Miguel Rothschild

Works
Biography
Vision of art
Links
Contact

Mentioned by

Mentioned

Project for a spring of dancing tears (2008)

Straws. Photo printed on duratrans

Vacuum break (after de Yves Klein) (2008)

Hole puncher, photography and colored paper

With sorrow or glory (2008)

Colored paper construction, string

33 tremendous sadness (2008)

Photography on aluminum, fishing line and sinkers

Melencholy A.D. (2007)

Straws. Photo from the Neue Heimat exhibition– Berlin Museum of Modern Art. Photography and Arquiteture of Berlin.

Big Bang (2005)

Collage y acrylic on fabric.

Celestial (2005)

Collage and acrylic on fabric.

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.

Referring to Melancholia A. D. Maria Cecilia Barbetta wrote in the catalog of my last exhibition at Ruth Benzacar Gallery: "In the sculpture Melancholia A. D. Michael Rothschild quotes the famous engraving "Melancholia I" by Albrecht Dürer. By borrowing the polyhedron and building it at large size, by including in the title of the work the German artist's initials and by contrasting lightness and transparency to the inherent German density and drama, Rothschild, a true homo ludens, tells –programmatically- 'Ade' (goodbye) to the melancholy. His polyhedron is built with thousands of colored straws connected together in the form of triangles, which give an amazing stability to the filigree and fragile-looking figure. Because of the chosen material and despite its strict geometric shape and its labyrinthine interior, the work awakens a sense of casual game that sends the viewer into the world of childhood, a lost paradise, which is a recurring theme of the artist. Let’s recall that the polyhedron in Dürer's work was heavy, obscuring the landscape. At Rothschild installation instead, everything is open, even the questions set by the sculpture. One might think that the colorful lightness, the emptying of meaning in the twenty-first century reality, is certainly what generates the melancholy in the artist - or even that the artist becomes melancholic because he wants to have that lightness which he sees on the outside, in others, in the world, but not inside of him. Moreover, this lightness to the world and events, is real? It may not exist, either in others or in oneself, it might be imaginary, a projection that Rothschild accurately calculated. "

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

My work often has a hidden component of melancholy covered with humor. I like to get to the viewer through a simple approach, light, direct so that at a second look at this lightness it may be transformed into its opposite.

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?

At the beginning of my career I was much inclined towards the Dadaists and later the Fluxus and the pataphysics, especially because of their attitude towards art. It always interested me to value the daily things and to “lower the grand gestures from the pedestal”. An artist that I really like and is connected with this tradition is Piero Manzoni. Within the national artistic field: Alberto Greco. But there are plenty of artists that have nothing to do with this line that I have mentioned, which I admire and yet somehow have influenced my work. From Argentina it would be the case of Berni; internationally the list is very long and should begin with Giotto, finishing with Francis Alys.

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

As I have been living for over 17 years abroad I have not seen many exhibitions in Argentina in recent years. It remains in my memory an exhibition of Kuitca at the Galeria del Retiro, end of the eighties.