On the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the World Health Organization, ART for The World has been invited to present in 1998-1999 an international itinerant exhibition of contemporary art, to be shown in Geneva, New York, São Paulo and New Delhi. As a specialized agency of the United Nations, WHO monitors permanently the state of world health, identifying all those places where there is a risk of situations (poverty, industrial or technological pollution, war, national disasters) that may cause suffering. The preamble of the WHO Constitution states that: "Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity", and that "The enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health is one of the fundamental rights of every human being without distinction of race, religion, political belief, economic or social condition." As an independent non-profit organization for the promotion of contemporary art and humanitarian objectives, ART for The World's mission is to create, through the universal language of art, a meaningful and enduring dialogue between peoples with different cultures and world views, to encourage tolerance and solidarity and to foster education and culture as important vehicles for the defence of human rights. ART for The World was founded in 1995 by Adelina von Fürstenberg in both New York and Geneva, following the Dialogues of Peace exhibition held to mark the 50th Anniversary of the United Nations. Through a series of exhibitions around the world (Switzerland, Mexico, Italy, Morocco), ART for The World has helped develop new forms of collaboration between artists and the international community.

Health is an ideal of perfection in medicine, just as beauty is in art. But health and beauty can be achieved only in an imperfect and incomplete way and no single model can be imposed in the name of an absolute ideal. Mankind has always known that perfection does not exist in this world and that each new situation brings new difficulties and requires its own solution. We must therefore cultivate an ideal of health, beauty and knowledge which will allow us to develop our moral conscience and the will to act. Between the ideal and the particular lies the act of doing and it is this which constitutes the essence of all art. As an ancient text of the school of Hippocrates puts it: "He who knows that the right and the wrong do not exist, but that there is a sphere of doing which encompasses the two, will never again leave the realm of art". The artists from five continents chosen by Adelina von Fürstenberg for this exhibition are deeply involved with the problems of their societies. They have created works which seek to communicate to the largest possible public the gravity of the different challenges addressed by the World Health Organization. Depending on their cultural environment, their own experience and their chosen artistic medium (sculpture, painting, video, photography), they have highlighted one or other of these subjects. The works of these artists act as the conscience of their communities by raising vital questions about such social issues as violence, mortality rates, natural disasters, environmental degradation, homelessness, racism, drugs, AIDS, polio. These concerns are reflected in the works which are grouped together in this exhibition around the following themes:   - time: life, death, the cycles of life - space and the elements: earth, water, air, fire - the other: companion, family member, friend, neighbour, adversary.

Geneva:	10 May - 12 July 1998 WHO Headquarters
New York:	13 September - 15 October 1998 UN Building/Visitors' Lobby PS 1 Museum, Long Island City
São Paulo:	7 December 1998 - 30 January 1999 SESC de Pompéia
New Delhi:	March - April 1999 WHO Regional Office or t he Rabindra Bahvan Lalitkala Akademi

The main opening of The Edge of Awareness exhibition will be at the World Health Organization Headquarters, Geneva, during the annual World Health Assembly in the first half of May 1998.   The WHO Headquarters consists of a series of buildings set in a park. The main building, a ten-storey volume, is a characteristic 1960s structure connected by passageways leading to the secondary volumes that house conference rooms, a cafeteria and offices.   The building is surrounded by parking areas and other utility structures.   Banners announcing the exhibition will be placed on the front of the building and be visible to cars and buses arriving at WHO.   On entering the main building, visitors arrive directly at the information desk located in the lobby. It is here that the Internet work of Fabiana de BARROS and an important painting by OUATTARA as well as the video work of Dimitris KOZARIS, will be found. From the information desk, visitors will proceed to the large balcony from which they will have a panoramic view of the exhibition. On the left, where there will be an installation by Chen ZHEN and further on a large sculpture by Montien BOONMA, while signs will point the way to the large outdoor stairway leading to the park. Upon descending the stairway one will encounter the works of Mat COLLISHAW and Los CARPINTEROS.   Over a large area in the park, 16 billboards created by Robert RAUSCHENBERG, Sol LEWITT, Silvie DEFRAOUI, Ilya KABAKOV, Pat STEIR ... will be located. Although these works function in the same way as billboards in the street and communicate information on an urban scale, they are not advertisements but make up a set of artistic proposals and metaphors highlighting the themes of the exhibition. Following the path around the pool, visitors will see the Bird Island by Henrik HÅKANSSON and then arrive at the ART for The World Pavilion located near the cafeteria. The pavilion has been designed by the architect Andreas ANGELIDAKIS, and will house installations by Joe BEN JR, REAMILLO "&" JULIET and canvases by Ghada AMER, Adriana VAREJÃO, Margherita MANZELLI and Rekha RODWITTIYA.   The exhibition will continue in the park with installations by Maria Carmen PERLINGEIRO, Tatsuo MIYAJIMA and the KAKI TREE PROJECT as well as in the covered passageways leading to the Japanese gardens, where works by Juan GALDEANO and Olu OGUIBE will be located.

NEW YORK

The Edge of Awareness will subsequently be presented in New York in the United Nations Building and the P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, on the other side of the river, in Long Island City. The art works designed for inside presentation will be shown at the temporary exhibition space of the visitors' lobby in the United Nations building. The exterior works - installations and billboards - will be mounted in the outdoor galleries of P.S.1. P.S.1 is housed in a Romanesque revival building constructed between 1893 and 1906. The building, which was formerly a school, was closed down by the city of New York in 1963. In 1976 it was transformed into a space for the production and presentation of contemporary art works. An extraordinary programme, including the participation of many international artists, has made it an avant garde venue on the international art scene. In 1994 renovation and extension works began under the direction of the architect, Frederick Fischer. P.S.1 was reinaugurated in October 1997, with a number of works specially undertaken for the building (by such artists as Ann Hamilton, Pipilotti Rist, Matt Mullican, Ilya Kabakov, Denis Oppenheim, Chen Zhen, Nari Ward). The reinauguration also included five individual exhibitions (John Coplans, Lynne Yamamoto ...) and three group shows ("Heaven", "Vertical Painting" and "Some Young New Yorkers"). The P.S.1 is directed by Alanna Heiss.

SAO PAULO

The exhibition will be held during the São Paulo biennial in the autumn of 1998 in a highly frequented exhibition site in the city centre, the SESC de Pompéia. The billboards will be sent from New York. Most of the other works will be made on the spot in the SESC workshops specially for this stage of the exhibition. The SESC is a private institution established in 1946 by the heads of major commercial enterprises in Brazil, which continue to administer it today. Its objective is to promote the social welfare of employees, their families and the community in general by carrying out educational activities throughout the state. São Paulo's SESC, directed by Danilo Santos de Miranda, is active in a number of spheres, including culture, leisure, sports, programmes on behalf of children and senior citizens, environmental awareness, health, food. It is supported by a network of 24 units located in the capital and in the rest of the state, which operate as educational, sports and cultural centres. Over its half century of existence, the SESC has managed to develop and consolidate an image of dynamism, efficiency and modernity through the considerable importance which it attaches to social welfare. However, instead of limiting its activities to conventional forms of assistance, it has chosen to place culture at the centre of its work. The idea of universal access to culture, as set forth in Articles 22 and 17 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is one of the guiding principles of its mission, which is admirably reflected in the work of the SESC de Pompéia, one of the most important cultural centres in the city of São Paulo.

NEW DELHI

In the spring of 1999, the exhibition will be presented in New Delhi. The choice of venue is currently under study. It will either be the WHO Regional Office or the Rabindra Bahvan Lalitkala Academi.