Biography
I work with sound in specific spaces, finding new venues for storytelling and for looking after things, sounds and images. I am interested in blending elements: the city, the text, reproduced sounds, music, recordings, "things", a journey in time and a spectator. These works with sound, make the one who looks and listens, a very important link: it will be “in him” where the scattered elements come together, exist and get edited.
These developments with sound, time and narration, approached me to theater and contemporary music. I worked with Lola Arias, Ensemble Süden, Antares Ensemble, Martin Devoto and Lucas Urdapilleta.
With Numeric Oligatega we are making a video sculpture called “The huge esc. 5: The nut”. It is the fifth stage of a project that consists of representing scenes of a movie through installations. The Huge (Sc 1) began at the C.C. Konex in 2004 and continued at the CETC in 2005 (Sc 3). The stage 3 and 4 are planned but not performed yet.
With Paul Accinelli we are working on a project called “The activity of Use”; it aims to record, think and write about the work of our contemporaries. The first artist we chose to work with was Vicente Grondona and we decided to present his work in the form of a book. We made a working method that was planned and passed onto him, a month later it helped us to make a long interview, recorded by Rosana Schoijett and Mario Caporali. This material served as anchor for us to start thinking. We have been working for over a year. Now Claudio Iglesias and Violeta Kesselman are editing the text. The graphic design will be done by Paul Ferraro.
I'm also working on a project with Lucila Dessena, labor lawyer, creating model contracts for different cultural entities. The idea is that these models may exist as references to manage relationships, both are with institutions such as galleries, etc. We are investigating what it is that is standard or legislated, what are the duties and rights for it; collecting the problems and specific needs that these communities have. This will allow us to build contracts and then disseminate the information.
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 I choose is “Felicia in the kingdom of Eloquent”. A sound work for a single viewer. It could be defined as a mobile sound installation and its subject matter is related to the perceptual moment followed by the act of choosing. The viewer, within the limits of the path, is the one who "edits" the images. I departed from the idea of creating an "art event" outside the usual exhibition places. I wanted the viewer to create a direct, personal, individual and also strange connection with the work, while the broader context would involve the city and an uncertain context. Someone goes to an unknown place and situation; the work is full of variables. Viewers are cited at a square of the city (Macacha Guémez sq. Puerto Madero), there they must choose between different audio tracks, one narrated by a woman's voice another narrated by a man. After deciding the track they go on a bicycle, the back seat that takes them through the set - city. "-Here is the volume bottom, in case it’s too low, when we start the ride, press play! ". And so we have an invitation, a place in the city, a viewer, audio equipment, a bike and its driver. These are the elements that make up the work. The journey through the streets is always the same, starting at the square and ending in a street away. All spectators are led by the same places, just different days to make each individual route. Some days it rained, others the sun cracked. Some days were grayish, kind of windy and cold or no breeze blew. Time runs through this work in several ways, through the recorded audio, as well through the circular movement of the wheels of the bicycle and its movement through the city, the sequence all together and edited in the viewer’s look. But it can also be considered that the time begins while going through the city to the site of the performance, and then, it continues when the tour has ended. As if you had to go through a theatre in order to attend a theatre performance.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
With the anxiety of going to the movies. With that determined capacity to plunge into the seat of the cinema. Looking for something to be revealed, in a broad sense of the relationship of the observer and the world. As a journey, a quest, a testimony. To produce questions and mystery.
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 tradition of those who work hard and not only for personal satisfaction, but also thinking that what is said has to be heard. My references are Ricardo Carreira, Diana Aisenberg, Rodolfo Walsh, Robert Jacoby, Alfred Hichtcock, Kara Walker. Movements such as the Situationist and experimental local practices of the '60s. From movies, where sound, image and text is used to create and fracture time.
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
In 1999 Bellleza y Felicidad Gallery opens up, creating a space and a state of things which is still an important part of our local art scene. I am interested in the existence of a space container of these features, where many offices and different genres may intersect. Some of them have nothing to do with each other. The fact that it was created by artists is not a value in itself, if it produces what it is meant to produce. What I think that is important in the fact that it was led by artists, is the ability to view and create a community needs. I think the gallery managed to modify and develop other ways to show and produce artworks in the city. It produced links both between individuals and between different medias (literature, art, music). What was shown there during 1999 and 2007 deserves a further development and analysis that I will not do here. “Darkroom” by Roberto Jacoby at Belleza y Felicidad, 2002. Because it made me think of the limits of the artistic productions. “Art histories, convictions and intuitions dictionary”, by Diana Aisenberg, 2004. I am interested in the idea that from many voices you can create a text that exceeds the individual persona. And that the way to present oneself and think art might be contained in the artwork itself. Because it ends on the last page but is affordable countless times, because it does not start on the first page neither finishes in the last one. “Damages” by Diego Bianchi, Belleza y Felicidad, 2004. All the motion produced by the accumulation of things mounted on the spine of the place, it generated a circular and constant motion. He broke the container space. Nothing moved fast enough to change location, but each one of the things that were in the exhibition were difficult to be described individually as objects. Xul Solar MALBA. 2005. The form and content of his ideas. The strength and perseverance of many years of work. The proper office revealed.
5. What tendencies or groupings from common elements do you see in argentine art of the last ten or fifteen years?
The lack of criticism among the artists over the things that are happening and the exhibited works in our local context. Thoughts are reserved for an intimate sphere of friends and acquaintances. And that not being said seems to be a disadvantage. What is truly thought about the exhibited works, the events, the awards and competitions and the cultural policies is not honestly spoken up. And when I think of "speaking up" I do not mean to categorize things between what is right and wrong, between what I like and do not like; but think about what is happening now developing arguments that exceed those levels. To not expose and develop thoughts is "to let art be less dangerous, to let art take no action on life, no real direct influence on our moment" *. The action of openly thinking about art is not only critics and historians’ work. It is also something that, although not materialize in artworks, we can be accomplished. * Taken from the interview to Rodolfo Walsh by Ricardo Piglia (March 1970).
