Every Building on Avenida Alfonso Ugarte—After Ruscha

Every Building on Avenida Alfonso Ugarte—After Ruscha, a two-channel video installation by Claudia Joskowicz, opens with a view of daily life along Avenida Alfonso Ugarte in El Alto, Bolivia. Two slow-motion tracking shots, a signature of Joskowicz’s video work, reveal both sides of this commercial thoroughfare in single takes, each twenty-six minutes long: crowded storefronts, pedestrians, painted buildings, street vendors, trotting dogs, clear blue sky. People wave to the camera. The slow pan, languid movements, and ambient noise have a lulling effect; the spectacle of the street is dreamlike. Then, a moment of violence: in the middle of the street, standing in tableau, a formation of soldiers in riot gear face civilian men, women, and children carrying Bolivian flags and little to protect themselves. They hold their positions as the camera moves past them down the avenue.