Artist: Fabián Burgos

Stay in Space
February 12 – April 4, 2015
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
Miami, FL, USA

The graphic representation of the visible spectrum of light, shows us a line with 4 colors fused, in order: violet, blue, yellow and red. Upon multiplying the lines and assigning each one a color on a scale greater than 140 colors, creates a more energetic relationship with the space. The paintings of “Stay in Space” are composed of a 140 (approximately) color palette. These colors change their hues and tones as they are being prepared. On, or “in” this mesh of lines, a group of straight lines and diagonals are drawn that cut the gentle flow of colors, to build more hard geometric shapes. This contrast is again involved in space, but this time, registers it mentally.

These paintings are accompanied by others decidedly more concrete in their geometry (“Blue Spiral”, “Endless blue”, “That network”), which confirms the persistence of Burgos in working space in a sensitive and symbolic way: symbolic in terms of space as an optical game of “truth and falsehood”.

To this insistent work on the preparation and search for colors, Burgos adds their distribution on the surface of the canvas. Sometimes the method used is intuitive; other times, mathematical (application of rule of three on the square root), a simple mechanism that Burgos uses as a random instrument to switch longer fragments of colors with other shorter ones.

Through this means a reading of blocks and forms is established, which calls every viewer to interpret with his own subjectivity. One can see in that weave of colors: spectral shapes, numbers, letters, or any other interpretation that one gives the works, like a misty narrative. However, the contrast of forms and the permanence in space, is what really occupies Burgos.

Finally, Burgos expresses once again his identification with and admiration for some Latin America’s mid-20th century geometric artists. He involves himself with them and establishes a dialogue as of today, with the differences and particularities that the passing of time imposes. In “Stay in Space” he pays a tribute to the Ecuadorian artist Manuel Rendón (Despues de Rendon, 2014).

Fabian Burgos was born in Argentina in 1962, where he currently lives and works. He is a self-taught artist and participated in Atelier Felipe Noe (1987-85), Atelier Ahuva Szlimowicz (1988-1987) and Fundacion Antorchas Scolarship organized by Guillermo Kuitca (1993-91), all them in Buenos Aires. Selected Solo Exhibitions include: Instante Eterno. Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Buenos Aires (MACBA), 2014; Comiéndose a Raúl, Galería Vasari, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2013; Abstracta, Galería Dabbah Torrejón, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2010, and Conferencia de Prensa, Galería Alejandra Von Hartz, Miami, USA, 2007. Selected group exhibitions are:Recovering Beauty: The 1990s in Buenos Aires. Blanton Museum of Art. Houston. Texas, 2011; Art First, Colección MACBA Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires, Fundación Pablo Atchugarry, Manantiales, Punta del Este, Uruguay, 2011; 4 Museos + 40 Obras. Muestra Itinerante de Colección MACBA; Arte en el Plata, Intervención artística sobre la fachada del Edificio del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina curated by Inés Katztenstein and Eva Grinstein, 2009; Geometrías dislocadas, Burgos, Door, Siquier, Sala Mendoza, Caracas, Venezuela, 2009; All Boys, en el Rosa x 6, Rosa Galisteo Museum, Santa Fe, Argentina, 2009; Escuelismo. Arte argentino de los 90, MALBA Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2009; Pintura Latinoamericana Contemporánea (in Guayaquil Coleccions), MAAC Museo Antropológico y de Arte Contemporáneo, Guayaquil, Ecuador, 2008.

He is currently developing large commissioned murals for the SLS Hotel and Brickell Heights project to be completed in Miami in 2015.

• Happenings

Artist: Ricardo Alcaide

Displacement
November 20, 2014 – February 5, 2015
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
Miami, FL, USA

Displacement: The act of displacing, or the state of being displaced; a putting out of place.

The exhibition reflects how to transcend the memory of modernism and intends to rebuild the ruins and remnants through fictional construction and new compositions with architectural references.

As a continuation of moving and relocating —displacing— objects, and based on my experiences and perceptions of how society functions and deals with industrial problems caused by modern living conditions in densely populated cities, my recent work has created different parallels through the combination of principles of modernist architecture and the precariousness that manifests itself in ordinary day to day living, while still working as a continuation of previous dialogues, from shelter for individuals to social solutions, revealing the “progress” in society as a vague and rapidly losing shape.

Living and working in Sao Paulo over the last years—and after more than a decade in London, and previously in my hometown of Caracas— is an experience that still informs my practice and has been strongly influenced by architects like Gio Ponti, Carlos Raul Villanueva and Lina Bo Bardi, for example, all of whom projected a great spirit of forward thinking and an extraordinary sense of aesthetics—something that I cannot avoid to express myself. Latin-American architecture, or even generally speaking, is not only as a reference for my work but also as a way of living, a day by day personal exchange that affects the way I think, I function, and interact with the world.

The work for this first solo show in Miami at Alejandra Von Hartz proposes a dialogue between all these areas observations -the balance between the formal aesthetics of modernism and the utopian impossibility- captured within the combination of found objects and the abstraction (out) from them, as in the Settlements installation: a construction built out of found disposed objects, next to a display of a small group of bronze sculptures of crushed cardboard boxes and other rejected material.

From a recent series ‘Intrusions’: a painted photograph is included; Land Of Order, an image of Brasilia’s iconographic -perfect modernism- interrupted by geometrical elements.

To complete the group of works, dismantled painted panels are the most recent, industrial paint on mdf board, they retain a memory of a disassembled shelving unit, from which all elements have been removed to reveal only the divided sections of the back wall. Here it’s the ‘action of deconstruction’ in the actual process that counts as the most relevant point for this work. An abstract recreation of construction that reveals the uncontrolled and imprecise condition to reflect —once again— about the failure of progress associated with modern aesthetics within my discourse, what could be perceived formally as an abstraction. Perhaps the necessity to synthetize the visual elements as an aesthetic resource in my work, is almost like “the supremacy of pure artistic feeling” expressed in Malevich’s Suprematism, but despite that, what lies behind are the anecdotes and symbolic shapes from today’s hard reality.

