Gaspar Libedinsky (Buenos Aires, 1976) emerges unscathed from the self-imposed challenge with “Taken house”his vigorous retrospective in the National Museum of Decorative Art (Errazuriz Alvear Palace). “I’m happy. We managed to make an absolutely impeccable sample. Everyone is welcome”, invites the artist. His work is the product of, as he says, the “molding of arguments that manifests itself as art, architecture and design, the raw material of my works that are developed around the theme of the city, nature and domesticity” .
About hierarchies
The artist and architect he took all the Europeanizing spaces of the Museum and populated them with talent and overflowing imagination. Made with plebeian materials -for example, products intended for domestic cleaning-, amazing creatures, Spartan table, unusual clothes, soft sculptures, strange merry-go-round, exotic cloud, and other pieces, converse very well with objects that presume a noble origin.
The exhibition is the putting into practice of ideas-power that he cultivates in his workshop. Libedinsky points out that one of them works the transformation of the ordinary into the extraordinary, the conversion of the marginal into an object of desire, the creation of the new from the reorganization of the existing, the intrinsic aspiration of the elements for a higher life, the obstacle understood as potential.
Along this path, the artist and a formidable multidisciplinary team trap the visitor, who is made to ponder already from the entrance patio. “Monument to the Common Man” it is an installation generated with the “textile bodies” of anonymous beings. There are more than 30 costumes purchased at the Salvation Army; the human-like pyramid they form is raised like a flag with a rope and pulley system and, when it comes down, the formation collapses like someone tired at the end of a day.
Come and see how two magnificent ostriches -“The Circular Economy of the ostrich”- strut in the lobby, masterfully made from feather dusters. Step by step, in the great hall and like a great painting, another wonder unfolds. “Reef” is a large mass of “corals” distributed in clusters that can also be seen from the upper floor galleries. Magic? The “coral reef” is made from tightly packed swab bristles (which will later return to what they were made for).
Constructed of a metal frame and multiple doors, the artful yet unassuming “Banquet(te)” table replaces the original and contrasts with the sumptuous surroundings of the dining room. Diners can sit around it or also inside (by opening one of the doors). Shown here are beautiful works from the “Kunstformen der Natur” (Artistic Forms of Nature) series, pieces that use colored bristles from brushes as brush strokes. Then, in the winter garden, a colorful “Cloud” formed with 400 “pompous” brushes can be glimpsed; far from being ominous, it constitutes a refuge that allows two people to “put” their heads inside it and converse in private.
The ballroom houses male clothing designs made with cloths reserved for cleaning. Grids, floor cloths, towels, flannels, look splendid and take on new life after changing their destiny. They come back to life in the form of dress sets, sportswear, uniforms, and more. The series “Mr. Rag” was first exhibited in the Di Tella University / Beca Kuitca program for artists and in the Praxis New York gallery, a few steps from the High Line elevated park, of which Libedinsky was the main designer when he worked at the Diller Scofidio + Renfro studio.
In the second basement, you can see other textile works such as “Architecture for the Body”, in which the artist transmutes floor mats into footwear, and the series of prints “Reef to wear”. Nearby, the interactive piece “Carrousel” is made up of 10 interconnected bicycles that require common pedaling to function in a circular manner. And there is more, such as the video installations linked to the dismantling of the Caseros prison. His interest in the “most extreme use of architecture” is not new: his graduate thesis at the Architectural Association in London was about prisons.
In the garden, they call the visitor 15 “Bird Houses”, made with boxes of vegetables by their students of the Bachelor of Design at the University of San Andrés. “Houses with access gaps are waiting to be ‘taken over’ by little birds,” concludes Libedinsky. The presentation text is by Rodrigo Alonso.
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