Wandering down the world
Among the Latin American countries, Argentina has the most complex population, mostly settled in Buenos Aires, the epitome of the Europeanizing trends. Eclecticism does not emerge from the opening of thought, but from the cultural agglomeration that has formed from the 1800 to our day. I have found a lot of Italy in the morphology of people, in the lively characters of cheerful people, in their identity documents, in their gastronomy and in their distant memory (of a past Italy).
Adriana Lestido - Mother and daughter in Plaza de Mayo (1982)
What is the role of porteño in this great door left open to the rest of the world? Certainly not only the mate and the milonga! I say the ideas, still blocked by old politics, introverted, complicated, outdated, experimental and innovative. Liberating them today could give the impression of institutionalizing them as it is evident with new art structures, projects of several museums including MALBA, PROA Foundation, the arteBA fair; while private people have to offer much more than the official system and the global marketplace.
Laura Madeo - Unusual Buenos Aires (2017)
Certainly I am very happy that someone else has come up with the Argentine artistic potential deciding to designate Argentina host of honor at ARCO, in Madrid this year. Youngsters are vibrating and it is right to push them out of a historically fragile market.
Daniel Ontiveros - Patagonian toponymy (2017)
Far from what can be an objective view, I have been tempted to investigate inter-relational psycho- sociology between people of different social class, whether in the artistic field or elsewhere, established artists, street drawers, sculptors of ideas or painters forced to leave their own house, secretive individualists, presumptuous critics who fear the new and my proposal of visual relationship. I am happy to say that special and exceptional personalities illuminate history and artistic research, tied to the past, but with the enthusiasm of being unconditionally free in their artistic expression.
Daniel Fidanza - Leonor (2017)
I want to remember the one who welcomed me in his city, Buenos Aires, presenting it to me without veils and ornaments for naive tourists, but with the creative force of those who have eyes to think and brain to learn how to look: Daniel Esteban Bradimarte, artist with a great fantasy, lover of life made up of ludicity, eros and thanatos.
Enrique Pasquini Molina - I am lucky (2017)
Daniel must be an example for experimental art that does not forget the pleasure of telling; his are visual stories that release the world and leave ingenuity to the future. Like him, many Argentine artists use fantasy free from market conditioning, there are no obsequious Western or North American attitudes, driven by their ‘Ego’ they become the most beloved by the galleries of the new multicultural metropolis.
Mónica Miller - Piano/ring – From the series: Juegos Serios (2014)
Victoria Penedo - Nocturnal (2017)
The Argentine art market has yet to put roots and the good work of the galleries, without having a particular flagship artist, is a strong point for global visual exchange.
Mariano Costa Peuser - True lies (2017)
Carolina Sardi - E3 White and White (2017)
Art represents its own country without selling itself to the financial system that for a long time has been focusing on only a dozen galleries. That is exactly what makes fantasy free, not related to the big names of the market, which has blocked the ideas of the western substrate.
Alicia Fontana - In the battle of life. (2017)
Armando Ramaglia - Untitled (2017)
My curatorial experience on the field gave me the opportunity to intertwine relations with institutions and individuals. I would like to recall a particular day: on January 9, 2017, Maria Mazza, director of the Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Buenos Aires welcomed me and Simona Zamparelli, accompanied by our assistant Mariela V. Gazzola, offering us a good cup of Italian coffee. The director, having heard with wonder the Imago Mundi project, hastened with her collaborators to contact artists in the city.
Gracia Cutuli - Anasazi – Emily Dickinson (2017)
We were excited to be preparing an event: the workshop in the Institute with 50 artists on January 18, 2017.
The event was a sensory, emotional success for those who participated, and productive for us who went back home with more than 50 works done with the humanity of those who live with active creativity.
Carlos Langone - Untitled (2017)
This teaches us that Imago Mundi’s goal can be achieved beyond the individualism of many artists closed in their own knowledge.
Karina Chechik - Trees from Patagonia (2017)
Alejandro Loiacono - Do not eat animals (2017)
Days passed and meetings with galleries have not always shown the right degree of cultural empathy; many galleries because of their fashion-ethics doubts left me puzzled, not to say angry. Many, though owners of historical galleries, have turned out to be poorly open to visual freedom. The surprise was the welcome of women, considered weak by history, but central to any change. The women of high culture and liberty who own Hoy en el Arte, Laura Haber, Rolf Art, Plart and Cecilia Caballero, free of all social constraints, have been enthusiastically encouraged their most esteemed artists to participate in the project.
Antonia Guzmán - That is (2017)
I had the feeling that we were going back to the young people of the 1960s in my Italy, where there was a desire to experiment and explore other places. Here in this mega metropolis there is a tradition that unites institutionality: arts and crafts markets in the neighborhoods of Recoleta, Palermo and San Telmo, with the presence of professionals from the periphery who, far from the trade life, meet to have visibility, between wool and fileteado.
Marcelo Brodsky - 1st class, 6th division, year 1967-1996 (1996)
Marco Otero - Cosmos 38 (2017)
In those suggestive places, young artists from the Academy emerge today with the energy to talk to the drawing and to color with the Latin American heart.
Franco Riccardo
Curator
Daniel Esteban Bradimarte - Memory of urban chaos embedded in a neuronal synapses (2016)
Art Direction, Photography and Production
Fabrica
Project Management
La Biennale di Malindi Ltd
Curator
Franco Riccardo
Co-Curator
Simona Zamparelli
Project Coordinator
Oriano Mabellini
Organization
Barbara Liverotti
Giorgia De Luca
Editorial Coordination
Enrico Bossan
Texts
Luciano Benetton
Franco Riccardo
Daniel Esteban Bradimarte
Simona Zamparelli
Editing and Translation
Carlo Antonio Biscotto
Emma Cole
Valentina Granzotto
Francesca Stopper
Pietro Valdatta
Art Direction
Daniele Tonon
Photography
Marta Cozzi (introductions)
Marco Zanin (artworks)
Production
Marco Pavan
Cover
Kuki Benski - Shoes, 2017
Special Thanks to
Mariela V. Gazzola
Fondazione Sarenco
Oksana Ignatush
Cecilia Pla
Daniel Fidanza
Cecilia Caballero
Haydee Nachman
Florencia Giordana Braun
Leonardo Novara
Laura Haber
Claudia Ines Wainstein
Istituto Italiano di Cultura in Buenos Aires
Maria Mazza
Italian Embassy in Buenos Aires Francesco
Capecchi