Ricardo Alcaide
November 2014

Ricardo Alcaide was born in Caracas in 1967. He currently lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil.   Recent exhibitions include: Settlements, Baro galeria, São Paulo; The Language Of Human Consciousness, Athr gallery, Jeddah. Saudi Arabia; Donde Hay Protesta Hay Negocio, Galería Agustina Ferreyra, San Juan de Puerto Rico (2014); Solo Project, Curated by Jose Roca. Pinta NY Art Fair, New York; Incidental Geometry, Project Room – Josee Bienvenu Gallery, New York; Visão Do Paraiso: Pensamento Selvagem, curated by Julieta Gonzalez and Pablo Leon de la Barra, Rio de Janeiro; From Disruption To Abstraction, New Art Projects Gallery, London (2013); Prototipo Vernacular, Oficina #1, Caracas, Venezuela; Optimismo Radical, Josee Bienvenu Gallery, New York (2012). His work is part of the following collections: Sayago & Pardon, Los Angeles, CA. LIMAC Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Lima, Zabludowicz Collection. London. Colección Fundación Cisneros, Caracas. Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas.

• Happenings

Artist: Jaime Gili

Ornament and Barricade
November 20, 2014 – February 5, 2015
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
Miami, FL, USA

Only after doing it three times and approaching a fourth, I realized that for exhibition titles, large projects, or even a series of paintings; I have repeated a dialectical formula that recreates links between Europe, European minds, and the coasts: South America or its local counterparts. I did it, for instance, when, for an exhibition in Winterthur, I placed Max Bill at Henri Pittier´s Park in Venezuela, and also when I completed the story of Gio Ponti on the Venezuelan coast and Reverón in the Mediterranean, for a series of paintings.

I was about to work on Carlo Scarpa, an obvious candidate as he built the Venezuelan pavilion at the Venice Biennale—which has always fascinated me— when I recognized the formula and tried to avoid it; perhaps even the pavilion commission lacks the anecdote that justifies a wider story.
And yet, Scarpa´s story and use of concrete and structural ornament keeps on fascinating me, and he has, indeed, been present in my mind when developing the current series of works. Of course, painting is slow, and the works here also contain elements from the previous series, the 2013 series which was a utopian homage to a fictional meeting of Armando Reverón and Gio Ponti. That series had some elements, like the thin stripes, that are still present in these works. Made in summer 2014, these paintings actually lie somewhere between winter 2012 and February 2014. So even if Scarpa was in the studio, also present at the party were Ponti and Reverón. And in the real world, miles away, the protests on the streets of Venezuela were starting; they unavoidably entered the mix.

Guarimba is a Venezuelan word that could be translated as “makeshift barricade to block roads by people who stay around it protesting loudly”. Guarimbas were very active in spring 2014 on the streets of Venezuela as a way of protest to block normal life against the regime. Many youth have been detained around them and then imprisoned and tortured thereafter. There are no glimpses of freedom yet and few other ways to protest.

Now imagine the doors of the studio as a barricade that only lets some things come through. But the barricade is a response to what is happening. The gates are also the work, the work is a final guarimba that decides what can and cannot enter in it. A filter that is in itself a response to what is happening. Painting is a political act, but it is also slow.

Jaime Gili
London, September 2014

Jaime Gili was born in Caracas in 1972. Studied first in Caracas, at a tropical Bauhaus that failed to change the country, never mind the world; later at the University of Barcelona, where he learned to be a painter but nobody was there to witness, and finally at the Royal College of Art in London, the city where he found his voice as an artist, paradoxically, based upon the Venezuelan modern tradition that he carried within. He has exhibited widely in Europe and the Americas and works mainly in London, but also in Barcelona and Caracas. He has created large commissions in public and private buildings integrating painting in architecture, in England, the US and Venezuela. He is currently developing his second largest one, a mural for Baltus House, a Condo in the Miami Design District, which will be ready in 2015.

• Happenings

Artist: Amadeo Azar

Patience is a Mine Field
September 11 – November 4, 2014
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
Miami, FL, USA

An artist who wishes to introduce himself to a new context draws a map. He places the pieces in such a way so that we can understand the new fragments in the landscapes of those that preceded them, establishing a mental cartography where to hear one’s questions in reverse.

This exhibition is in the spirit of a retrospective in the sense of steering our sight both backwards and forwards so as to perceive the totality of his ideas. What does an Artist do when he creates a work? He formulates a plan. In this case to take the technique to the extreme so that it collapses. To become an expert in the tradition of the pictorial ingredient -this time the watercolor- in order to betray that capacity until it all but disappears.

Image: “Rusakov Club”, 2014, 132 photocopies on call, 84.65 x 128 inches. Edition 1/3

• Happenings

Artists: Marta Chilindron, Matthew Deleget, Marcolina Dipierro, Juan Pablo Garza, Pachi Giustinian, Gerardo Goldwasser, Lynne Golob Gelfman, Artur Lescher, Lori Nozick, Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova, and Sam Winston.

New Dialogues
June 12 – August 16, 2014
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
Miami, FL, USA

New Dialogues is a curatorial exercise, work in progress, that will reflect on the resignificance of the work of art through dialogue, contextualization, association, and juxtaposition. Throughout the summer, selected works of the gallery’s artists will share the space creating situations that will generate or identify new perspectives.

Image: Leyden Rodriguez-Casanova. Round Faux Marble, 2014, Vinyl, Wood, Steel, 41 1/2 X 41 1/2 X 12 Inches (105.41 X 105.41cm).

