Gabriel Valansi

Works
Biography
Vision of art
Contact

Mentioned by

Mentioned

Paulo Fast
Karin Idelson
Florencia Rodríguez Giles
Eduardo Basualdo
Diego Fernandez

Epilogue ((2001-2002))

Lenticular mural in three panels.

360 x 240cmts

Zeitgeist (.)

Nightshots (2001)

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.

Epilogue - (2001-2002) Lenticular mural in three panels Total Size: 360 x 240cmts Epilogue is the result of integrating fourteen images broadcast live on CNN during the first American attacks on Kabul and Baghdad. This integration, using a technique called interlace allows to obtain a lenticular effect. This is a technique widely used in advertising, which allows reading different images on the same plane according to the viewer's point of view. This work was perhaps my most successful attempt to expand the boundaries of conventional photographic supports in terms of working on a specific idea. This is a mural built on three modules of lenticular material. The result is meant to symbolize the endless live screening of a war that continues, with the aesthetics of a video wall. Epilogue closes a trilogy of personal works that begun with Fatherland (1998) and continued in Zeitgeist (2000). I could say that the common denominator of this part of my work is the idea and the energy that sustains the phenomenon of a war. The aesthetic that emerges from the media coverage of these events and the materiality of these images before it becomes visual images.

2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?

I have no specific suggestion. I think the best approach to any work is that that occurs spontaneously from one's own sensibility. I say this knowing that my work doesn’t stand a wide range of reading opportunities. But to answer the question in a more tangent manner, I will say that it deeply interests me to explore the relationships between the aesthetic that emerges from the facts of war and extreme violence and their appeal towards collective imaginary, particularly at the point where beauty locks an intimate relationship with “the terrible”.

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'm basically an artist who has used photography as a primary tool. That has marked my visual experience and my way of seeing the world. I still feel a contemporary photographer even in those works where I use another media. My immediate references, to name only some (a few): Gerhard Richter, Rebecca Horn, Sigmar Polke, Christian Boltansky and among photographers: Ray Metzker, William Egleston, Cindy Sherman, and Paul Graham.

4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why

I do not have the holistic view of an art critic regarding the overall importance of certain works or exhibitions. I always prefer to speak about bodies of work rather than punctual exhibitions or works. I believe that when a work or exhibition becomes paradigmatic, it ultimately exemplifies only a body of work. Beyond my personal taste, I do feel, that in different levels, the works of Pablo Siquier, Miguel Harte, Nicola Costantino, Mark Lopez and Jorge Macchi have made substantive contributions to the identity and level of local art in recent decades as well as have done the works of less exposed artists such Kacero Fabio Luis Lindner, Hernan Marina and Monica Giron.Even though it is impossible to identify Argentine art within a certain style or type of work, I think each one of them has contributed with something distinctive and purely personal, setting a benchmark for subsequent artists.