First Lines, a very steep diptych conceived by Marco Maggi, is featured along the ride of the two lifts of MUNTREF Contemporary Art Centre (Hotel de Inmigrantes). It is an invitation to bring about –through some subtle writings- new gazes at the Río de la Plata landscape. “I have never realized the intimate resemblance between a glass lift and a scanner. A close and thorough document of the calligraphy of paper bits”, points out Maggi, whose wish is “for the lifts to look like they were made to go over the drawing from top to bottom.” Language Descending a Staircase is the title of his work on the staircase of the Courtauld Art Institute of London. In Buenos Aires language rides in a lift. “The information in the ascending expands: a greater density of tiny aligned white paper bits, just like lines on a stave, or phrases of a text that grow increasingly complex as we go up. As the other lift goes up, the information loses density, dissolves or becomes deconstructed. Every drawing is a text that cannot be read. A text before which we all feel foreigners: immigrants”, adds the artist.