• Happenings

Marcolina Dipierro

….. In Circle
February 15 – April 5, 2014
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
Miami, FL, USA

For her first solo show at the Gallery and in the USA, Marcolina Dipierro has immersed herself with the investigation of the possibilities and potentiality of the circular form. To show its formal visual and perceptive infinity while identifying dialogues of direction, attitude, limits, volumes, and folds.

In her practice, Dipierro explores the unlimited possibilities that SPACE offers as the support of art work, as a constructive tool of the creative instance, and as a protagonist.

“Object” pieces of elemental geometric lines (volumes, planes and shapes), elaborated in simple materials that enter in direct dialogue with the walls and floor, establish formal ties with the shadows and the materials of the same,  rendering subjective the superficies and  the tridimensional.
The series of works that Dipierro presents for this occasion reflect on the formal continuity of the circle and its respective quadrature as constituent members of the geometrical universe:

Continuity in time
Continuity in reflection
Continuity in shadow

Born in Chivilcoy, Buenos Aires, Argentina, holds a Fine Arts Degree from the National Fine Arts School “Prilidiano Pueyrredón” in 2000. Amongst her solo and group exhibitions: Color y Consecuencias, site-specific light intervention at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Rosario, Argentina – MACRO (2007); Projections, Les dix ans du 19, Centre Régional d’ Art Contemporain de Montbéliard, Paris (2007); Ficción Encendida, CCEBA, Spanish Cultural Center at Buenos Aires (2009); Planograf, Zabaleta Lab-Arte Contemporáneo (2010); en ángulo, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2011); “en cuadre “, Jorge Mara La Ruche Gallery, Buenos Aires (2012). She was recipient of the Scholarship FONCA-CONACULTA for the Program of Artistic Residencies for Ibero American and Haiti Creators in Mexico (2009) and was awarded the National Fund for the Arts Scholarship (2013). Dipierro lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

• Happenings

Pablo Siquier: Contracture
December 2, 2013 – February 8, 2014
Alejandra von Hartz Gallery
Miami, FL, USA

Alejandra von Hartz Gallery is very pleased to present the solo exhibition, “Contracture” by Pablo Siquier. This is the artist second solo exhibition with the Gallery and will feature a mural and drawings on paper, part of a series of large scale charcoal drawings designed with a vector 3D program and realized by hand directly on the wall. The show runs from December 2, 2013 to February.

Part of a generation of artists that emerged in Buenos Aires at the end of ‘80s, Pablo Siquier’s work resists historical context and interpretation. His abstract black and white canvases and drawings remain silent, even as they evoke the rhythms of the city and subtly reference architectural ornament. In his work, Siquier explores the tensions between perfect and imperfect media. After years of precise schematic drawings with rulers and compasses, he uses computer software to design his intricate compositions. Once they are designed, he creates them on paper or canvases with charcoal or paint; they are at once hand-made and machine-influenced. The hyper precise and exact designs are finally executed with a primitive and incorrect tool. Although, in appearance, ultra perfect, the works challenge our perception and reveal an inherent and disquieting tension, the total opposite of fluidity.

Born in Buenos Aires, Siquier studied at the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón. In 1997, he co-founded the artist collective “Grupo de la X”, which was connected to the famous Madí artist Enio Iommi. From 1989-1993, he began to restrict his palette, and he developed geometric zed shapes inspired by architectural motifs and ornaments. In 1993, he abandoned color and began a series of abstract paintings and drawings in black and white.

In 1995, he participated in the exhibitions “Mesótica” and “Transatlántica”, curated by Carlos Basualdo at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, San José de Costa Rica, and the Alejandro Otero Museum of Visual Arts, Caracas, respectively. Also participated in “Space of Time”, curated by Sandra Antelo Suarez and Alisa Tager at the Americas Society, New York, and in “Slow Paintings”, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Alemania (2009).

In his most recent work, Siquier leaves behind the canvas to work directly on the walls of galleries and museums; drawings and installations that operate with the illusion and real perception of space. Via computer generated drawings transferred onto gigantic printed surfaces, these installations appear to erase the borders between painting and the real world. He has created murals at the Los Molinos Building at Puerto Madero in Buenos Aires. Other murals are at the Carlos Pellegrini Subway Station and Centro Cultural General San Martin, both in Buenos Aires City. He represented Argentina at the 3rd Cuenca Biennial, at the 1st and 2nd Porto Alegre Biennial, at the 9th Habana Biennial, and at the 26th São Paulo Biennial. Siquier had major solo exhibitions at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid. His work is included in many public and private collections, including the Museo Nacional de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires; Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, Austin; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Rosario (MACRO); and the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA). Pablo Siquier lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Click here to view Pablo Siquier on Abstraction in Action.

• Happenings

Danilo Dueñas: Sense of Mendicity
October 10 – November 22, 2013
Alejandra von Hartz
Miami, Florida, USA

“Painting has always been for me a venture into a known land. Known land is that land of layers. Yes, layers like the land. Where a layer determines what is on top and is determined by what is underneath. Only painting as a problem of stratigraphy is of interest because it is here where change will produce an awakening.

An awakening into a new problematics, the problematics of the deferring image. Image as quantum of deferral and deferral as quantum of the insolent voice of before. What better to drive painting than the before. Before understood as man before man and before God. May the young deliver; then again, may the old rise to the sky.”

—Danilo Dueñas, Berlin, 2013

Alejandra von Hartz Gallery is pleased to present the solo exhibition Sense of Mendicity by Danilo Dueñas. This is the Colombian-born, Berlin-based artist’s second solo exhibition with the gallery. It will feature a site specific installation and new works. Dueñas works with found materials, intervening and assembling them into complex constructions in which the minimal, the sculptural, the pictorial and the monumental coexist, albeit, tensely. Through a thoroughly experimental process, he creates new poetics, activated by an acute awareness and a sensitive reaction to the space that contains the work. Meaning and time are also present, as well as art history and its incidence, in permanent questioning of his own and contemporary art practices.

