It is one of the great artists of Argentina, although He left the country in 1958 And he never lived here again. First, in his adolescence, he settled in Mexico where he formed as a recorder and later, He went to New York and with only 22 years A long and solid race began in which he did everything: engravings, drawings, photos, printed, sculptures, facilities, videos and theater.
His works integrate the collections of the world’s main museums and usually exposes in galleries in Argentina, the United States and Latin America. In addition, he dedicated himself to teaching for decades.
His themes are deep and timeless: The relationship between fiction and realityreproduction as a matter of the work of art and human work as a titanic task and order of the world. But his works are playful, ironic and read the reality with more sense of humor than tragedy.
And although it usually comes to Buenos Aires to visit friends and to expose in His usual gallery, Ruth Benzacar; This year’s return had another reason: “Crossing” the great show that Malba dedicates These days. A retrospective that covers all the stages of his career, with iconic works such as the “wrinkle” installation, and was cured by Agustín Pérez Rubio.
Simultaneously, a few blocks from there, the Fine Arts Museum exhibits “Porter-Camnitzer. The years of the New York Graphic Workshop ”, a sample of his work with the group he founded in the United States, in the first years of his career.
“In Malba, on the day of the inauguration I stayed in shock, I am still recovering,” confesses Liliana Porter to News, in a talk by Zoom, from his home of Rhinebeck, two hours from New York, in the United States. “There were a lot of people, as 2700 people told me. It was crazy, I didn’t expect something like that. I felt Madonna. It was a very nice experience,” he explains with his Buenos Aires accent that he did not attenuate himself at all in 60 years of English. “I’m still thinking about Spanish,” he says about his strange roots to Argentinawhere he has friends, family and fans and, in addition, the central reference of his childhood memories.
News: How is your life in the United States? Did it bring every day, do you have a routine?
Liliana Porter: We are in the field. This is very quiet, very green. In general I go to the study, but not just work. There is also a lot of work to answer letters, make inventories, papers things that have been having a lot of time. I have a place in Manhattan, but the study and the main house are here, in Rhinebeck.
News: You always confess that your imaginary has a lot to do with Argentina, with your childhood and your first years in art.
Porter: I live here from ’64, that is, my whole work was done here. He was 22 when I came. However, I still think of Spanish. In addition, the cultural reference points that you learned in your childhood mark you for the rest of your life. AND New York is a very easy city, because everyone is foreign here. It is very easy to feel comfortable, create your own reality, put together your life. It is a city that changes all the time and you have the feeling that it is not in one way. According to where you are and what you are doing, you will have a description of the place and your life totally different from that of another. I work very well here, I feel very comfortable.
News: How would you describe your work? Is it a job that reflects the things that happen or has a more internal development that does not look too much at the context?
Porter: If what you are doing is true, the context will always influence you. And the interior context is as important as the exterior. It also reflects what is happening in your relationship with things. If you are someone who does not want to find out, who knows, maybe your work is more abstract. I believe that my work also has to do with emotions.
News: When one looks at his little characters facing a much greater job than his possibilities, he cannot stop thinking about the world as he is.
Porter: Recently I did a big work in Bridgehampton on the Foundation Day. It was a great platform where a woman swept and swept thousands of things. In those thousands of things there were small situations, dialogues. Things of different scale, tragic and cheerful. Thus it is a bit to pass time in life. Different, political, ethical, of everything coexist. One is so full of information now. You are at home in a divine garden and turn on television and see that everyone kills each other. And everything happens at the same time, but it’s not a movie. Somehow that has to influence you, transform, make you think. Although there are things that are physically far, emotionally they are not far away.
News: Those characters confronted with a huge task also seem to say: “Everything collapses but I continue in mine, my work holds the world.”
Porter: I think in my work there is something hopeful. And sense of humor. I believe in the possibility of order and in the possibility, even, of being happy.
News: Did you ever feel that I didn’t want to work anymore, that I had already done everything I wanted?
Porter: No. It always seems to me that I have so many projects that time or life will not reach me. I am always very excited about new ideas, although ideas end up being similar. But it seems to me that they are new.
News: Do you work with total freedom or weigh your career, the market that buys your work and even what it did in the past?
Porter: It doesn’t worry me. At this point one knows that what you do will always look like. The work itself is defining you and saying what you could not do. But I feel that there are many things I did not do and I would like to do. Good luck I have, right?
News: How do you feel in front of the young people who follow their work and consider her a teacher?
Porter: That is the greatest joy, when young people like what you do. It’s a pleasure. It justifies you.
News: He always worked in emotional and artistic societies. With Luis Camnitzer, in his first works, and now with Ana Tiscornia.
Porter: I like it. Maybe to be recorder, a discipline that forces you to work with other people. I love it. With Ana Tiscornia we are together more than 30 years ago and we understand each other super good. We know how each one thinks. I could invent works to her and she. We each work in their thing, but we also did a lot of together, such as videos and theater. We have a lot of fun.
News: Is it especially nervous to expose in Argentina?
Porter: No. I am one of those who do not get nervous and I even love the day of the inauguration. Other artists suffer a lot. I don’t. I have fun, I love people. It is like publishing a book that is suddenly from another and you see it for the first time. This exhibition in Argentina was exciting. It is your own country, it is your home. It has another value.
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