With a life of his own: David Lamelas at MALBA
The Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires presents the exhibition "With a life of its own", a monographic exhibition by the Argentine artist David Lamelas (Buenos Aires, 1946), a pioneer of conceptual art and one of the great protagonists of the Argentine artistic scene in the 60s.
Recognized internationally since the beggining of his career, David Lamelas was awarded at the Sao Paulo Biennial (1967), he represented Argentina at the Venice Biennale (1968) and participated at the Documenta (1972 and 2017). He transited pop, conceptualism and media art, throughout a career of more than fifty years. This exhibition brings together a set of photographs, films, sculptures, videos, performances and installations produced from 1964 until today, which propose an exhaustive journey through the work of a precursor and multifaceted artist.
Curated by Kristina Newhouse and María José Herrera, the exhibition is organized alongside the University Art Museum (UAM) of California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). It was initially presented in the United States in 2017, under the project "Pacific Standard Time: LA / LA", a series of exhibitions dedicated to exploring the relationship between Latin American art and the city of Los Angeles.
This exhibition includes early sculptures from the 60s, such as The Super Elastic (1965), Conection of three spaces (1966), and Situation of Time (1967); Situationist and conceptual works made in Europe in the late sixties and early seventies, such as Interview with Marguerite Duras (1970); experimental narratives and photo-sequences, including the iconic Rock Star (1974) and Violent Tapes (1975), as well as a series of films and videos. On the esplanade, there is also a new version of the work Notation of three objects, made for the first time in Hyde Park in London in 1968. From this installation, David Lamelas has devised a performance under the title Conversations on the subject of the day (2018), in which he personally invites a friend or acquaintance to start a talk about one of the top news of a local newspaper. It will take place during the first four weeks of the exhibition in the esplanade.