Danilo Dueñas was born in 1956 in Cali, Colombia. He has been a Professor at the University of Los Andes, the National University of Colombia and the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogotá since 1990. In 1995, he participated in the exhibitions Mesótica and Transatlántica, curated by Carlos Basualdo at the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design in San José de Costa Rica and the Alejandro Otero Museum of Visual Arts in Caracas, respectively. In 1999, he was the recipient of the Johnnie Walker in the Arts Prize granted by Paulo Herkenhoff, Oswaldo Sánchez and Ana Sokoloff, or his installation “Espacio Preservado II”, presented at the Luis Ángel Arango Library. In 2001, two simultaneous retrospective exhibitions of his works were held at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá and the Museum of Art of the National University of Colombia, curated by María Iovino.

In 2003, another retrospective exhibition was held at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Caracas curated by Carmen María Jaramillo. In 2006, he was the international guest at the Caracas FIA and in 2008 he presented “Dentro del espacio expositivo” at Periférico Caracas, curated by Jesus Fuenmayor. In 2011 he was one of the guests of the DAAD Berliner Kunstlerprogramm. His works are also represented in the Museum of Fine Arts in Caracas and the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro. He is part of the Artist Pension Trust Mexico. Recent exhibitions include “At Actium and a tribute to John McCracken,” 2011 at DAAD Galerie, Berlin, “A door repeated and the wardrobe fell,” 2012 at Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin and a solo presentation of his work at the abc- art berlin contemporary 2013. Danilo Dueñas lives and works in Berlin.

Click here to view Danilo Dueñas’ on Abstraction in Action.

• Happenings

Translated from Spanish

The expressive possibilities and the contact with material that oil painting give me, are essential in the construction of my geometric paintings. I can even subordinate some of my ideas to the impulses of the material, as if it had a conscience parallel to my state of will. In this delicate balance, straight lines, angles, spirals, curves, accumulations of dots, and wavelengths appear on the surface of the canvas. Many of these elements of composition that I transfer from the field of scientific representation to the field of art, help me define my interest on some concepts: truth/false, my relationship with Op Art, the movement of the gaze and perception, among others. As an example, Líneas paralelas (parallel lines) is one of the works that questions reality or at least it questions it as a convention. A painting of straight lines that because of tonality, contrast, and arrangement of the squares, they look curved. Can we say they are not? Empirically, they are not, but they are to our perception, and in this case, this is what prevails. Isn’t “truth” what we see? Does accuracy matter in art? I think, for example, in Albers and his theory of color. In the same way, the works from the series Velocidad (speed) are fragments of the light spectrum, which I multiply forward, backwards, up and down. In this way, we see some of the colors that are the same, differently. Geometry interests me in this sense too.

Back when I began to draw still lives as an academy student, the teachers told me not to draw figures but the spaces between them. In a way, this originated in me the seed of geometric abstraction. I would say I still have a fascination for the process of abstracting the invisible from the visible. Years later, contemporary geometric art means to me the same as always: the supremacy of the forms and the invisible spaces over naturalism. We give noise or silence to a form through composition, and it is from that place where we are committing our position or view of the world. In this sense, I like to understand art in the words of these two Argentinean poets, Olga Orozco: “Art is a reflection of the invisible;” and Léonidas Lamborghini: “Poetry is not the music of the soul but the silence of intelligence.” It is as if art and poetry would appear when there is nothing else to say. In this sense, subtraction also operates in my paintings as a tool that I use to define concepts.

In the works of the exhibition El amor probablemente, 2005, I used some names and icons of art (Jesús Soto, Morandi, and Bridget Riley, among others) as a possibility for a historical “dialogue”, but this dialogue, due to the density and imprint of the artists, could not be made through derivation, continuity or contribution without misinterpretation. In a way, I had to destroy those works to make reverence afterwards. In the historical evolution, “conversations” amongst contemporary artists of from different eras, were often of consolidation or continuity of their postulates. But when Soto saw Mondrian, he asked himself how to continue with painting from there, how to follow from the place Mondrian had left of, and when he remembered the light with silver white in the water reflections from the paintings by Reverón, he saw the possibility of incorporating movement to his paintings and developing the idea of a more optical art. What is relevant to me from this historical moment is the need of the artist of relating to his/her equals. En el amor… (in love…) I tried to make a work from the author’s self-consciousness, a sort of painting inside a painting. It was a hinge in my work, in the sense that I added to my formal relationship with science the concept of painting as a legacy, or as a more intense dialogue with previous movements, and especially with some artists. Subtraction then functioned more indispensably to continue these close relationships.

I remember a work by Soto that inspired such love from me to it that I had to become physically involved. It was a background with lines in black and white and in the front had black metal wires hanging. When one moved, the background also produced movement. Soto said that to give movement to a work he didn’t need a motor. I partially reproduced this work but omitted the wire and substituted the black lines from the background for blue and then ochre. In this way, and due to the ability of oil to keep the “breathing” of the color underneath, that a simple effect of movement was increased substantially. Even without Soto’s wires, the work did not stop its motion, meaning that I understood that they were not necessary for the purpose of going beyond the plane. This work, just as more recent ones, are which give me the guidelines and desire to work more intensively within geometry.

