Artist: Miguel Rothschild
Buenos Aires
October 18 – December 20, 2014
Kuckei + Kuckei
Berlin, Germany
The fragments of our happiness: this could have also been the title of our exhibition Buenos Aires. At Kuckei + Kuckei, the Argentinian artist Miguel Rothschild, who lives in Berlin, is charting his home town anew. In so doing, he is challenging – with every step – conventional demarcation lines and, not least, those between reality and fiction.
For his Atrapasueños series (English: Dream Catcher), the artist photographed telephone lines and electric cables in one of the slums. Their course is reproduced precisely on smashed shatterproof glass. Two centimetres separate the glass and the photo from one another: in this empty interstice, any questions that arise are allowed to remain open.
It is as if Klotho, Lachesis and Atropos were spinning their threads above the city on the Río de la Plata and deciding their fate anew with every day that passes, Rothschild presents a photo – Parzen über Buenos Aires, which explodes the frame and metamorphoses into an installation – by means of cords that replace extension cables and reach to the end of the exhibition wall.
The work entitled Memento mori. Work in progress is subject in a very special way to the principle of die and become. The photograph shows a harp, a shabby-looking shop sign overrun by rust; it bears the inscription Creaciones and dates from 1963, the year the artist was born. As soon as a visitor approaches the work, two extremely powerful spotlights are activated by motion sensors. In the course of time, this light will change the artwork, which has, from the very start, devoted itself to disappearing. It becomes paler, whiter, more translucent and consequently clear to every one of us that it is full of life.
María Cecilia Barbetta
October 22, 2014 Miguel Rothschild https://abstractioninaction.com/artists/miguel-rothschild/Selected Biographical Information
Education / Training
- 1982-87: Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 1991-94: Hochschule der Künste Berlin, Graduates at the masterclass of Prof. Rebecca Horn.
Prizes / Fellowships
- 2010: Invited as guest at the artist residence Villa Aurora, Los Angeles, USA.
- 2008: Artist in residence at Civitella Ranieri Center, Italy. Grant from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, New York, USA.
- 2008: Grant of the Stiftung Kunstfonds.
- 2007: Artist in residence at Künstlerhaus Schloss Wiepersdorf, grand from the Department for Economy, Research and Culture of the State of Brandenburg.
- 2005: Rosa de Luxe, Monument for Rosa Luxemburg, 2nd prize (with Maria Cecilia Barbetta), Senate for Science and Culture, Berlin.
- 2003: Grand from the Senate for Science and Culture, Berlin.
- 2001: Grand from the Kulturfond Foundation.
Solo Exhibitions
- 2012: “Happy Believers”, Galerie Kuckei + Kuckei, Berlin, Germany.
- 2012: “Images de la Mélancolie”, Bendana-Pinel Art Contemporain, Paris, France.
- 2012: “Felices los que creen sin haber visto”, Galería Ruth Benzacar, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 2010: “Als der Himmel Sterne sah”, Franke-von Oppen, Berlin, Germany.
- 2009: “The Messiah Fights Back”, Langage Plus, Montreal, Canada.
- 2009: “The Messiah Fights Back”, Kunstverein Hannover.
- 2008: “33 traurige Tragödien”, Kunstraum Potsdam.
- 2008: “Le ciel qui a vu des etoiles”, Bendana-Pinel Art Contemporain, Paris, France.
- 2008: “Con penas ni gloria”, Galería Ruth Benzacar, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 2008: “Miguel Rothschild plays Miguel Rothschild”, Two tragic movies, 5533, Istanbul.
Group Exhibitions
- 2013: “825 days”, Bendana-Pinel Art Contemporain, Paris, France.
- 2013: “Art & Entreprise#1”, Collection Géotec, Quetigny.
- 2012: “Paris Photo – one man show”, booth from Kuckei + Kuckei, Paris, France.
- 2012: “Religion und Riten”, DZ Bank Kunstsammlung, Frankfurt.
- 2012: “Dot.System. From Pointillism to Pixelation”, Wilhelm Hack Museum, Ludwigshafen.
- 2012: “Palabras, imágenes y otros textos”, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 2012: “Examples to follow! Expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability”, Premchand Roychand Gallery, Mumbai.
- 2011: “How German is it? 30 Artists Notion of Home”, Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Germany.
- 2011: “Art of the 90s in Malba Collection. Works 1989 -2010”, Malba – Fundación Costantini, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 2011: “Examples to follow! Expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability”, Virginia Haus / Überseequartier / Hafencity, Hamburg.
- 2011: “Examples to follow! Expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability”, Schwankhalle and Wasserturm, Bremen.
- 2011: “Examples to follow! Expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability”, Bauhaus Dessau.
- 2011: “Examples to follow! Expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability”, Kunstverein Pfaffenhofen, Kunstverein Ingolstadt and Städtische Galerie Neuburg a.d. Donau.
- 2011: “Examples to follow! Expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability”, Westwendischer Kunstverein, Gartow.
- 2011: “Adquisiciones, donaciones y comodatos”, Malba – Fundación Costantini, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- 2010: “Transatlantic Impulses”, Akademie der Künste Hanseatenweg, Berlin, Germany.
- 2010: “Ich Wicht”, Kunstraum Potsdam.
- 2010: “Realidad y Utopía, 200 Years of Argentine Art, A Vision from the Present”, Akademie der Künste am Brandenburger Tor, Berlin, Germany.
- 2010: “Examples to follow! Expeditions in aesthetics and sustainability”, Uferhallen, Berlin, Germany.
- 2010: “Aasan”, Ekici, Rothschild. Projects, Fraunhofer-Institut, Potsdam.
- 2010: “Berlin Transfer”, Berlinische Galerie, State Museum of Modern Art, Photography and Architecture, Berlin, Germany.
Collections
- Berlinische Galerie, State Museum of Modern Art, Photography and Architecture, Berlin, Germany.
- State Museums of Berlin (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), Book and Media Collection, Berlin, Germany.
- Malba, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- MAMBA, Museo de Arte Moderno, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
- DZ Bank Collection, Frankfurt am Mainz, Germany.
- CGAC, Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
- Jüdisches Museum, Berlin, Germany.