Exhibition "La estatura de la libertad" | Individual exhibition by Jorge Macchi

La estatura de la libertad 

Solo exhibition of Jorge Macchi

 

As if it were a book of short stories, The stature of freedom is Jorge Macchi's fifth solo exhibition at Galeria Luisa Strina, where a group of works very different from each other is presented, suggesting a non-monolithic understanding of the whole. The exhibition is a journey through some of the artist's obsessions: the memory, the ephemeral, the transpa rence, the ghost, the echo, the representation of sound, the replica, the subversion of logic, the de syntegration of the image. In Macchi's words, "My intention is that one perceives an underground river that passes through all the objects, although I cannot define the name of this river "*.

Perhaps the work La estrategia de la ameba is a grotesque reference to this unifying element: a suitcase on wheels moves alone through the room and when it collides with an obstacle (wall, object, sculpture base, visitor), it stops, turns 180 degrees and continues its journey until a new obstacle appears. The amoeba, devoid of a nervous system, integrates with its surroundings through its cell membrane: when faced with a noxious, irritating or nutritional stimulus, it reacts in a primary manner by approaching or moving away from it. The suitcase is, besides being a stubborn and voracious visitor to the exhibition, a creator of ever new relationships between the pieces.

Chord is a piece made of enamelled ceramic made up of eighty-eight black and white pieces that reproduce a piano keyboard in 1:1 scale. The eight keys that form a G minor chord appear to be pressed. The sculpture freezes the moment of the playing of a chord whose sound has already faded away, or whose sound remains, and precisely its permanence renders it inaudible.

Confession is a cardboard box of a 50-inch smart TV with all its sides hollowed out in the shape of a repeated cross, like a module, reminiscent of the perforated metal of confessionals. The box no longer contains any object, but has been transformed by the action of openwork into a visual instrument that allows us to see, in a fragmentary way, its interior and what lies behind it.

At Debajo de la mesa, 6 wooden tables of equal size and shape are connected by the ends of their legs leaving a central empty space.

Short story, Avión, Septiembre 2020, Mapa y Relief are small works, made with piano wire, which hang fragilely from the walls and reduce scale schemes, calendar diagrams and folded papers almost to the point of disappearing from sight. The same occurs with the series Presentseries: three structures made of steel rods that reproduce the folds of paper that once wrapped a box.

Drift bottle 7 (testigo de deriva)Drift bottle 7, is a plastic bottle of mineral water that contains inside a scale reproduction of a sailboat. The title refers to bottles that are thrown into the sea with data about the date and place where they were thrown, in order to know the movement of surface currents. This piece is at the same time a message in a

bottle, a world enclosed in a plastic bubble, and a distant reference to Plastic Island, the largest accumulation of plastic floating and moving in the Pacific Ocean. 

Todas las palabras del mundo is a wall where the bricks have disappeared and only the cement that held them together remains. The structure reproduces a computer keyboard in scale. As in Confesión, the wall is an artifact to look at, in this case through the emptiness left by the letters. 

 

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* The multiplicity of media has to do with the specific relationship I seek to establish between images and materials. I think that the important thing should be behind the surface and, in this sense, the variety of media is of little importance. In general, when I exhibit, I try to make works that are materially very different from each other coexist. 

Jorge Macchi, Edgardo Rudnitzky interview for Bomb magazine, New York, USA 2009. 

 

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ABOUT THE ARTIST 

Jorge Macchi was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1963. He did his studies in art at the National School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. In 2001 he received the John Simon Gu ggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. He represented Argentina at the Venice Biennale in 2005. 

Among the solo exhibitions he has held are: Perspectiva, Malba, Buenos Aires (2016), CA2M, Madrid, Spain; SpectrumCRAC Montbeliard, France (2015); Music Stands Still, SMAK Museum of Contemporary Art, Ghent, Belgium (2011); and Anatomy of Melancholy, Santander Cultural, Porto Alegre (2007), Blanton Museum, Austin (2007) and CGAC - Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporáneo, Santiago de Compostela (2008). La Cathédrale engloutieMusée Cantonal de Beaux Arts, Lausanne (2020); Lampo, NC Arte, Bogotá (2015); Prestidigitador, MUAC, Mexico (2014); Container, MAMBA, Buenos Aires (2013), Kunstmuseum Luzern, (2013); Last minute, in collaboration with Edgardo Rudnit zky, Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2009).

He has participated in the Biennales of Liverpool 2012, Sydney 2012, Lyon 2011, Istanbul 2011, Auckland 2010, New Orleans 2008, Yokohama 2008, Porto Alegre 2007, São Paulo 2006, Venice 2005, Prague 2005, São Paulo 2004, Istanbul 2003, Porto Alegre 2003, Fortaleza 2002 and Havana 2000. 

He lives and works in Buenos Aires. 

 

SERVICE

Luisa Strina Gallery
Exhibition "La estatura de la libertad" | Solo Exhibition by Jorge Macchi
10.02 -19.03.22
opening 09.02.22, 10h - 19h

Rua Padre João Manuel ,755
Cerqueira César 01411-001
São Paulo - SP - Brazil
+55 11 3088-2471
+55 11 94100-3428