It's Embarrassing, But For Some Time Now I've Only Had Title Ideas in English

Mario Garcia Torres (Monclova, Mexico, 1975) is a Mexican artist living in Los Angeles who is interested in revisiting the history of Conceptual Art.

Under the title It's embarrassing, but for some time now I've only had title ideas in English, he presents Unspoken Dailies, a sketch in film form, and two of his best known projections, What happens in Halifax stays in Halifax (in 36 transparencies) and Transparencies of the non-act. These two projections are accompanied by related materials, such as archival footage from 1459 Le Marchant. Halifax, filmed by David Askevold, and the enigmatic The Plan (Press kit), 1969-1970, by Oscar Neuestern. In this group of works, García Torres reflects on secrecy and immateriality using subtle narrative and aesthetic strategies in a double exercise in the archaeology of silence.

What happens in Halifax stays in Halifax (in 36 transparencies) is a piece that resulted from the research García Torres undertook between 2004 and 2006 on a certain half-forgotten episode in Conceptual Art. The work, which was shown at the 52nd Venice Biennale, consists of a screening of black-and-white subtitled transparencies that evoke a stunning, opaque silence, as in the best-kept secrets. Two different stories converge in the piece: firstly, the assignment that in 1969 the conceptual artist Robert Barry gave a group of art students in Halifax, Canada, which consisted of thinking up a "shared idea" that was to be kept secret, even from Barry himself, and secondly, the research carried out by García Torres on the current state of the work, since according to Barry, the idea would remain alive only if it stayed within the confines of the original group. For García Torres, Halifax... tells the story of his own research rather than explaining Barry's piece: "It is the story of the group of people who turned out to be part of a work of art."