Description of artwork:
The conceptual work of Paul Ramírez Jonas encompasses a wide range of scales and media, from large public installations and sculptures to small drawings, performances, and videos. The artist is drawn to themes of history, exploration, citizenship, participation, social contracts, and democracy.

For Magellan’s Itinerary, A Reproduction, the artist asked Worldtek Travel agency to make flight reservations for an itinerary for a single passenger. The tour would include all the airports nearest to the points where Magellan’s fleet touched land during the first circumnavigation of the globe in the early sixteenth century. The resulting reservation outlined a trip of a little less than two months, from February 15, 1995 to April 10, 1995. Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe took three years, and of the original 237 men who began the journey with him, only 18 returned. The proposed itinerary exists as the potential for a contemporary retracing of the original trip. Ramírez Jonas leaves it to his viewers to consider in what measure this reenactment would be heroic or banal, an adventure or an inconvenience, and whether it would be a trip anticipated with optimism or pessimism.

(Source: Catalogue for the exhibition Portadores de sentido)