With Rene Burri & the curator of his show "A World", Buenos Aires, Feb-2008

2nd Biennial of the End of the World

First Published, Summer Edition 2009
Wynwood Magazine-U.S.A
http://wam-magazine.com

(Click on the image)

Buenos Aires Salvaje-Street Art

First Published WHITEHOT MAGAZINE

May 2009

http://www.whitehotmagazine.com/

(Click on the image)

Size Matters? - Natalia Kempowsky

First Published by

Sculpture Magazine - May 2009

http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag09/may_09/may09.shtml

The importance of the exhibition Size matters?, lies in the original way the artist finds to approach issues related with migration, human behaviors, culture and social relationships. Because these are those kinds of problems artists that lived in different countries, always feel related to. Natalia Kempowsky was born in Colombia, her family has German roots, and she studied in London and participated in several solo and group exhibitions in Colombia, London and New York. Size matters? is clearly one of those cases where the personal story of the artist, the multicultural influences in her work is more than relevant.Kempowsky is fascinated with human behavior and how the environment affects it. The political, religious, cultural, and social context where a person grows is obviously the main structure that gives shape to the identity and personality each person develops. The type of art an artist produces is also a way of expressing the way he/she acts and interacts socially and how the world is perceived. Natalia chooses specific locations and study people’s actions: she photographs them, draw them, and talk to them; pure interaction. But not only those experiences are important, also the architectonical structures, regular activities, the ecosystem, objects that surround us, time and space, “information that let me understand social phenomenon and patterns in social development”, she says.The wooden spheres are the original part of her work in this exhibition. Usually she’s not bond to any material in particular, she uses all kinds of objects, installations, and public interventions. She always focus around the main ideas related with freedom to travel and explore, nationality, humans, the dynamics of international migration and immigration, cultural identity, the environment. The spheres represent the different countries of the American continent. The curator designed a special place where they should be located inside the gallery according to the design of a “virtual map” which also relates the size of the countries in each of the several globes, with the concept of freedom those countries have and how they use it within their territory. The real size, the surface of each country, therefore, is not the reference the artist uses to create the sculptures. The main materials are recycled woods. The empty semi spheres are bond together with metallic locks but pieces could be separated manually allowing the spectator to look inside of them where figures drawn as if they were engravings, represent the most characteristic features of each country.Next to the biggest sphere – the U.S - Kempowsky places small paper “people” who embody the thousands of souls that once emigrated; by defect, they also refer to those hundreds of countries people left behind. They hang from a rope, some are falling, and others are just standing and many close or in small paper ships. Spheres just present the situation where not only the size of the territory is fundamental because of its richness in natural resources but because of its content in cultural diversity. The artist develops a new map of the world, as real as any geographical map could be, where boundaries are flexible and redefined as we speak; the more each country opens its limits, the richer it gets because of the immigrants.

Maria Elena Kravetz Art Gallery – Cordoba, Argentina

2nd - 30th July, 2008

http://www.mariaelenakravetzgallery.com/index.htm

Discontinuous

First Published April-May 2009
Wynwood Magazine - USA
http://wam-magazine.com/

(click to read the article)

Floki Gauvry - “El caos sensible”

