Biography
Born in Santa Fe, Argentina, in 1958.
His work is represented by Luis Fernando Pradilla Gallery in Madrid, Ruth Benzacar Gallery in Buenos Aires, and KBK Gallery of Contemporary Art in Mexico. This galleries hold regular exhibitions of Marco’s work at the main Contemporary Art Fairs worldwide (Chicago, Art Basel Miami, Paris Photo, ArteBA, Mexico’s Feria MACO, Caracas’s FIA and Madrid’s ARCO).
Nowadays, he works in his studio at Finochietto Street in Barracas, Buenos Aires.
Individual exhibitions (short version):
2006. “Laurits & Lopez” Tallinn Art Hall's gallery – Tallin – Estonia “Creole Sub-realism” – Puertas de Castilla Exhibition Hall – Fotoencuentros 06 – Murcia – Spain.
2005. Ruth Benzacar Gallery. Buenos Aires, Argentina. “Foreign Guest Artist”. FIA –Latin American Fair of Art. Caracas, Venezuela.
”South of Realism”. White Box Gallery. New York, USA.Victor Barsokevitsch Photographic Centre, Kuopio, Finland.
2004. KBK Gallery. Mexico DF. “Latinpop”. Sanomatalo. Helsinski, Finland “Creole Sub-realism”. El Ojo Ajeno Galley, Photography Center, Lima, Perú. Rivadavia Exhibition Hall. Cadiz, Spain. Cervantes Institute. Berlin, Germany.”Salsa” /In collaboration with Raúl Recio. República Dominicana’s Museum of Modern art. “Transition (s)” Festival. La Feuille de Route. Biarritz, France.
2003. “Creole Sub-realism”. Color photography 1993-2003. Fernando Pradilla Gallery. Madrid, Spain. ARCO Fair. Fernando Pradilla Gallery. Madrid, Spain. “Transphotographiques”. Lille, France.
2002. Espace Cedille. Paris, France. Chateau D'eau Gallery. Toulouse, France. “Backlight 02”. Tampere, Finland 2001. ARCO Fair. Arte x Arte Gallery (Argentina) Emilio A. Caraffa Museum. Cordoba, Argentina 1997. Museum of Fine Arts. Caracas, Venezuela Banco Patricios Foundation. Buenos Aires, Argentina Rojas Cultural Center. “Double Standards”. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Collective exhibits (selection)
2005. “Baroque and New Baroque” (The Hell of Beauty) Domus Artium 2002, Salamanca, Spain.
2004 “Open Maps. Latin American Photography 1991-2002” Traveling exhibit. Palau de La Virreina (Barcelona) and Telefónica Foundation (Madrid). Spain. “Argentine Photography”. Museum of Photography. Charleroi, Belgium. “Argentina, Visions of a myth”. Maison de la Radio. Paris, France. “No Tango -Buenos Aires-Berlin-” Festival. Villa Elizabeth, Berlin, Germany.
2003. “Calcio di Rigore”. Santa Croce Palace. Rome, Italy. Eye-see Gallery. Aalst, Belgium.
2002. Noorderlitch Festival. Holland.
2001. “Policy of the Diference-Latin American Art by the end of the Century”. Traveling exhibit. MALBA. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Collections
National Museum of Fine Arts. Buenos Aires, Argentina. National Museum of Art Queen Sofía (MNCARS). Madrid, Spain. Musac, Museum of Contemporary Art of Castilla and León. Spain. Museo del Barrio. New York, USA. Museum of Fine Arts. Houston, Texas, USA. National Museum of Fine Arts. Caracas, Venezuela. Museum of Modern Art. Buenos Aires, Argentina. Caraffa Museum. Córdoba, Argentina. Castagnico Museum – MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art. Rosario, Argentina. Museum of Modern Art. Bahía Blanca, Argentina.
Casa de las Américas. La Habana, Cuba. Antorchas Foundation. Buenos Aires, Argentina. Federico Klemm Foundation. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Andalucía City Hall. Department of Sports and Turism. Andalucía, Spain.
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.
I think my work “Barbeque at Mendiolaza” (color photography / 2001, 100cm x 280 cm) is very representative of my production. I still like it today. I’m glad I came out with that idea. And I’m glad I followed my intuition and made it come true. It’s a staging, and at the same time it is documentary. Men: meat-eating beasts and children at the same time. Christ’s tenderness, pictorial elements mixed up with the language of photography and with theatrical elements and codes of the advertising universe. Handmade, analog, digital. Men gathering with other men. The outskirts. My personal history. Catholic boy’s schools. The province. The sun at nap time in Córdoba becomes universal.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
Basic. Simple. Obvious. Evident. Emotional. As the song says: “…Manzanares river, let me in, that my mother’s sick, and she called me”.
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 am interested in (and was influenced by) Berni, Marcia Schvartz, Alberto Heredia, Pablo Suarez, Humberto Rivas, Marcelo Pombo, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Ataulfo Perez Aznar, Robert Mapplethorpe, Gustavo Di Mario, Glauber Rocha.
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
I was deeply moved (even to tears, a pretty unusual thing) a couple of years ago by a very simple exhibit of color photo by Alessandra Sanguinetti at the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires: portraits of two girls in the country side.
It was also “tremendously meaningful” a birthday invitation that I received yesterday by e-mail, because it made me understand very clearly the idea of “snobbism”: it said, in English, “Martín Sastre’s Birthday”, and the event was going to take place at the Macro Museum of Rosario.
I treasure deep inside my heart (to remember and look up whenever I feel lost) the sense of freedom, eroticism, talent and joy that I felt when visiting Romulo Maccio’s last painting exhibition, at Klemm Foundation.
Besides, almost every night, when I’m about to go to sleep, and before being invaded by evil ghosts, I am visited by a wonderful image by Fermín Eguia: a small passenger motorboat, typical in the area of river Tigre, in Buenos Aires, and a cross section of the river, with a fish staring at the camera, with a resigned, disappointed expression…
5. What tendencies or groupings from common elements do you see in argentine art of the last ten or fifteen years?
The truth is that I don’t have enough information. Right now I am not interested in analyzing what’s going on in Argentine art. I am worried about finding the right summer camp for my kids, deciding if I should send them to a new school, finding out how to set a powerful, honest course to my artistic work… I only pay attention to contemporary art (here and overseas) to know what’s going on… but I usually take just a very quick look. As a professional, which is what I am. A professional in the art world. A few months ago, I went to Berlin. I saw a massive installation, in a very big museum, by an European artist who works with scaffoldings, hardware store’s stuff, cables and so on… and then I saw here the work of a young kid, which was really very similar. On a smaller scale, but with the same degree of wit. Later on, I read on a magazine that this kid didn’t care about originality, claiming that nobody’s got the copyright for anything. I don’t know. I have the feeling that some sort of “New Argentine Painting” is being born somewhere, but very similar to Neo Rauch. Actually, I really don’t care. I usually watch contemporary art as if I was walking through a shopping mall.
Let me change the subject: at the Queen Sophia Museum I almost wet my pants trying to find the restrooms (which I found hideous), just like the bar (a disrespect to the tradition of Spanish bars: a dark and depressing funeral home), from which I ran away to have a glass of white wine to a small bar around the corner. I also feel I am getting older. And I always was kind of a resentful guy.
