Liv Schulman

The video The Disappearance documents the artist’s journey through the tri-border area between Puerto Iguazú (Argentina), Ciudad del Este (Paraguay), and Foz do Iguaçu (Brazil), a territory marked by intense dynamics of economic exchange and transnational mobility. Following the receipt of a $1,000 art prize, Schulman undertakes a performative action aimed at recording the gradual dissolution of this sum through a series of currency exchanges carried out at each border crossing, making use of both official circuits and informal networks. The artist purchases money with money, enacting a repeated gesture of consumption that progressively erodes the initial capital. The meticulous monitoring of exchange rates and intermediary commissions takes on an increasingly obsessive character, leading Schulman into a perceptual state marked by tension, isolation, and heightened control. The act of  crossing, far from being a mere geographical passage, becomes configured as a systematic loss: the erosion of capital is mirrored in a progressive dissolution of the self and of the capacity for self-determination.

The Disappearance thus emerges as a critical reflection on the economic constraints imposed by borders and on the conditions governing the circulation of people and capital in the age of globalization.