Recolecta Recolecta

For the installation Recolecta (1990), Maresca exhibited a real cart rented from a ‘cartonero’ (or cart-pusher), a second, similar cart painted white with a spraygun, and two small carts made of brass and silver mounted on pedestals. The figure of the cartonero was prevalent in the early 1990s in Argentina and during the major economic crisis of 2001. After the neoliberal policies of the new government plunged many into poverty, wheelbarrows became a common sight, used by individuals to collect paper garbage in exchange for a small refund.

For Maresca, the triad of carts can be thought of as three stages: the real; formal representation (the white cart); and as an ironic national symbol during a neoliberal age. The objects’ transmutation into metal recalls alchemy and transformation (interests of Maresca’s after her HIV diagnosis). Grounded in, but transcending, immediate politics and personal crisis, Maresca’s work speaks quietly and authoritatively of loss, care, transition, and the fragility of livelihoods.