Haven't you seen it yet?
The exhibition
Mutations in Green
is very good.
It brings together a series of photos and videos about performances in which
artists literally put their bodies
so that
Ariadna Pastorini
could cover them almost completely and transform them into
images of sculptures
in which it is
very difficult to recognize them
.
It is not only a
fun game of ego wrapping
. "This is an exhibition of performances and sculptures. But
where are the performances?
In part, you see them in the video that is on display and also in the photos of the sculptures that resulted from them.
And what are the sculptures here?
Flat images, hung on a wall dressed - with a green curtain, courtly style -, offering a single point of view," Pastorini herself explained to
Revista Ñ
in the opening of the exhibition at the
Amalita Collection.
Well, now, Pastorini's work
will come out of the frames and regain its volume to parade
in one of the large rooms of the Puerto Madero museum.
It will be in another performance, titled
Gen Pastorini
, in which the artist
will "involve" more colleagues
- from Cristina Coll to Machi Pérez, among others -
in front of the public.
"You can see me putting together the works on the artists in a kind of
spontaneous transformation
. Afterwards, the 'pieces' are going to parade, to the rhythm of a
playlist
that I put together myself and they will take a tour around the people. The playlist? Starts with
Message in a bottle
,
The Police
.
It will be a
shapeshifters
action
, I say," Pastorini anticipates to
Clarín Cultura
.
Ariadna Pastorini.
In the Amalita Collection.
Courtesy Ariadna Pastorini
Shapeshisfters
is a central concept to approach these pieces and Pastorini's work.
It refers to the ability to
transform
.
In the review of this exhibition, we recalled that the term covers diverse creatures, from Zeus assuming the form of a swan to possess Leda in Greek mythology to
Jekyll and Hyde
and, in the real world, the stone fish that mimic such point with the environment that algae grow on them and their spikes with poison.
Furthermore,
Shapeshifters/Mutations
is the title of the
book
with photos of Pastorini's works and an illuminating text by curator
Laura Casanovas
, which accompanies the exhibition and is only sold at the museum.
It was designed by the artist at her lungs and printed with support from the
Amalita Collection.
Ariadna Pastorini.
In the Amalita Collection.
Courtesy Ariadna Pastorini
But the key is, as Casanovas explains in the presentation, that Pastorini explores,
what if, change, relentlessly
. “Mutation as the principle from which creation takes place,” he summarizes.
And he adds: “In these
Mutations
, the link or connection between bodies and fabrics achieves a work that surpasses the binomial.
Because, where does the human body that we sense below begin and end, revealing itself in some cases through the appearance of a leg, an arm or a head?
Where do the materials begin and end?”
What do you see when you do not see
Since the late 1980s, when he started, Pastorini (Montevideo, 1965)
has created jewelry with plastic and nylon sacral mantles
, turning the heavy into light and making
the centers move to the sidelines or the other way around.
Disrupts
And so the artist has already exhibited in Germany - where she lived -, France, Canada, the United States, Spain, Italy, Brazil, as well as Argentina, and integrates local and foreign public and private collections.
Ariadna Pastorini in the Amalita Collection room.
Courtesy Ariadna Pastorini
On March 20, 2020, when the Argentine Government announced the beginning of the quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic, it came up with
Performances de encierro
, a project in which
creators from America, Europe and Asia filmed short videos
in their homes and shared on social networks.
Construction site.
In Mutations in Green, by Ariadna Pastorini.
Photo: courtesy of Ariadna Pastorini
The presentation of
Running of the Bulls Performances
was the reason for another action,
Unforgettable
, which was carried out on September 21, 2022 by the Buenos Aires Microcenter.
A parade of about 30 creators, which left
ArtHaus
– the new arts powerhouse – and toured
the solemn and battered city.
Comparsa.
Pastorini presented his previous book, "Performance de encierro", at ArtHaus, Microcentro Buenos Aires.
Photo: Maxi Failla
But
what did Pastorini want to hide and what did
Pastorini want to reveal by calling on other artists this time?
"I aimed at egos. I have mine, of course. But
I work in networks
. Working with others amuses me and enriches me. I called artists, some are friends and others are not, and they let me cover them, wrap them up, show them.
" sometimes a foot or a hand or hair
, and even I tied them.
They submitted to my decisions during the game
," he added.
We said that, at the beginning, Pastorini's work, which ranges from
textile art
- he received the
Konex of Merit
for this discipline - to performance and sculpture, is based on pleasure.
But it goes further, even to the other side.
Because when you get close,
chains and
jaws
appear .
The silhouette of a
beggar
.
The
gap
of an
absence
.
Construction site.
In Mutations in Green, by Ariadna Pastorini.
Photo: courtesy of Ariadna Pastorini
Pastorini experiments with
live bodies
.
He continues to trust in performances.
“In the artistic environment they were 'crystallized' but I claim them: I create with others and I have fun,” he usually explains.
Furthermore, his work aims to rewrite the destiny of
fabrics
- his mother sewed and his father made shoes - and to twist sculpture
after
the era of monuments.
So with its wonders of cheap cloths, it offers new ways to deal with
the fleeting and the illusions of eternity
.
File:
Gen Pastorini
It is presented on Friday, February 23 at 6:30 p.m. at the Amalita Collection, at Olga Cossettini 141, Puerto Madero.
The
Mutations in Green
exhibition is on display from Thursday to Sunday from 12 to 8 p.m., until March 14.
General admission: $2,000.
J.S.