Las posibilidades expresivas y el contacto con la materia que me proporciona la pintura al óleo son móviles esenciales en la construcción de mis cuadros geométricos. Puedo incluso subordinar algunas de mis ideas a los caprichos de la materia, como si ésta tuviera una conciencia paralela a mi estado de voluntad. En este delgado equilibrio van apareciendo o desplazándose sobre la superficie de la tela: formas rectas, ángulos, espirales, vértices, acumulaciones de puntos, longitudes de onda. Muchos de ellos elementos de composición que mudo del campo de las representaciones científicas al de las artes y que me sirven para delinear mi interés sobre algunos conceptos: verdad/falsedad, mi relación con el Op art, desplazamiento de la mirada y de la percepción, entre otros. A modo de ejemplo, Líneas paralelas es uno de los cuadros que pone en duda la verdad o al menos la cuestiona como convención. Un cuadro de líneas rectas que por un tema de valor de los tonos, contraste y desplazamiento de los cuadrados, se ven curvas. ¿Acaso podemos decir que no lo son?, empíricamente no, pero para nuestra percepción sí, y en tal caso, aquí eso es lo que prima. ¿No es acaso “verdad” lo que vemos?; ¿importa la comprobación en el arte? Pienso en Albers y su teoría de color por ejemplo. Del mismo modo, los cuadros de la serie Velocidad son fragmentos del espectro lumínico que multiplico hacia adelante, hacia atrás, para arriba y para abajo; de esta manera algunos colores que son iguales los vemos diferentes. La geometría me interesa en ese sentido también.

Cuando de estudiante en la academia comencé a dibujar naturalezas muertas, los profesores me decían que dibujara no las figuras sino los espacios entre ellas, de alguna manera esto creó en mí el germen de la abstracción geométrica. Diría que me quedó cierta fascinación por el proceso de abstraer lo invisible de lo visible. Años después, el arte geométrico contemporáneo significa para mí lo mismo que siempre: la supremacía de las formas y los espacios invisibles por sobre el naturalismo. El ruido o silencio de una forma lo damos en la composición y ahí es que estamos comprometiendo nuestra posición o mirada frente al mundo. En este sentido me gusta entender el arte en las frases de estos  dos poetas argentinos; Olga Orozco: “El arte es el reflejo de lo invisible” y  Leónidas Lamborghini: “La poesía no es la música del alma sino el silencio de la inteligencia”. Es como si el arte y la poesía aparecieran cuando ya no hay nada más para decir. En este sentido la sustracción también opera en mis pinturas como una herramienta que utilizo para la definición de conceptos.

En los cuadros de la muestra El amor probablemente, 2005, utilicé algunos nombres e iconos del arte (Jesús Soto, Morandi, Bridget Riley, entre otros) como posibilidad hacia alguna forma de “diálogo” histórico, pero este diálogo, por la espesura y huella de estos artistas, no podía darlo a partir de una derivación, continuidad o aporte hacia ellos sin antes violentarlos. De alguna manera debía destruir esos cuadros para poder reverenciarme luego.  En el devenir histórico las “conversaciones” entre artistas contemporáneos o de diferentes épocas solían ser muchas veces de profundización o continuidad de sus postulados. Pero cuando Soto observó a Mondrian se preguntó cómo seguir con la pintura a partir de ahí, cómo seguir desde el punto que Mondrian la había dejado, y recordando los golpes de luz con blanco de plata en los reflejos del agua de las pinturas de Reverón, vio como posibilidad el incorporar movimiento a sus pinturas e ir desarrollando la idea hasta la aparición  de un arte más óptico. Lo importante para mí en este episodio histórico, es la necesidad del artista en relacionarse con sus pares. “En el amor…”  intenté hacer un trabajo más desde la autoconciencia del pintor, una suerte de pintura dentro de la pintura. Fue una bisagra para mis trabajos en el sentido que sumé a mi relación formal con la ciencia el concepto de pintura como un legado, o en tal caso como un diálogo más intenso con los movimientos anteriores y en particular con algunos artistas. La sustracción entonces, operó aquí de una manera indispensable para continuar esas estrechas relaciones.

Recuerdo una obra de Soto que despertó tal amor de mí hacia ella que debí involucrarme físicamente.  Era un fondo de rayas en blanco y negro y delante colgaban unas varillas negras de metal. Al moverse uno, en el fondo también se producía movimiento. Soto decía que para poner en movimiento la obra no necesitaba ningún motor. Reproduje parcialmente esa obra pero le suprimí las varillas y sustituí el negro de las líneas del fondo, primero con azul y luego una última mano de ocre; de esa manera y por esa capacidad que tiene el óleo de mantener la “respiración” del color de abajo, un simple efecto de movimiento fue potenciado sustancialmente. Aún sin las varillas de Soto, el cuadro no detenía su movimiento, es decir que advertí que no era necesario para lograr ese fin, ir más allá del plano. Este trabajo como otros más actuales en mi producción son los que me van dando las pautas y el deseo de trabajar con intensidad dentro de la geometría.

Selected Biographical Information

Education / Training

• 1993-91: Beca de la Fundación Antorchas, coordinada por Guillermo Kuitca, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1988-87: Taller de Ahuva Szlimowicz, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1987-85: Taller de Felipe Noé, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Prizes / Fellowships

• 1993-91: Beca de la Fundación Antorchas, coordinada por Guillermo Kuitca. Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2002: Segundo premio, Premio Aerolíneas Argentinas a las Artes Visuales, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1996: Subsidio Anual a la Creación, Fundación Antorchas, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1991: Mención de Honor, Premio Nuevo Mundo para jóvenes artistas, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1987: Mención especial, Premio Quinquela Martín, Museo Eduardo Sívori, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Solo Exhibitions

• 2013: “Comiéndose a Raúl“, Galería Vasari, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2010: “Abstracta”, Galería Dabbah Torrejón, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2007: “Conferencia de Prensa“, Galería Alejandra Von Hartz, Miami, USA.
• 2007: “Fabián Burgos”, Galería de Arte 5006, Hotel Design Suites, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2005: “El amor probablemente”, Galería Dabbah Torrejon, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2003: “MC5 Misceláneas”, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2003: “MC5 Misceláneas”, Teatro Auditorium, Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2000: “Fabián Burgos”, Annina Nosei Gallery, Nueva York, USA.
• 2000: “Ilusión de ver”, Galería Dabbah Torrejon, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1997: “Works on canvas”, Annina Nosei Gallery, Nueva York, USA.
• 1994: Centro Cultural Ricardo Rojas, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1993: ICI, Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Group Exhibitions

