Biography
I was born in Córdoba in February, 1978. As a child I took violin lessons at night and after feeding my empathy for technology (meaning computers and the like) I joined art workshops at the Figueroa Alcorta school and became interested in photography at the U.N.C. Film School. On the turn of the Millennium I graduated from the U.N.C. Art School majoring in painting, and by then I was already showing my work here in Córdoba and elsewhere in the country. During several years I shared an energetic tour with “Grup00” (a group of artists and brothers of choice: Alejandra Montiel, Juan Juares, Fabhio di Camozzi, Isabel Caccia y Agustina Pesci ) which led us to staging events and being in touch with artists all around the country. I have participated of intense seminars and workshops with artists, theorists and historians whom I respect and thank for having shown me their ways of living and thinking art: José Pizarro, Carina Cagnolo, Andrea Ruiz and Anibal Buede around Cielo Teórico and the Workshops of the Antorchas Foundation with Alejandro Puente, Jorge Macchi, Tulio de Sagastizábal, María José Herrera, Valeria Gonzáles and Rafael Cippolini, amongst others. I have received some grants and distinctions. I live and work in Córdoba.
Some shows: Paisajes privados, Prisiones Colectivas (Private Landscapes, Collective Prisons) in Ruth Benzacar (2002), Arte Emergente (Emergent Art) at the Centro Cultural España-Córdoba (2003), Corazón Cordobés Gallery in ArteBA (2006), Show for the reopening of the Caraffa Museum, Córdoba (2008)
Grants and Awards: Encuentros de Producción y Clínica de Obra (Sessions for Work Production and Clinic), Antorchas Foundation, years 2000 and 2002. Scholarship for Production of a Work from Antorchas Foundation (2004) and the Fondo Nacional de las Artes / National Endowment for the Arts (2006 and 2013). Emergent Art Biennial Award, Centro Cultural España-Córdoba (2003). Cabeza de Vaca Distinction, Centro Cultural España-Córdoba (2006)
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.
“Test.3” maybe a good example of my production methods. It is an installation made for a room of the Centro Cultural España-Córdoba in the year 2003. By then I was working on a series named “Test” for its resemblance to the symmetrical spots of the Rorschach Test, a known projective method for personality evaluation. I began by walking around the place where I was to produce the work; I carried out a survey of its architecture and history to establish the basic material. With all the visual information I collected (tilings, grille and celing designs, reformations, outstanding structures, details in openings, etc.) I predesigned an image emulating the symmetrical structure of the test and then resorted to the data and historical anecdotes as a sensitive filter and a guide to make decisions which pertained semantic, formal and material aspects. “Test.3” was finally created as a large carpet of irregular shape which was extended over the floor of the room. The material was a double base loop carpet (the type that is common for interiors) of red and black colours, that I had cut according to the design and glued to the ground. It was interesting for me to do it because its existence was merged to that particular time-place and because of the kind of interaction it proposed. There was an uneasiness in finding a way to relate to the work: some walked on the sides, jumping and trying to avoid it. Others would take off their shoes. Very few dared to walk over it, stepping on it without hesitation, and some others would peer at it from outside the room, not daring to come in. It was expected that they started to play with the shapes they thought to recognize and make the most bizarre interpretative speculations. The most impatient ones waited as if the carpet had been a platform where something else was to happen. I like to walk on the edge with design, especially when I created recognizable objects such as this carpet, sleeping bags or tents and I apply aesthetic or functional displacements to them that disrupt the idea we have of them in different degrees. I later implemented variations of this method, applying it to other spaces with different results.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
I believe that to know the whole of an artist’s work enriches the appreciation and favors a more intimate approach to each particular one. I find it stimulating in other works to discover rules and internal connections beyond what is apparent in plain sight, because I manage to syntonize the subtleties, the intentions, the hesitations, what is planned, what is improvised, etc. I guess that a similar thing happens concerning my work. I frequently change formats according to my needs of expansion and I recognize some ideas that function as a bridge between works. Many times I see where I am and what I am working with very clearly and others I prefer to trust and let myself get carried away. I value and pay special attention to the opinion of my peers, because they look from places that are interesting to me, and I have occasionally rejected so-called expert opinions because they were shielded by inert and judgemental theoretical practices that ultimately had little to contribute, and that only intended to illustrate theories with superficial research.
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 find it hard to find a single tradition in which I can recognize myself. I have been interested in many moments of the history of art, since the first avant-gardes onwards. I acknowledge influences from the art of the concretes and their local derivations, as well as affinities with the expansive, experimental spirit of the 60s in Argentina and maybe certain forms to structure thought or to project the work that conceptual art adopted in its second, no longer so orthodox appearances. I continue to study the work of some international artists that are interesting to me for specific reasons in each case. Right now I can mention: Félix Gonzáles Torres, Sophie Calle, Gregor Schneider, Wolfgang Tillmans, Ellsworth Kelly, Björk, Andy Warhol, Sol Lewitt, Eva Hesse and Noah Kalina. From my generation or those close to it I am now interested in: Cuqui, Soledad Sánchez, Gabriel Baggio, Leopoldo Estol, Leticia El Halli Obeid, Juan Juares, Marisol San Jorge, Manuel Pascual, Livio de Luca, Pablo Guiot, Gerardo Repetto, Luciana Lamothe, Sandro Pereyra. From past generations: Jorge Macchi, José Pizarro, Daniel Joglar, Marta Minujín, Roberto Jacoby, Luis Benedit, Fabián Marcaccio and Liliana Porter.
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
I will mention two shows that interested me for different reasons. I enjoyed the work that Leticia El Halli Obeid presented in Casa 13, of Córdoba, in 1999. I do not remember the name of this show, but I do remember the works. There was a central table filled with everyday objects of all sorts. Some of them were originally red, and others had been painted in this color; drawings in ink over paper were hung on a wall, and poster-like enlargements of photographs were displayed on another, as well as a couple of windows taken from her house and intervened with song lyrics. I also remember that on a corner you could listen familiar songs sung by herself on headphones. I was fascinated by the coexistence of all of that together, the handling of an aesthetics that was anything but gentle and the intensity of the ideas. The other show I choose is the retrospective of León Ferrari at the Centro Cultural Recoleta, because it was thrilling to go through a whole life’s work together with the ensuing reaction and controversy that gave clear account of their overwhelming nature and their incidence on the social scene.
5. What tendencies or groupings from common elements do you see in argentine art of the last ten or fifteen years?
I think of the intervention of institutions such as Trama and the Antorchas Foundation, which created bonds between regions. At the height of the post-2001 crisis, a wave of federalism took hold which enabled the drawing of a new map of artists in different cities throughout the country. I would also like to underline the appearance of many independent initiatives: publishing houses, art spaces, associations and record labels.
