The concern on the ecosystems is not a new subject. In the United Provinces of the River Plate, it was already part of the list of issues of the members of the First Board of Governors of 1810, which remarks the necessity to stop the contamination in the Riachuelo, used as a spillway for the tanneries. Nowadays, the exploitation of natural resources at a global scale has turned into a suicide profanation, endangering the viability of the habitats on which we depend as human animals.
Displaced (2019) by Robotícula (Ana Laura Cantera y Demian Ferrari)Fundación Itaú Argentina
Within this persistent tradition, Displaced, the work presented by the duo Robotícula of Cantera and Ferrari at the section Robotic Art, suggests from its title the urgency of a cybernetic organism that looks like a bird in order to find a place to attempt some precarious survival, pushed to abandon the original one due to its devastation.
Displaced (2019) by Robotícula (Ana Laura Cantera y Demian Ferrari)Fundación Itaú Argentina
The robot covered in a bio-skin recalls the frailty of the animal world that moves away, walking insecure new territories and dodging the human predator, who, in the sustained permanence of its march, turns into an allegory of thousands of forced migrations.
Resonancia de partículas [Particles resonance] (2019) by Gabriela MunguíaFundación Itaú Argentina
Also through this robotic technology, Gabriela Munguía sets in motion the friction machines of Resonancia de partículas to refer to the accelerated erosion of soils as an unnatural process provoked by the exploitation carried out by capitalism as it imposes what the artist defines as “extractivist modernity”.
C 111 (Australia y las Islas del Pacífico Seix Barral 1973) [C 111 (Australia and the Pacific Islands Seix Barral 1973] C 111 (Australia y las Islas del Pacífico Seix Barral 1973) [C 111 (Australia and the Pacific Islands Seix Barral 1973] (2020) by Rosana SchoijettFundación Itaú Argentina
On the other hand, Rosana Schoijett creates C 111 Australia y las Islas del Pacífico Seix Barral 1973 with a photomontage of an old encyclopedia that she cuts with a scalpel and sews with needle and thread, a gesture that may be seen as a stitch that attempts to “heal” while it reconfigures.
C 111 (Australia y las Islas del Pacífico Seix Barral 1973) [C 111 (Australia and the Pacific Islands Seix Barral 1973] Work detailFundación Itaú Argentina
The artist carries out several operations in which she explores the uses and the ontological nature of photography, as well as the old format of the altarpiece –consecrated to images of devotion– whose articulations allow to manipulate its presentations.
C 111 (Australia y las Islas del Pacífico Seix Barral 1973) [C 111 (Australia and the Pacific Islands Seix Barral 1973] Work detailFundación Itaú Argentina
This peculiarity shows the alternatives of the history of a specific natural landscape that turns from intense green to ash grey, just as many Australian lands look now, as they suffer the repeated catastrophe of the fires that devastate thousands of hectares of native life as a result of their reckless use and the climate change.
Temporal [Storm] (2018) by Lucas AguirreFundación Itaú Argentina
The threat of a replica of such state of things becomes reality in Temporal by Lucas Aguirre, an intervened photograph that shows a whirlwind through which we see a harvester that gives meaning to the composition.
It refers to the reckless use of soils and their desertification that make the tornado possible, as it drags within its cloud of dust whatever it finds on its way, as well as to the arsons started to make place to a boundless agricultural exploitation, an urgent situation in Cordoba, the province where the artist lives.
Torres de marfil [Ivory towers] (2020) by Laura MessingFundación Itaú Argentina
Chasing this predator logic, Torres de marfil by Laura Messing recreates pieces of the XVII century originally sculpted in ivory, and now replaced with a synthetic biodegradable material processed by a 3D printer. This revealing technical choice uncovers the elephant slaughter for their tusks, the raw material of luxury collectible items that used to decorate palaces and mansions.
La orilla que se abisma [The edge that becomes the abyss] (2019) by Paula SenderowiczFundación Itaú Argentina
While there are explicit references to the crisis that mankind’s actions caused in its ecosystem, there are also implicit references in works where the value of nature is manifested in the exhibition of the magnificence of its spectacles with the most diverse media. That is the case of Paula Senderowicz’s watercolor.
Here she repeats her interpretation of landscape with a perspective seduced by the outbreaks of natural forces, a vision intimidated by its expansive expression that rescues, in times of arrogant carelessness, the commotion before the sublime.
Secuelas, a simulation by Gabriela Francone that appropriates a video that models the action of a tsunami, presents a similar perceptive feeling. The work submerges us deep into the double notion of simulation: as a scientific prediction tool that studies and attempts to minimize the effects from natural catastrophes, as well as an operative action to do art.
Tundra (2019) by Juliana HerreroFundación Itaú Argentina
With Tundra, Juliana Herrero challenges us to perceive a specific landscape with electronic resources, metabolizing sounds through an installation of cables and micro-speakers.
Tundra (2019) by Juliana HerreroFundación Itaú Argentina
The landscape from human voices to the recall of the wind and the feeling of thawing or rain drops introduced by the guitar, seem to suggest the journey from a town to the overwhelming loneliness of a cold, pristine and lonely landscape. The counterpoint between technology and nature here becomes a poetic sound evocation of the tundra.
Fundación Itaú Argentina
José Pagés
Clarice Bentolila
Anabella Ciana
Alejandra Saldías
Nancy Chappe
María Florencia Trotta
Mariana Coluccio
Mariano Pastore
Adriana Lauria
Curator
Eugenia Garay Basualdo
Coordinator
Celina Marco
Coordinator Google Arts & Culture
Valentina Bonelli
Translations
