Biography
I have the privilege to be one of those who have no great doubts about what they want to do "in the big picture ". Probably, an important first moment was when I got my box of 30 Staëdler pencils upon returning from a trip alone in an airplane when I was 5 years old. It was the promised prize and the dream. To sign the drawing… Doing portraits without looking at the paper for hours in Secondary school, I had the strange privilege that they left me in peace, perhaps even with a certain respect. I also had no doubt that I did not want to take a traditional route in my education. I decided not to go into Fine Arts, which worked in ways to my favor; and of course, also left some holes. I clarify because it might seem as if I have no doubts .., on the contrary, it's quite the opposite: these are honorable exceptions. I had teachers in different phases: Luis Fernandez, Hugo Sbernini, Ana Eckell, Gorriarena, a clinic with Ballesteros. I don’t know if I was a good student. Concurrent with my plastic work, I've taken an interest in education: being attentive to how one opens the mind, the gaze of others. And this has initiated a process of a lot of experimentation. I have worked with boys, with adolescents, adults, with teachers, in diverse institutions, in my own study, in UBA. This has been enriching for me and has given me a very valuable landline.
As for my plastic work, it has passed through different phases, from more fluid moments with a lot of productivity to other more introspective and inward work. There were various shows, not always at the desired times: like when everything would happen for me within two giddy months, when having all the ultramature material requires a year, at times more. One must learn to synchronize, in time and space. My significant shows: CCGSM in '87, with Julia Lubllin Espacio Harrods in 91, CC Recoleta 93, Arte X Aret 97, and "Punto de viraje, turning point" in CC Recoleta 2000.
Vision of art
1. Choose a work that represents you, describe it in relation to its format and materiality, its relation with time and space, its style and theme; detail its production process.
I choose the series “Blanco” (White): “Relato topográfico” (Topographic Story.) It is a series in which the minimal gestures are the protagonists. Resulting from a process that had already occupied me for a long time: 1-to give special attention to fishing for the potent moment of an image, how to grab it and not let it pass; 2- to accept the challenge of being successively divested of more and more resources, of tools, even of color. There is a lot of elaboration in the bases, prepared especially for that sigh of material and its possible accidents: fabric, glue and paper and later various white hands… and then, 'Prepare for attack! The rest is minimal: highly diluted acrylic and pigment, a lot of water and waiting. The wait is accompanied by diffused attention: once dried there's always surprises and the possiblity for corrections. There are other, related, series: these on paper, verrry fragile and "Los Desplegables," (The Deployable,) very difficult to photograph because of their format.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
The work is sufficiently retinal. I don’t think it needs much introduction.
3. In reference to your work and your position in the national and international art fields, what tradition do you recognize yourself in? Who are your contemporary referents? What artists of previous generations are of interest to you?
I feel very connected with painting; although I only use white and black I believe that the approach is very pictorial. What's important is what happens on the surface, what is seen. I try not to have preconceptions and to navigate the surface with the privilege of being the first observer, attentive, with a huge EYE. I appreciate many types of work, and very different procedures, which are not necessarily the same as mine. I have been moved by many works of very diverse origins: a fundamental one from my adolescence “El mudo” by Juan Carlos Distefano in the MNBA. Bobby Aizenberg, La Nueva Figuración. From other latitudes: Mark Rothko, Eva Hesse, Hans Belmer, Rebecca Horne, Jannis Kounellis. Coming from here: Miguel Diomede, the drawings of Marina De Caro, many things by Jorge Macchi, Eduardo Stupía, Roberto Elía, Ernesto Ballesteros, Elbe Bairon, Juan Andrés Videla and others…
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
There have been several retrospectives that have given me a very enriching panoramic vision. Shows of process above all: that of Victor Grippo and that of Guillermo Kuitca in the Malba. That of Juan José Cambre in Recoleta 2001 is for me a box of brandished colors, transformed into meditative space… that of Germán Gargano in CC Recoleta (2006?) : a notable pictorial flow; that of Mónica Girón with Neocriollo in Malba (2007) : deeply disturbing. The weapons of painting. The Nation in construction in MNBA in 2008 allowed me to see painting as a tool to build a shared imaginary. And several more that escape me at the moment…