• 2011: Espacio Arte American Express, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2011: “Recovering Beauty: The 1990s in Buenos Aires”, Blanton Museum of Art, Houston, Texas, USA.
• 2011: “Punto Línea Curva”, Curator Philippe Cyroulnik, Galería del Infinito, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2011: Subasta 2011, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2011: Art First, Colección MACBA Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires, Fundación Pablo Atchugarry, Manantiales, Punta del Este, Uruguay.
• 2011: “4 Museos + 40 Obras. Muestra Itinerante de Colección MACBA”, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes de Neuquén, Argentina, Museo Emilio Caraffa, Córdoba, Argentina, Centro Cultural del Bicentenario de Santiago del Estero, Argentina, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Latinoamericano de La Plata, Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2010: “30 Años”, Subasta, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2009: “Arte en el Plata”, Intervención artística sobre la fachada del Edificio del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Curators: Inés Katztenstein y Eva Grinstein.
• 2009: “El color en toda su diversidad”, Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Curator: Philippe Cyroulnik.
• 2009: “Geometrías dislocadas”, Burgos, Door, Siquier, Sala Mendoza, Caracas, Venezuela.
• 2009: “All Boys”, en el Rosa x 6, in charged: Rocío Paladini, Santa Fe, Argentina.
• 2009: “Escuelismo. Arte argentino de los 90”, MALBA Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Publications

• 2011: Pintura Latinoamericana Contemporánea. Edward Shaw. Santiago de Chile. Chile.
• 2011: Catálogo 4 Museos + 40 Obras. Colección MACBA. Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires. Argentina.
• 2011: Catálogo Recovering Beauty: The 1990s in Buenos Aires .Published by The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin. Houston.Texas. USA.
• 2010: Arte Cinético y neocinetismo. Hitos y nuevas manifestaciones en el siglo XXI. Elena Oliveras. Emecé Arte
• 2009: Como el amor. Valeria González y Máximo Jacoby.  Libros del Rojas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires. Argentina.
• 2006: Revista Inrockuptibles, Buenos Aires, Argentina / Rial Ungaro, Santiago, Radar, diario Página 12, Buenos Aires, Argentina / López Anaya, Jorge, diario La Nación, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2005: Curadores. Entrevistas.  Gumier Maier. Libros del Rojas. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires. Argentina.
• 2003: Rial Ungaro, Santiago, “El Coleccionista” Radar, diario Página 12, 6 de julio de 2003. Buenos Aires, Argentina / Bouts, Fernando, “Fabián Burgos y sus recortes”, revista Ricardito. Agosto de 2003, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2001: Pintura Argentina. Final del siglo XX (II). Ediciones Banco Velox. Buenos Aires. Argentina.
• 2000: De Ambrosini, Silvia, “Broche ciencia-arte”, revista Artinf, Nro. 110, 2000, Buenos Aires, Argentina / López Anaya, Jorge, “Versiones del mismo mundo”, diario La Nación, 15 de octubre de 2000, buenos Aires, Argentina / Grinstein, Eva, “La realidad, una ilusión que se percibe con los cinco sentidos”, diario El Cronista Comercial, 27 de septiembre de 2000, Buenos Aires, Argentina / Diéguez Videla, Albino, “ El valor y el “precio” del arte”, diario La Prensa, 24 de septiembre de 2000, Buenos Aires, Argentina / Kuropatwa, Alejandro, “Al agua patawa”; Bruzzone, Gustavo.
• 2000: “Exaltando la óptica”; Baccetti, R, “Otra Galería otra!”; Moyal, M, “Cuadros de adictiva vibración”, revista Ramona, Octubre de 2000, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1999: “Artistas argentinos de los `90” (Fondo nacional de las Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1999). Págs. 100,101,219-224 y 225.
• 1998: Grinstein, Eva, “ArteBA, cambios y persistencias”, diario El Cronista Comercial, 20 de mayo de 1998, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1996: Katzenstein, Inés, “Ballesteros, Burgos y Kacero: la plástica y la ciencia en contacto”, diario El Cronista Comercial, 31 de julio de 1996, Buenos Aires, Argentina / Lebenglik, Fabián, “Consecuencias insospechadas” diario Página 12, 30 de julio de 1996, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 1995: Tager, Alisa, “Report from Buenos Aires: Argentine Artifice” revista Art in America, septiembre 1995. Miami, USA.
• 1992: Dibar, Juan Carlos, “Dos muestras de artistas argentinos”, diario El Cronista Comercial, 21 de junio de 1992, Buenos Aires, Argentina / Oliveras, Elena, “Pluralismo”, diario Clarín, 10 de octubre de 1992, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

• Artists

My visual rearrangements draw upon the paradoxical bond between architecture –a language of construction par excellence-with that of destruction and dislocation. In rearranging various materials I seek a potential poetics – a kind of cartography of social oblivion –that is simultaneously exposing but also recovering scattered fragments of an unrealized utopian project.

Traducido del inglés

Mis composiciones visuales recurren a la paradójica unión entre la arquitectura (un lenguaje de construcción por excelencia) con la destrucción y la dislocación. Al reconfigurar estos diferentes materiales busco una potencial poética, una especie de cartografía del olvido, que simultáneamente revela y también recobra fragmentos desperdigados de un proyecto utópico frustrado.

Selected Biographical Information

Education / Training

• 1983: Escuela de Grabado de Montevideo CGM, Montevideo, Uruguay.
• 1981: Taller de Artes Plásticas Guillermo Fernández. Montevideo, Uruguay.
• 1977: Facultad de Arquitectura, Universidad de la República. Montevideo, Uruguay.

