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 Hearer” [El oidor], 2, 40m height tall oil painting, started in 2006 and finished in 2007, not for working on it the whole time, but because in a primary stage it stayed in a corner, as a failed work; It started being a side portrait of my nephew (Nico) wearing a coat, I worked as much as I could, and still, no matter the achievements, it wouldn’t work. I abandoned it and one year later, seeing it in the distance, I understood that the character in the painting wasn’t supposed to be the portrayed one, but the figure itself, so I grab the pencils again and I passed all over what was supposed to be the heart of the artwork, the face, the portrait itself, only the ear remain. All of a sudden, the whole piece started working in a whole new level. Visual semantics (let’s say) turned un in such a way that everything begun to have a new sense I never thought it would, it even, somehow connected with paintings from years ago I thought I could never introduce in my present esthetic, which would be within realism or almost hyper-realism for the last years and not always by my own decision (but that has nothing to do right now). In this esthetic is not easy to overcome the dichotomy between object and subject, the painted object usually becomes the owner of the painting’s semantic and the piece end ups being descriptive loosing the pictorial meaning, transcendence or the metaphor reach; but in somehow, this piece wouldn’t fall in this destiny. That is why I choose it. It’s not easy to overcome this kind of problems within my current developed esthetic, and far from admiring myself, one day I’d like to know how I did this. But what interested me the most about this process, was to find that there actually is a Speech, no matter the esthetic. The images I selected to place in this space where not random, I tried to settle an idea, at least vague, of the travelled path of my production throughout the years. From “The Nap” [La siesta] to “Imago” [Imago] 16 years of searching and troubles have passed, It’s important to understand that contemporary realism is not only a continuity of a esthetic speech, but a way not to stay in the resource as only identity or pure expressive subjectivity to develop a language. I’ve never trusted my style as the only support of my production. It has incorporated ass well, academic formation as personal research as well as influences, or even external requirements. One way or the other, your personal touch is always there, organizing the parts, that is what it’s for, not more. I believe that that the over richness of personalized esthetics are nothing but the reason for our now a day’s nervous egos.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
In front of the artwork, which is the best way.
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?
Realism; expressionism has also marked some period of my production, but clearly realistic painting from Caravaggio, Vermeer from Delft and Velásquez, to Lucian Freud, Antonio López and Odd Nerdrum, also Egon Schielle, Francis Bacon and Kitaj as the expressionists who have used realism for the development of their own languages, I perfectly now that Bacon referred to himself as a realistic painter, but I believe this was his way to get rid of the tags that made him uncomfortable, even though, without being entirely realistic, he got even further that all the realist painters together.
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
The great retrospectives realized in the National Museum of Fine Arts of Jorge Demirgian, Guillermo Roux and Carlos Alonso. Because I think that only in retrospectives you get to see the complete development of the artist’s language, evolution, incorporation of new resources, the ups and downs of their way. As an artists, I’m overwhelmed by the “globalism” that can be seen in a retrospective. My professional point of view overcomes to my spectator’s situation because is the opportunity I get to see my own experience in other’s mirrors (or course, understanding differences).
5. What tendencies or groupings from common elements do you see in argentine art of the last ten or fifteen years?
I think that we are in our straight way to a desert. I believe artists bought a fake character that is taking visual arts to a purely intellectual entelechy, with the risk that we might get stuck in an extraordinary elitist and stupid universe.
