The Museum of the National University of Tres de Febrero, MUNTREF, turned 20 years old. She celebrates it by showing a selection from her Collection in two parts. At the Museum’s Caseros headquarters, “Look, see, imagine” presents micro-stories: the city, actors in history, imaginary universes. In Muntref Contemporary Art Center, “Present continuous” appears as a synthesis of existential limits. It displays, among other works, the sound project Christian Boltanski’s “Mysteries”, Sights and sounds suggest questions. The French artist placed sound devices in Bahía Bustamante (Chubut) -a beach frequented by whales and where the remains of a minke whale were found- in the hope of establishing a dialogue with these mammals.
pre-existing
20 from the death of Victor Grippo (Argentina, 1936-2002), the exhibition “Preexistencias” (Centro de Arte Contemporáneo) celebrates his work and illuminates little-known nuances of the artist. Projected on a wall of the Muntref Immigration Museum, in the gallery that separates the two museums, a video by Grippo -“I preserve the fact of being the son of immigrants”- connects his exhibition with “From the Eastern Mediterranean to the Plata: Christians, Jews and Muslims”; both exhibitions have the focus on the “pre-existing”.
Recognized, among other things, for his poetic ephemeral works of apparent simplicity -foods in transformation and materials of daily life-, the artist is first interested in alchemy. He studied chemistry and then trained as a painter and engraver, but devoted himself to sculpture, as in “Anonymous”, 1998-2001, plaster pieces on pedestals with transparent domes.
Emerged from a proposal by Paulina Vera, the artist’s daughter, and curated by Diana Wechsler and Florencia Battiti, “Preexistencias” reproduces part of the artist’s workshop and reveals -through writings, photos, early paintings and other documents- edges of his thought that links subtle artistic expressions with political, historical and cultural processes.
Freed from their functions, beans, potatoes, tables, utensils, tools, are transmuted into something else. The potato is one of his favorite organic elements and was used over and over again as a metaphor, a source of energy and reflection; here “Naturalize man, humanize nature. plant energy”, 1991/2022. As the days go by, the visitor will find modifications even in the installation “Life, Death, Resurrection”, 1980/2022: the beans germinate and break the geometric figures of lead that contain them. Shortcomings and exclusion in “The Artist’s Food” (Wide door, narrow table), 1991, with seven plates of inedible food and only five stools.
In the garden, the work “Construction of a popular oven to make bread”, 1972, reproduces the clay oven exhibited only one day in Plaza Roberto Arlt; it was censored and destroyed then. It evoked “the community ritual of feeding”, reflected on the social and spiritual conditions of the human being.
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