Even though the sculpture of the sea lion in Marta Minujín in front of the SEA in Mar del Plata he steals almost all the photos, after getting his postcard most people enter the Museum. Minujín’s work is almost as popular as the one he cites: the “Monument to the Sea Wolf” de la Rambla, made in the forties by José Fioravanti and a must in the images of travelers of that time.
Visitors to the MAR museum (Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de la Provincia de Buenos Aires) have a lot to see in the four individual ones currently on display. With works of different techniques and materials and playful looksReflexive, with apocalyptic overtones, the exhibitions address visions of the game, nature, transformation, the ephemeral, the future, the work of the artists themselves, physical phenomena, spiritual perspectives,
Marcela Cabutti (La Plata, 1967) presents “¡Opi!”, a trip down memory lane through an installation that includes a large central piece that refers to the hole or hole that is made, was it?, in the ground to play ball. To win, the player, after one or more steps, must put the ball in the hole. Here the hole appears split in the middle by a walkable walkway; the semicircles of the great sphere contain 440 thousand small balls. Pleasant sensation, like Moses the visitor feels walking on a sea of small blue glass balls but also, perhaps, observing at his feet a brilliant reflection of the firmament. “The exhibition proposes a path through the multicolored rains, skies, galaxies and cosmos, full of stars and protective constellations”, reads the room text by Jordana Blejmar and Natalia Fortuny. In this sense, “in a double movement, Cabutti’s exhibition connects the above and the below”.
Likewise, the artist displays in showcases and on the walls other pieces with drawings, photos, balls, blown glass, evoking galaxies, the passing of the years and places where the artist spent her summers with her grandparents in Santa Fe; province where the only ball factory in Latin America remains. The exhibition, which includes the premiere of the video “Conflorquiero”, somehow summarizes the interests of the renowned artist, both her historical closeness to nature and the laborious production process of many of her works.
Martha Cali (Buenos Aires, 1959) grew up in Mar del Plata; here she feels like in his house. Nature, art and technology also in the exhibition “Semi-deep humid green”, which takes its title from the phrase of a poem displayed on the wall. It is made up of various nuclei such as “Thermidor, after Ian H Finlay”, a tribute to Finlay’s work “Thermidor”, referring to a turbulent month on the French Republican calendar. The artist “raises in the work the social violence that was experienced in those historical moments in relation to the present moment.” “Silent Life” displays a set of exact images made in 3D, inks and texts, together with a small and rustic clay clock on a shelf that marks the hours on a digital display.
“Invisible”, with lights and music (by Ciro Cavalotti and Fernando Savio sound director), impresses because the “lady of the night” plants grow and lean, attracted by the sound and light of the piece. Their scented flowers are never seen, they last only one night, but video cameras record their every move. The remarkable installation “fictionates a reflection on the social aspects of the space where we stay (adaptive and living structures)” says the artist, a pioneer of digital art.
Facundo Lugea (Mar del Plata, 1996) surprises with its display of “The prolongation of our inertia”, with painting and installation that speaks of transitions. After going through a long corridor, quiet paintings and a floor with dry leaves, glass colored with white tones, the observer thinks he is entering a morgue. On a dozen marble tables, the artist arranged books and brochures, clothing (divers, shoes), electronic and industrial waste, organic remains (fruit, plants) to form remains of figures of nameless beings. Many have foot and butterfly shaped holes; bugs that live a few weeks, some only a day. The clear allusion to death is in everything. “When humanity lives on the edge of its existential abyss, each movement is a risk: where are we going? What moves us? Is inertia the force majeure?” asks the text by Leandro Martinez Depetri.
Kami Koni (Federal Capital, 1989) was the winner of the 2021 Trimarchi Award, a global graphic design festival held in Mar del Plata for 20 years. Lots of color and playful overtones in the “TUTURú” facilities, curated by Diana Aisenberg. The artist announces “an optimistic end of the world”, as in the work “Biokimika2000Solarpunk”, generated by collective work, with human waste, hybridization and more. It is a project “futuristic solar punk about the imaginary world to come; the rebirth of a new tribe and a new species where the human footprint and nature can be seen as a geological and anthropological unity”, concludes Koni. The samples can be visited from 16 to 22 throughout the season, with free admission.
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