mr. Thun-Hohenstein curated "21 Positions," a collection of photographs by Austrian artists currently showing at ACF's 52nd Street location.

"There aren't so many venues here that show what's going on in Austria, with the exception of a few big names," he said.

The exhibit features up-andcoming artists such as Viennese photographer Markus Schinwald, who shot acrobats in Taiwan for his 2003 series "Contortionists." Mr. Schinwald has done important shows in Europe, but hasn't yet gained the equivalent attention in America, Mr. Thun-Hohenstein said.

Financial matters are one reason it can be hard for European artists to break into the New York scene, Mr. Thun-Hohenstein said. "It's easier for American artists. Collectors have a better sense of the value and how it develops," he said. "It's more difficult to keep track of European artists."

Artists from Third World countries face even greater obstacles, the associate curator at El Museo del Barrio, Elvis Fuentes, said. The museum recently dubbed Ecuador as its "guest country" for its fifth Bienal, "The (S) Files."

While artists in the America and Europe rely on museums and galleries to promote their work at home and abroad, many developing countries "don't have that kind of infrastructure," for contemporary art, he said. "They need the gates opened to get into the scene."

That's where El Museo comes in. Several artists included in the Museo's 2005 Bienal, which featured Puerto Rico as the guest country, ended up in the esteemed Whitney Biennial, Mr. Fuentes said.

The independent curator who organized the Ecuador exhibit, Rodolfo Kronfle Chambers, said this year's show has already generated media attention in Ecuador and created buzz around the five artists who were involved. "This was a great opportunity to showcase them," he said.

Artists aren't the only ones who benefit from exhibits that spotlight specific geographic regions. It's important for communities to feel they're represented artistically, said Yu Jin Hwang, a curator for the Korean Cultural Service, which orchestrated the Korean crafts exhibit currently on display in the General Assembly Visitor's Lobby at the United Nations. Highlighting the work of contemporary Korean artisans, the show features 18th century-style items, such as ornamental hairpins and eyeglass cases embroidered with longevity symbols.

The 18th century was a seminal period in Korean culture, Ms. Hwang said, and the exhibit raises awareness of aspects of contemporary Korean life that originated in that era.

But organizing an art show according to geography has its pitfalls. Curators often find it difficult to represent a nation's vast and complex history with only a few works.

Mr. Kronfle Chambers said he wished he could have included 20 artists rather than just five. But he used his curatorial premise to narrow the focus, concentrating on works that use the Ecuadorian landscape as a backdrop for ideas about politics, history, and identity. The artist Fernando Falconi's large-scaleacrylicpaintings, based on iconic Ecuadorian school textbook covers, for example, show utopian rolling hillsides, fruit-laden trees, and snowcapped mountains. Manuela Ribadeneira's "Tiwintza Mon Amour," a miniature square of jungle mounted on wheels, represents a tiny swath of land that was the subject of an intense territorial dispute between Ecuador and Peru.

Some artists, though, resist being lumped in with their compatriots.

Ms. Trope's photographs explore societal tensions in her native Brazil, but they're also in dialogue with similar collaborative projects throughout the world, the director of visual arts at the Americas Society, Gabriela Rangel, said. The society is currently home to Ms. Trope's "Emancipatory Action." To create the work, Ms. Trope gave homeless children in Rio de Janeiro a homemade pinhole camera and encouraged them to take pictures.

"She's Brazilian, but this is about collaboration," Ms. Rangel said.

In order to avoid being pigeonholed as the "token" artist from their country, many artists now align themselves with the country they reside in rather than with their homeland, Ms. Rangel said.

"They don't want to be interpreted in simplistic terms," she said. "It's easier to grasp an artist because of his or her nationality. But it's more interesting to follow what the artists do themselves."