Opening September 28th 7.p.m
Visits: Thursday to Sunday and holidays from 11 am to 5 pm. Admission is free with prior reservation on the website of Museo Castagnino and/or on a first-come, first-served basis. Our aim is to turn each place into a space for reflection. Thus, thinking is (or becomes) a revolutionary fact, as Marie Orensanz asserted with her work. The Castagnino+Macro collection, which houses the work by Orensanz after which this project is named, becomes an inspiring leitmotiv to examine canonical narratives and to review the ways in which imaginary configurations contribute to shaping the real. Thinking about collections is part of a necessary practice for those of us who work in the history of visualities, cultural sociology and the history of art. It is precisely in order to put once again in tension the logics present in art-historical narratives, as well as those that emerge from the processes of establishing a collection, that we chose the third edition of BIENALSUR to undertake this project based on the rich collection of the Museo Castagnino+Macro. Focused on the contemporary domain, the proposal seeks to think with the works of the collection and in/among them, while also playing with the possibility of some interference with the inclusion of external works that make up the repertoire we are working with for the 2021 edition. What hypotheses emerge as we go through the repertoire gathered in this museum? What clues are offered by the collection exhibitions that have been shown over time? Every collection - even more this one, whose origin goes back over a hundred years and is the result of a personal initiative that later attained public status - acknowledges within it different motivations that justify the presence of artists and works incorporated at each specific juncture. However, once added to the collection, the works continue to play their own game, interact with each other, find their place, and redefine themselves in the different approaches that each curatorship proposes, or remain silent in the storage room awaiting a question that activates them. Consequently, this exhibition, which seeks to think with/in/among the works, will try to see again in order to address some questions and open up new ones, while at the same time we propose that the Macro present, under the title The State of Things, a reflection on the art system that will engage in an intense dialogue with this project. It is often said that art is ahead of its time. Yet, we can assume that art is ALWAYS contemporary, regardless of when it was produced since it reveals itself in different ways to the eye of the beholder. In this regard, it is interesting to revisit a collection like that of the Castagnino+Macro from the present with contemporary questions, and to discover which elements appeal to us more than others. In the "vertigo of the lists", the inventory shows surnames and names of the artists in alphabetical order; then the titles draw our attention: A Year of Air, Security, Claim for Survival, Attack of Restlessness, An Idiotic Chant, Bed Sheets, The Pillow, Insomnia... and the list could further enumerate the signs that aroused our curiosity. From there to the works, as we continue with the discovery of the ways in which they are re-signified in the current pandemic times and what entails thinking about the domestic, sleep, wakefulness, space, air… This selection resulting from the questions of the present rereads the collection and activates meanings that also enable us to think about notions such as time, history, memory, subjectivities, among other questions trapped between the works and the audiences that come to them through this curatorial proposal. This project seeks to honour not only the capacity of the artists but also the silent and sustained work carried out for years by each of the professionals responsible for purchases and admissions of donations as well as those in charge of the documentation, research and conservation of the works. Diana B. Wechsler
Photo: Claudia Fontes.