Prizes / Fellowships

• 2004: New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, New York, USA.
• 2000: Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, New York, USA.
• 1986: Beca Paul Cezanne, Ministerio de Asuntos Extranjeros de Francia.
• 1986: XXXIV Salón Municipal de Montevideo. Montevideo, Uruguay.
• 1986: Premio honorario, II Bienal de la Habana, Habana, Cuba.

Solo Exhibitions

• 2013: “Obra reciente”, Nora Fisch Galeria, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• 2013: “El estado de las cosas”, Museo Gurvich, Montevideo, Uruguay.
• 2013: “Paradoxes”, Josee Bienvenu Gallery, New York, USA.
• 2012: “Other Impertinences”, Alejandra von Hartz, Miami, USA.
• 2012: “Time Again Time”, Point of Contact, Syracuse, New York, USA.

Group Exhibitions

• 2012: “Esa Vara. Modernity and emplacement”, MADC, San Jose, Costa Rica.
• 2007: “The Disappeared”, El Museo del Barrio, New York, USA.
• 2006: IX Bienal de la Habana, “Dinamicas de la cultura urbana”, Havana, Cuba.
• 2005: “The Disappeared”, The North Dakota Museum of Fine Art, North Dakota. USA.
• 2002: III Bienal de Lima, Uruguayan representative, Lima, Peru.

Publications

• Bernard, Catherine. Fractures, Report on the State of Things. Catalog of exhibition.
• El estado de las cosas. Museo Gurvich, Montevideo, Uruguay, 2013.
• Rangel, Gabriela Low News.catalogue of exhibition Sin Aviso, 2005 CCE, Montevideo, Uruguay.
• Peluffo, Gabriel. Anna Tiscornia. III Bienal de Lima. Catalogue of Exhibition. Peru, 2002.
• Rangel, Gabriela Ana Tiscornia (interview) Arte al Día International, #140 2012.

Collections

• Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales, Montevideo, Uruguay.
• Museo Municipal de Bellas Artes, Juan Manuel Blanes Montevideo, Uruguay.
• The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center, Chicago, USA.
• Teor/etica, San Jose, Costa Rica.
• Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende, Santiago, Chile.

Links

Ana Tiscornia / Other impertinences

• Artists

I explore the materiality of language, the phonetic, visual and poetic dimensions of a text or a word as a two-and three-dimensional entity in the context of human relations. I am drawn to what lies among the uttered and the suppressed. For thinking dictates form, a line, an accent, the cadence of silence, all form narratives both in drawing and language. I expose the intersection of the aural and the visual, one where words, text and involuntary sounds are transformed into a visible, physical form. Eventually words are muffled, subtracted, removed from speech, configuring blocks or silent pauses. In acoustic wall #1 what appears like voiceless theater notations (images 1-2) confronts the viewer with vinyl text phrases (“she whispers to herself,” “quite loud this time,” “faint pause,” “stops herself”) which stretch across a twenty-seven feet wall. In phonetic neon [aha], 2011,(image 3) I distill down the excess of language to make apparent an unintentional sound. Aha outlines a sonorous pause, an involuntary gap in between words. Four, thirty-three, 2011,  (image 4) 1 minute=1 inch, evokes John Cage’s statement that silence is not acoustic, highlighting physically the activity of sound in an environment. Snippets (images 7-10) is a collection of videos of an average duration of 1 minute, of everyday situations that seem to have gone astray. An elevator stops between floors, a woman whispers to herself, a child fumbles for words.  Disembodied characters are aware of their absurd fate, while they do not exist except in the viewer’s imagination. Yet at the end it is all the same, what we don’t see is just as important as what we perceive. Technically these silent subtitled narratives that derive from my writing fade—in and out—on a black slate devoid or other images. Drawn from the video’s discarded sound, recorded words vibrate in inaudible patterns, becoming the graphic representation of the cadence of my voice.

Traducido del inglés

Exploro la materialidad del lenguaje, las dimensiones fonéticas visuales y poéticas de un texto o de una palabra como entidad bidimensional y tridimensional en el contexto de las relaciones humanas. Me atrae aquello que se encuentra entre lo pronunciado y lo reprimido.  Debido a que el pensamiento dicta la forma, una línea, un acento, la cadencia del silencio, todos conforman narrativas en el dibujo y en el lenguaje. Revelo la intersección de lo aural y lo visual; donde las palabras, el texto y los sonidos involuntarios se transforman en formas visibles y físicas. Eventualmente las palabras se reprimen, se substraen, se remueven del habla, configurando bloques de pausas silenciosas.   En pared acustica #1(acoustic wall #1), lo que aparentan ser notaciones teatrales sin voz (imágenes 1-2), confrontan al espectador con frases de texto en vinilo (“susurra a sí misma”, “muy alto esta vez”, “tenue pausa”, “se detiene a si misma”), las cuales se extienden a lo largo de un muro de más de ocho metros. En neón fonético [aha] 2011 (phonetic neon[aha])  (imagen 3), depuro el exceso del lenguaje para revelar un sonido accidental. Aha destaca una pausa sonora, un espacio involuntario entre palabras. Cuatro, treinta y tres, 2011 (four thirty-three)(imagen 4), 1 minuto = 1 pulgada, evoca la declaración de John Cage de que el silencio no es acústico, enfatizando físicamente la actividad del sonido en un ambiente.   Breves (snippets) (imagenes 7-10) es una colección de videos con una duración promedio de un minuto, de situaciones cotidianas que parecen estar fuera de control. Un elevador se para entre pisos, una mujer se susurra a sí misma, un niño balbucea en busca de palabras. Personajes incorpóreos se percatan de su destino absurdo, mientras que no existen excepto en la imaginación del espectador. Sin embargo al final todo es lo mismo, lo que no vemos es igual de importante de lo que percibimos. Técnicamente estas narrativas subtituladas silentes que provienen de mi escritura, se desvanecen (por dentro y por fuera) en un fondo negro, carente de otras imágenes. Procedentes del sonido descartado del video, palabras grabadas vibran visualmente en patrones inaudibles, convirtiéndose en representaciones gráficas de la cadencia de mi voz.

