Rodrigo Amarillo

I think that my most representative work is “Carmen vs. Technology”. The idea was related with my mother, who couldn´t realize that after the year 2000 a photo camera had lots of other capabilites besides of taking pictures. Every time she borrowed my camera, I gave it to her in video mode and she never switched it again to photographic mode. With the videos that she filmed, without noticing it, and some additional shots I made the final video. People felt identified with those images and I think that the kind of things that were reflected in the video are really day-to-day things. In the video appears the irony of my filming and my daily life. The behaviour of people is something that interests me, and besides that I work with my parents in this case, I´m interested in people’s reactions when confronted with performances and interventions.

I find ridiculous to make things easier to understand. Just let everyone read/live things as they want, can or understand.

I recognize myself as part of the hardest fundamentalist group of the Universal Church of Contemporary Art. I supppose I was greatly influenced by “artnow vol.2” and received my education from the spent hours at Taller C from the National University of Tucumán. In fact, I belong to the traditional artists of that workshop. And regarding to the fact of being an artist, I have to confess that I don’t feel like that sometimes, and I have feel that what you’ve done or what you’re going to do is in vain, but I don’t thing there is something else that motivates myself as much as the artistic world...I keep the professional dimension of being an artist. I like the work of Diego Capusotto, Alfredo Casero Fabio Alberti. Rirkrit Tiravanija because of the great and surprising insights of his work, Félix Gonzáles Torres, Sophie Calle. Roberto Cippolone was very important in my initial training. I am also interested in Francis Allÿs and his attitude towards the urban. BjØrn Melhus, Bill Viola the video artist. The DiTella Institute, Zabala, Grippo, Alberto Greco, Luís Benedit, Testa, Berni. From Tucumán, I’m cautivated by the work of Rosalba Mirabella (Countdown), Pablo Guiot ( “A lo chori”), the performances of Kaethner, installations from Lilian Gutiérrez at the hospital, the subtle drawings by Geli Gonzáles, the work of Carlota Beltramé and her interpellation to the spectator, Martin Guiot (specially the delivery of works), the constancy and professionalism of Laura Pérez, the acuteness in the work of Javier Soria Vázquez, in particular the installation Altered Topographies by Marcos Figueroa. I feel that my work is sometimes connected with the one of Guillermo Stefani. I’m also interested in the work of Mónica Herrera, Pamela Desjardins, Ale Mizrahi, Ale Gómez Tolosa. From my closests buddies i’m interested in: Tita Aybar in painting, Carmen Ulivarri, Juan Oliva. The work of Elisa Socolsky, Gabriel Chaile, Sonia Ruiz, Alfredo Frías, Fer Villagra, Euge Bulacio, Malena Cejas. There are more but I’ll finish here…

I consider significant the exhibition Somewhere/Nowhere from Félix Gonzáles Torres Heaven to Hell by David LaChapelle, because he’s a determinant pop artist in these days, and he always shows a lucid (?) image of our time. Both at the Malba Museum. In Tucumán, the work carried out with great effort by La Punta with all the exhibitions presented in 2007/8. The retrospective from Rosalba Mirabella at La Baulera. Pop Scene, because it includes different exhibitions in one and they have a clear idea about the type of production they want to show. The hand and the head was very important as an effort for the mitigation of the eternal struggle between conceptualists and skilled manufacturers. Both took place at the “MUNT”. Invisible Inscriptions at the Timoteo Navarro because I could learn in just one visit to the museum a whole generation of artists who had lived in very hard times, and it was important for me seeing how the artists’ palette changed and the forms of expresion since the time of production of those works.

Answering the question would be similar to explaining what happens after death or what art is. When I go to an exhibition, with my short experience as a producer, I try to perceive how serious the artist is. I don´t mean serious as solemn, actually my own work isn’t very serious in that sense. I mean it as the compromise of the artist with his art, how important this is in his day to day life, etc. It could be a bit utopian answering these questions, but my intuitions are normally right. This is important for me, because I agree with the method of copy & paste or quotation, but I think there are too many stealers and sometimes some of them could be legitimated. In other words: Boys! If you want to quote, if we’re going to steel, let´s do it smartly. Finally I think we have built a certain identity as argentinians with strong symbols as the Di Tella Institute, Rojas Cultural Center and many other known individuals.