Batato

The nineteen-eighties witnessed a renewed interest in painting in Argentina. It was in that context that Marcia Schvartz built a highly personal body of work that uses classic elements from the twentieth-century pictorial tradition to portray a very local cast of characters and set of themes. Figurative expressionism
is brought to bear on a vernacular repertoire reminiscent of the work of Antonio Berni and on the Buenos Aires alternative scene that blossomed with the return to democracy, even expanding into institutional spaces. Next to Batato Barea—a self-described “clown-transvestite-man of letters” and a major player on the theater and performance scene of the period—are some of the items he used in his performances: rings and necklaces that he himself would make, a fur stole, a toy gun, a clown doll, a teddy bear, a plastic piranha, and a collapsible plastic cup. The vibrant wallpaper background contrasts with the withered and faded flower in a vase. There is something sad about the image. Rather than convey the histrionics associated with Barea, it presents an unstable set of elements under a melancholy gaze that looks out into an indecipherable beyond.