Biography
I was born in Rosario, 1971. In my childhood I tried to approach the traditional formats of film, but different situations made my first creative incursions to be inextricably linked to the field of video art. I am a self-taught artist. I left the cinema studies I was leading and studied film theory on my own. I became a movie buff and deepen into it to the intolerable. I started writing in some printed medias of the city and in the film magazine The Eclipse, of which I was one of the founders.
Almost 10 years ago I met Carolina Piva and we got married. Together we formed the band Vera Baxter and later we had our daughter Miranda, who is now 4 years old. Carolina, Vera Baxter, and Miranda became the inevitable focus of all my videos.
From the beginning I was lucky enough to awake some interest into my work among the specialists, which was crucial to take off from a city like Rosario (where I still live without intentions to move away). My videos were and are displayed at international exhibitions, especially in Mexico and Brazil -two major sources, places, that have always given me support-. With some of my works I was awarded with the MAMBA Prize and with some others at the JVC Tokyo, the BAFICI and some other festivals in Argentina. I have also gotten scholarships and grants from the Antorchas Foudnation and the Banco de Santa Fe / Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Rosario.
At an important moment of my career I received the invaluable support and collaboration of Jorge La Ferla, situation in which I was able to shape one of my most important videos: "Sweetheart." Later on I established contact with other Argentine video makers which whom I started a very productive dialogue: Alejandro Saenz, Hernan Khouri and the Arteproteico group. With them we undertook a sort of unreasonable project: Videoprofiles, a collection of 3 books / DVD’s containing some of our work and reflective essays on Argentine video. The project was carried forward in 2007 with the help of EFT and the Alliance Française.
Currently I split my time between the creation of video and the music of Vera Baxter, occasionally writing about film and video and teaching at the Universidad Católica of Santa Fe.
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.
Star (s), my last and perhaps most ignored video. Here, as in "Sweetheart", come together with most strength the lines that crossed all of my work: the reflection about cinema and the production of images and an insight of my relationship with the concept of love. Appropriated files and records of others and home made registers done with web cams attempt to reflect my relationship with the world through images. My wife, my daughter, our Vera Baxter, and cinema, all are here and looking for some elusive transcendence.
2. In general terms, how would you suggest to approach your work?
It should be able to be accessed from various angles. Thoughts about cinema and the production of images are there for those who are interested on those specific questions. But for those who don’t, I look after intimate works close to the most intimate and universal conditions departing from the re reading of my daily life.
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?
It is hard for me to see myself inserted into certain traditions. The characteristics of my work place it in a complex landscape, which does not belong entirely to either video or cinema, in that aspect I feel somehow a little marginal. Almost a pariah.
Either way there are many artists who have moved me, from filmmakers such as Carl T. Dreyer, Dziga Vertov, Einsenstein, Abel Gance, Robert Bresson, Alain Resnais, Alexander Kluge and the essential Jean Luc Godard to others like Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Bruce Conner, and Kennetrh Anger. Also videomakers like Marcello Mercado, Eder Santos, and Peter Greenaway (only his work in video).
It took me a long time to discover the determinant works of Claudio Caldini and Narcisa Hirsh and closer I have been nourished by my co-generation colleagues Alejandro Saenz, Hernan Khouri and Sebastian Diaz Morales.
4. Choose works or exhibitions from the last ten or fifteen years which in your opinion were very significant and explain why
In the field of video art, the work of Marcello Mercado, as a whole, has been for several years one of the most rigorous and moving ones. (He is now based in Germany from where he develops his work).
