Silvana Lacarra

Subtle, yet endowed with a strong presence, Lingering at the table is the remarkable exhibition of objects the artist is currently featuring at Dabbah Torrejón Gallery, in Buenos Aires; it comprises nine “tables” holding a dialogue with four other two- dimensional structures on the wall. Far from the supposed neutrality of the works – bright and conclusive paintings with a delicate and subtle chromatic balance, executed in different shapes overlaid with industrially manufactured plastic laminate – that she has been perfecting to date, Lacarra utilizes these nomadic sculptures as supports for her own emotiveness. No brush generates the colors and forms of the abstractions on the planes of these apparent tables, produced exclusively with industrially manufactured Formica, and featuring barely perceptible openwork, joints and inlaid details.

Unoccupied and deprived of their functionality, the “tables” are the object transformed into subject, through which the artist ́s life experience is conveyed. “In this new life, her objects-subjects appear vulnerable, close; perhaps too close. (...) How do subjectivity, objectification and painting coexist?”, inquires curator Victoria Noorthoorn, with whom the artist worked closely in the development of both the exhibition and the text. “The slow and engrossed construction of each of these tables-signs, tables-poems, or tables- messages, vociferously demands a social space”, she concludes.

Separation

The different designs and textures of each of the surfaces seem to dwell on a specific micro-story within the overall narrative. One of the works is titled Separation. In fact, the “tables” are autobiographic; some tell the story of an affective rupture. Comprised of one or more “tables”, the works are displayed in the exhibition space in an almost theatrical manner. The spectator can circulate and establish a bond with the works; this triggers the poetic element.

The tour of the works leaves no place for doubt. It begins with Self-portrait, a brown piece with twelve regular, rhomboid perforations that portray a deep void. In the resplendent The Holy Family, Lacarra ́s enthusiasm for family (the family one desires and gathers together) is eclipsed by signs of skepticism, hence the three circular cracks on the red plane. The itinerary continues with My Nervous System, which announces certain fragility, also found in So Suddenly, with some of the three pieces that compose it scattered over the floor, and the legs – which in every case are disproportionately weak – facing upward.

Tables are usually places for great rendez-vous and smiles, vehement discussions and reconciliations, but Lacarra ́s tables are deserted, without even a chair close to them. Absence reins, since as sociologist, psychologist and philosopher Georg Simmel points out, “Socialization only appears when the isolated coexistence of individuals adopts decisive forms of cooperation and collaboration which fall under the general concept of reciprocal action”. Simmel ́s allusion is not fortuitous; the work of the German thinker, who assigns great importance to social interaction and maintains that “We are all fragments not only of man in general, but also of ourselves”, was included in the artist ́s reading material while she prepared this very special exhibition.

Reconstruction

Lacarra is concerned both with emphasizing the absence of conversation and alluding to get-togethers for a chat, supposedly occurring around a table, in this case a vehicle and metaphor for some existential moments. The work Charolais, which refers to the race of black and white cattle, and Juguemos en el bosque, mientras el lobo no está (Who ́s afraid of the big, bad wolf) are two pieces that recover childhood; the artist ́s own childhood in the rural area where she was born and where her mother produced all sorts of things, ranging from homemade chocolates to complex embroideries, and that of other beloved children, with whom Lacarra often plays.
These are placid memories. “In the countryside, ́table talk ́ does exist, but here in the city, in Buenos Aires, many people do not even sit at a table to have their meals”, says Lacarra, who found her path as an artist during the years in which she participated in the Kuitca Scholarships painting abstract works.

“I studied a university career which had nothing to do with art. I did paint, with paint, but it bored me immensely. I felt I was an artist but I did not know through which discipline I might best convey what I wanted to express. I did a lot of research. I explored video art; I worked with metal sheet, glass, until I finally discovered laminated plastic, a fantastic material, firm and whimsical as myself”.
Her studio resembles a carpenter ́s workshop teeming with tools and sawdust, populated with Formica planks in different colors (1 x 2 meters and 3 mm thick), which do not bend and with which she struggles daily. “Sometimes, my work makes me feel I am arm- wrestling with the material. It is hard; it must be perforated, cut, assembled. It is tough work, but laminated plastic is the material that I find most seductive”, the artist affirms with a smile, happy to have been able to convey some of her concerns through the objects in this innovative and challenging exhibition.

Profile :

Silvana Lacarra (Bragado, Buenos Aires Province, 1962) had her first exhibition in 1992, and since then she has continued to show regularly to date. Her itinerary includes exhibitions in prestigious institutions in Argentina, in several Latin American countries, and in the United States. In 2005, she was awarded First Mention at the Deloitte Foundation Salon, and in 2006, she was the recipient of the First Prize in the Visual Arts (Argentina) awarded by OSDE Foundation. She lives and works in Buenos Aires.