FOUNDATION YPF: Arte en la Torre.
New Visibility
After an absence from the Buenos Aires art scene of at least ten years, during which time she lived and worked mainly abroad, in March of the present year Graciela Sacco (Argentina, 1956) presented M2 (Square Meter) at the YPF Foundation’s Arte en la Torre, a new exhibition space in the latest and imposing building designed by César Pelli in Buenos Aires, which hosts the headquarters of the YPF oil company. An auteur building with high ceilings and external lighting which are impossible to modify, its circular ground floor demands large-scale projects and conceptual refinement. The premises’ shape and dimensions constitute a challenge for artists and for the curator, Fernando Farina, who has announced that the site-specific works of Gabriel Valansi − an artist whose primary tool is photography − and Edgardo Giménez − a prominent artist who emerged in the 1960s and who also explores design and architecture −, among others, will also be exhibited in 2010.
Sacco’s trajectory includes a diversity of artistic processes; she addresses issues related to the territory, cultural identity and social criticism and her work reflects her concerns regarding the political and spiritual crisis in the terrifying present time. On this occasion, through the objects, installations and videos featured in M2, she makes reference to movement and space, wondering “what is the minimum living space an individual needs” and “how much is a square meter of exile”. One of the works in this series, Metro-mundo, is a plastic cube measuring 100 by 100 centimeters, filled with helium, suspended in the air inside a sort of large cage, and bearing digital inscriptions that describe the price of a square meter in different cities. “Why is a square meter in Paris the equivalent of 30 in La Paz?”, inquires the artist who, ironically, exhibits her art in a new Buenos Aires neighborhood like Puerto Madero, the old harbor area boasting the highest price per square meter in the city.
Indeed, the Foundation’s Vice-President, Ezequiel Eskenazi, welcomes the works that reflect the questionings characteristic of artists committed to their time, to present-day art. “This space is specifically devoted to contemporary art”, he commented to Arte al Día. If it continues with the announced program of exhibitions featuring artists with an international projection, Arte en la Torre may eventually achieve one of its objectives, namely, to make up for some of the city’s institutional voids. In this respect, the Foundation is already playing a very significant role in the gathering of information related to the visual arts in the country. Argentina Pinta Bien, implemented jointly with the Recoleta Cultural Center, has already completed the study, exhibition and publication of the works and artists from nearly all of the Argentine provinces, and work is still underway in the five provinces still to be surveyed.
At the time this article was about to be printed, Arte en la Torre was only days away from inaugurating Trailer, Nicola Costantino’s (Argentina, 1964) exhibition, which involves filmmaking and may be considered a continuation of her latest series of self-portraits, in which she records dramatizations of memorable images in the history of art and films, and in which she included her own baby, only a few months old. This new project by Costantino plays with the word “trailer”, which may refer to the fast-forwarding of a film or designate a transport vehicle that serves as a dwelling (usually pulled by a car) or as a mobile dressing room for the leading players in a film. This exhibit will feature the trailers in which the artist developed and shot her story and that of her stand-in, La Artefacta, and the film itself will also be shown; to be continued...
