Theatricality is a very frequent form along art history, but it reaches its maximum development between the centuries XVI and mid XVIII. Transcribing characteristics from that poetic, which, as an homage to its main source of inspiration has been called neo-baroque, contemporary art uses them to represent scenes and stories that tell about the concerns of current times, but also some constant aspects of human existence.
Un paisaje no deja de existir aunque le demos la espalda – Acto 2 [A landscape doesn’t cease to exist although we turn the back on it – Act 2] (2019) by Lihuel GonzalezFundación Itaú Argentina
Action is surprised in an unsettling instant and context. In it, water is spilled and everything is submerged in the deepest chiaroscuro. Perhaps it is a metaphor of life that inevitably slips away: the half-filled pitcher could refer to the advanced age of the character that hurries down the vital liquid towards nothing.
Full of suggestions, Lihuel González’ photographs have this trademark: beings submerged in the darkness of mystery to interpret, with their gestures, the aloof though imminent light of enigmas.
Appropriating two characters created by Oscar Schlemmer, Ballet Triádico Eissturm by Bercic and Medici copies the costumes and body language. It recreates that modern dance proposal, maintaining the costume of constructive forms which defines the movements. The rereading required a new mise en scene, a desolating snow storm where the hieratic gestures of the dancers don’t seem to find their right place.
Cautiverio, escritura sobre vidrio con vapor de mi boca, cansancio [Captivity, writing on glass with steam from my mouth, tiredness] (2018) by Lucía Von SprecherFundación Itaú Argentina
Lucía Von Sprecher explores in her video performance the ways of the body manifested from the breath as a vital sign, the suffering as an unavoidable prison, and the helplessness of knowing oneself extinguishable. The environmental shedding and the simultaneity of scenes place the body and its vulnerability in the center of the proposal.
In Rostro, autorretrato en movimiento, Alfredo Dufour interposes a mask –symbol of theatricality– as a social survival strategy, an element that contains its photographic portrait, literalness that guarantees verisimilitude, though not authenticity. Juxtaposed to the face drawn in the animation, it questions about where the “real thing” is.
Luciano Liberati concentrates in Ansiedad por la separación 9 the emotions in a plain and direct way before the loss of a pet. The video takes part of a series where the way of filming and the topics are alike. The only changes are the circumstances of the stories and the protagonists, whose nationality and language do not matter, as they react in a similar way.
Sin título [Untitled] (2019) by Nicolás PontonFundación Itaú Argentina
With technical dexterity and sensitivity to build an image through drawing, Nicolás Pontón proposes in his diptych Sin título a strange impugnation.
The first component shows a night scene in which some deer run off, evidently taken from a photograph.
The second component only lets us see a minimum part of the same representation, as the rest is hidden by a black block of graphite and charcoal.
The visual uncertainty that provokes this mutilation opposes to the sensuous delight of the perfectly achieved forms, and faces the spectator with the artifices of mimetic language that becomes evident in the contrast of the dark area.
Sol negro [Black sun] (2019) by Sebastián BonaFundación Itaú Argentina
Under a title that refers to the end of times, Sebastián Bona unfolds in the polyptych Sol negro scenes from a dystopic story.
In it, some children are the protagonists of unsettling events in which they play ambivalent roles, unfolding cruel actions or showing themselves vulnerable to situations of imminent violence.
The drawings, confined to their frames, have a common thread in sceneries, costumes, elements, atmospheres and characters, so they work as vignettes of one single fragmented narration in a retro-apocalyptic tone.
Sobremesa [After dinner] (2017) by Sonia RuizFundación Itaú Argentina
Reality and the pictorial ways to capture it are the starting point of Sonia Ruiz in Sobremesa.
Based on her perspective, the motive and the atmosphere in which she is immersed, they are the result of a dialectic game between the visual objectivity and the artist’s emotional subjectivity.
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
