« Sixty artists, in a town with a population of 6000, took part in the project of a Belgian artist. Their art work will be part of a travelling exhibition.

It took a flight from Buenos Aires, a car in the capital of Neuquén province, and a long drive through some road blocks and strikes to reach Loncopué. The journey by car, from Neuquén to Loncopué, that should have lasted two hours, took five or six. We were told that wind, loneliness and some blocked roads were part of daily life in this region.

And there, immersed in this tough and urgent reality, more than one hundred local people took part in this unique experience : the « Be Art » competition, one of Julien Friedler’s – a Belgian artist – projects, intended to reach people worldwide. « Be Art » can be defined as an attempt to transcend the art field so as to project in the social field. Julien Friedler’s project based on the hypothesis that there is still a creative field, which has not been explored by any conventional channel. The work and the ambitious project of the Belgian can be viewed on www.spiritofboz.com. But this article is really about the work of the people from Loncopué, in response to this project, co-cordinated by the Argentinean art critic, who lives in New York.
In this case, it was about a competition, for which seventy-five works of art were submitted, executed by sixty local craftsmen from : Loncopué, Las Lajas, El Huecu, Caviahue, among other towns. Different kind of works were exhibited :ceramic pieces, engravings, stome and wooden sculputres, paintings, « collages » and pieces of « mapuche » knitting – there are many « Mapuches » (indigenous people of Argentina) in this region.
Twenty-five of them have been chosen to be part of a worldwilde, travelling exhibition. In june 2008 they were exhibited in Munich, Germany, and later they will be part of Julien Friedler’s main project : The Forest of Souls »
Eduardo Villar