Selected Biographical Information

Education / Training

• MFA School of Visual Arts, NYC.
• BFA School of Visual Arts, NYC.

Prizes / Fellowships

• 2012: Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Fellowship Residency, Amherst, VA.
• 2012: The Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL.
• 2010-2011: The Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program, New York.
• 2011: Nominated for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation grant.
• 2002: The Banff Centre for the Arts Residency, Alberta, Canada.
• 2000: MFA Fellowship School of Visual Arts, New York, NY.
• 1994: AIM Program, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, NY.

Solo Exhibitions

• 2012: “On AIR”, RH Gallery, New York, NY.
• 2008: “Snippets”, Sonja Roesch Gallery, Houston, TX.
• 2007: “Like you I Forgot”, Alejandra von Hartz Gallery, Miami, FL.
• 2003: “who, what, where”, Galerie Articule, Montreal, Canada.
• 2002: “who, what, where”, Banff, Centre for the Arts, Alberta, Canada.

Group Exhibitions 

• 2013: RH Gallery, NYC.
• 2012: Hunter College Time Square Art Gallery, New York, NY.
• 2011: RH Gallery, New York, NYC.
• 2010: Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand.
• 2009: RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia.
• 2008: PS1/MOMA Center for Contemporary Art, LIC, New York.
• 2007: Non Objective, Sydney, Australia.
• 2006: Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia.
• 2005: Jersey City Museum, NJ.
• 2005: Alejandra von Hartz Gallery, Miami, Florida.

Publications

• Batet, Janet, “El Arte: Un lenguaje mas alla de la forma”, El Nuevo Herald, Miami, FL, September 10, 2013.
• Roniger, Taney, “On Air”, Soledad Arias, RH Gallery, New York, NY. On Verge, Alternative Art Criticism. July 6  2012.
• Kartofel, Graciela, “Notations: The Cage Effect Today”, Hunter College Art Galleries, New York, Art Nexus Magazine, Issue # 85 pages, 115-117, June, 2012.
• Bardier, Laura, “Soledad Arias”, RH Gallery, Arte Al Dia International Magazine. Issue #139, page 106, June, 2012.
• Tschida, Anne Knight Arts. Text based show expresses more than what words can say. May 4, 2012.
• Miranda, Carolina A. Soledad Arias, ON AIR. “This Week: Must-See Arts in the City.” WNYC (May 2, 2012).
• “Notations: The Cage Effect Today”, Exhibition Catalogue. Hunter College/Time Square Gallery, February 2012.
• Index Issue No. 2, September 2011, Melbourne, Australia, Edition of 50. Published by Justin Andrews.
• Garland Fielder, Soledad Arias, Gallery Sonja Roesch. Artlies Contemporary Art Magazine, Issue 61, Spring 2009, Houston, Texas.
• Literal magazine, Latin American voices, Soledad arias,Words vibrate, Pages 14-16, Volume 16. Spring 2009.
• Garland Fielder, “Critics’s picks”, Artforum online, Accrochage, Gallery Sonja Roesch, Houston, Texas, January 2009.
• When Art (or in what regard) a collaborative project initiated by Jannette Doyle. Socrates Sculpture Park, August 2007.
• Fontana, Lilia. Soledad Arias, Alejandra von Hartz Gallery, Arte al Dia International, Issue 119, page 119, june 2007.
• Edith Newhall, Traveling Show finds A World of Influences, ICA, Bartram’s Garden host works, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
• The Arts, p. 31  May 12, 2006.
• Reisman, Sara. Soft Sites, exhibition publication. Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadephia, April 2006.
• “Dynasty”, MC Gallery, New York, Essay for exhibition catalogue, 2006.
• Parish, Josh, Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens Tribune, page 22, volume 35 #34, Queens Culture 2005.
• Queens Tribune. “Float” Over To LIC for Socrates Exhibit., Page 25, volume 35 #31. August 4, 2005.
• Triff, Alfredo. City Views and Latin News. Miami News Times, volume 20, issue 3, p.52 April, 2005.
• Arteamericas, Exhbition catalogue, 2005. Miami, Florida.
• Fischer, Berit, “Memento: Soledad Arias and Madeline Djerejian”, New York Arts, International Edition, Vol. 9 No 12, p.84 January/ February 2004.
• Balcaen, Jo-Anne, “Who what where”, annual programmation catalogue, 2003-2004, galerie articule, Montreal, Canada.
• Acimovic, Kathy, The Link, Art in the Open, Soledad Arias’ exhibit is strewn about Montreal. Volume 24, issue 08, p.08. September 7, 2003.
• Woodley, Mathew. Montreal Mirror Arts. Talking Pennants. Art Listings Selection, September, 2003.
• Voir, Art listings, September, 2003, Montreal, Canada.
• Gilmour, Brett. Banff Centre artist challenges self-perception through Art. Banff Crag & Canyon, page 6, September 4, 2002.
• Sirmans, Franklin. “The S-Files”. Time Out New York. Issue No. 255, p.61 August 10-17, 2000. “The S-Files”. Curated by Deborah Cullen and Yasmin Ramirez. El Museo del Barrio, NY. Exhibition catalogue, p. 12, 2000.
• Escallon, Ana Maria,” A Visual Dialogue Through the Americas”, The Hickory Museum of Art, North Carolina, 1999.
• Escallon, Ana Maria,” Landscapes”,The Art Museum of the Americas, Exhibition catalogue, p. 18, 1997.
• Time Capsule, “A Concise Encyclopedia by Women Artists”, Performers and Writers, Creative Time, NY, 1995.
• “Artists in the Marketplace”, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Exhibition catalogue, Essay by Marysol Nieves, 1994.
• Cotter, Holland, New York Times, A Showcase of Artists learning their Business, August 19, 1994.

• Artists