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.
The work that best represents me is the last one, belonging to a new series so new that it has no title yet and just goes by the name of "Untitled Blue" [“Sin Título Azul”]. It has a strong connection with "Project Surfaces II" [“Proyecto Superficies II”], my previous production, because it positions itself as a more acid, cold and effects-free release. "Untitled Blue" is the work that represents me because it reflects a search of breakdown of the known space, a kind of complexity of perspectives and points of view, ambiguities and residential structures, that though they are not quite difficult, after a second glance they begin to be impossible, strange, even threatening. This work is disconnected from any ornamental, decorative or beautiful circumstance, in the most domestic meaning of the word. The absence of human trace is complete, which leads the painted environment to being unable to define itself in functional, temporal or personal terms. I treat the pictorial image as a mirror of our mental structure, through which we access to the world, overlapping, connecting, assembling from different situations and viewpoints, taking into account the human inability for permanent and absolute definitions where reality is a fact completely ambiguous, incomprehensible in its entirety, disjointedly armed and in perpetual movement and change.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
I strongly believe that the painting is primarily a mental fact, not without emotion. Basically I plan my painting before I do it, and while I am doing it I cannot avoid thinking about a hypothetical spectator, though it does not imply any imposition on the work. I think that the image is the entrance to the path of interpretation that the viewer will walk through. This will be subjective, depending on the memories and thoughts that my work may generate.
I believe that all interpretations are valid, from the most narrow and obvious to the most conceptualized. I would really like that the viewers can pass the first visual impact, the basic property of the painting, the architectural familiarity, and involve in a sort of questions, surprise, confusion, disturbances and setbacks.
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?
The list would be huge and I'm not sure if the verb "to recognize" is the exact word. My work is framed within the architecture. An architectural space is not presented in terms of habitat, but as a pattern to follow, arbitrary and external. However, the model presents subtle breakthroughs, "constructive inconveniences" such as disproportions, strange organic elements, floors and walls with holes, reversed spaces and unconnected perspectives... In its faults or cracks new senses appear, and every imposed model ends up being perverse. I admire contemporary Japanese architects: Matsubara, Akira Sakamoto, Aoki Jun.
I like the German painting: Matias Weischer, Stefan Kürten and Eberhard HaveKost, Ross Bleckner, Dalwood and Doig.
Back to the past, I am particularly interested in the sordid Romanesque architecture, in the medieval costume miniatures and the Flemish painters. There are many artists with whom I could not relate through their production, but through their thought. By this I mean that many artists have influenced my work, not in terms of image, but in conceptual movements that eventually end up in my production. Such is the case of Gerhard Richter and more specifically in the area of thought Jean Baudrillard, Fredric Jameson, Andreas Huyssen, Benjamin Buchloh.
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
Dada, Surrealism and Víctor Grippo in the MALBA. Liliana Porter in the Recoleta Cultural Center. Kieffer in Proa Foundation. Kounellis and The End of the Eclipse [El Final del Eclipse] in the MNBA. Brazil 500 years [Brasil 500 años]. There are many more.
I liked them for different reasons, mainly because of the works, but also some of them because of the good curatorial script, the interesting network of content and readings that cross them. There are also exhibitions that I found appalling, but opened the possibility of criticizing, of questioning, of crisis, and lead the thought to situations that without those circumstances would've never appeared. It also happens with the reading, there are authors I don't identify with, or that are diametrically opposed to my thoughts, but on reading them they force me to stay in a state of constant critique and warning. By this I mean that not only the good exhibitions are good for what they exhibit or how they do it: some bad exhibitions can also be good when they make possible a sort of warning, criticism and constant dialogue.
5. What tendencies or groupings from common elements do you see in argentine art of the last ten or fifteen years?
The trends are infinite, very dynamic, hybrid and fragile to be recorded clearly. We could talk more specifically about works, artists and times. However it is unavoidable the burden of discourse that is present in the contemporary art in Argentine as a general tendency and the permanent eclipse with regards to European or American models.
I think it is a key point when thinking about the possibility of an Argentine art with its own characteristics and identity. It has always been difficult to develop a definition of Argentine art in terms of originality and identity, and much more difficult is today in this "globalizing" era of art and before an undisputed media availability. So that the trends here are quite similar to most of the trends in the rest of the world: the relationship factor –which is very fashionable right now–, much waste material, a lot of self-reference, much of archaeological records and collections, a lot of documentaries.
If I had to make a difference, I think the look is in the factors of production and postproduction, with this I mean: lack of sponsorship, lack of a law for sponsorship, the state apathy, the lack of real incentives are among the factors that make that the artistic production in Argentina is separated from the production of the Europe and USA axis, including other Latin American countries such as Mexico and Brazil, which retain a strong concept of identity, with equipment and projection policies not only at national level but at international level as well.