Galería Atica

http://www.galeriaatica.com/

Abril-Mayo, 2009

Floki Gauvry se ubica dentro de un grupo de artista donde nos resulta difícil distinguir los límites entre su producción en la vida cotidiana y su producción en el arte, siempre que aceptemos que dicho límite existe. Observar la forma en que maneja sus obras o como se mueve entre ellas, nos habla de una persona que ha encontrado un sutil equilibrio entre lo que piensa y lo que hace, dueña de una armonía que se manifiesta en una búsqueda permanente a lo largo de varias décadas de trabajo introspectivo.
La serie El caos sensible no es fruto de la inspiración genial ni del arrebato creativo sino que son cientos de grabados los que fueron necesarios para que hoy día esta serie compuesta de monocopias, imágenes digitales, un libro de artista de calidad exquisita y hasta un pedestal luminoso con acrílico fluo, integraran un todo donde las partes son claramente independientes y aun así todas remitan a una idea central. Y lo central, lo protagónico que organiza ese caos primigenio, es el agua.
Desde lo formal, estamos frente a un trabajo de factura artesanal, cuidado al detalle y portador de toda la vitalidad que encierra ser un ejemplar único e irrepetible aun cuando el medio elegido, el grabado, sea la técnica reproductible por excelencia desde hace siglos. Floki ha elegido trabajar con el grabado, pero introduciendo un giro que no permite que sus obras sean plausibles de seguir el destino de, por ejemplo, los grabados litográficos. Asimismo el tema, la idea detrás de las obras de la artista, es nutrida a partir de un conjunto de experiencias que parecieran desarrollarse en el tiempo; hay fuentes que alimentan su trabajo en forma recurrente: la naturaleza, el vínculo arte-vida, la regularidad geométrica y matemática combinada con el factor azar, la presencia de lo cíclico en el tiempo y el espacio. El fluir vital rige cada composición. Cuando uno se detiene frente a sus grabado, cuando uno conoce estas obras, advierte que ese caos que la artista describe, parece estar paradójicamente contenido bajo un efecto cosmético el cual desempeña un doble juego: por un lado potencia su brillo como si estuviera ejerciendo una presión desde el germen y a punto de explotar, y por otro, es esa misma tensión la que se descubre protegida por las formas curvas pregnantes y sólidas que parecieran trasmitirnos una suerte de tranquilidad y estabilidad propio de aquello que respira plácidamente.
La obra de Floki Gauvry en general, y El caos sensible en particular, nos informa sobre la supremacía de la vida por sobre todas las cosas; su producción se fue gestando en una dialéctica donde todo gira una y otra vez retroalimentándose y volviendo a surgir con mayor ímpetu. La obra nace de una semilla gestada en un cálido útero y a su debido tiempo, puja por salir a la luz pero conteniendo toda su irracionalidad en las formas sensibles que adopta tan cercanas y familiares para quien las observa. Entonces nos sentimos tentados a contemplarlas por largos períodos y nos seduce su invitación a descubrir múltiples significados acorde a la perspectiva que asumamos.
Floki ha elegido en esta oportunidad al agua como campo de acción y experimentación; ha observado el movimiento del río -el río a orillas del cual vive- y captado su esencia esta vez no solamente en sus grabados sino a través de la fotografía. Sin embargo, logró someter la factura hiperealista de una “instantánea” a la técnica del grabado, obteniendo así impresiones que lejos están de ser una postal o el registro de una experiencia plasmada en papel sensible. En sus fotografías se descubre la trama, el grano, pero no de la película sino de la impresión. Combinaciones que nos hablan de un espíritu que busca renovarse y conservarse al mismo tiempo; nuevas formas de expresar su profundo vínculo con lo vital y las posibilidades que ello brinda. Una obra que mediante el elemento acuoso busca manifestar su potencial y su mensaje como antes lo hicieran series relativas a los mandalas o las figuras cuánticas. Es ahora un elemento, el elemento más vinculado junto con el aire, a la posibilidad de generar, tener o quitar vida, el encargado de llevar adelante una nueva búsqueda. La artista nos presenta una serie de alto valor estético y delicada factura, que una vez más nos desafía a penetrar en sus misteriosas apariencias que parecieran navegar entre lo figurativo y lo abstracto. Y más allá de lo que cada uno pueda encontrar en ese camino o las lecturas que pueda hacer, sin duda la experiencia será gratificante por igual, porque nada es más placentero que participar de un viaje por las turbulentas y sublimes aguas de la vida.

María Carolina Baulo

Claudia Gherstenfeld "AVANTI"

Sculpture Magazine

March 2009

http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag09/mar_09/mar09.shtml

Claudia Gherstenfeld is an argentine young artist. She started painting, then she tried with ceramics, but her main concerns lately are related with sculptures and objects.

This exhibition, where she presents her new production, is called “AVANTI”. The entire presentation is related with humans. Shoes, clothes, everything we wear speak for ourselves even if we don’t want to. The artist works with shoes, objects and wheels and its relation with the motion of life; shoes represent the constant activity people have, the never ending circle of moving forward. The exhibition’s name, an Italian expression, expresses the idea of a turning wheel, just like the unpredictable wheel of fortune. “AVANTI” also gives us permission to walk, to pass, to enter; it’s a friendly way of welcoming others.

The idea of working with simple materials to give shape to those shoes that recreate so many different characters and individuals, is also related with the ordinary action of putting them on every day just to get started. Gherstenfeld wanted to show as many varieties of shoes as she could. The entire exhibition presents all types of alternatives for the spectator to easily find the correct option that suits with his/her personal story. Some sculptures look “tired”, other shoes look fancy and glamorous and some reveal the cruel or tender side of its owner; even the artist’s shoes are part of the exhibition, her real shoes left in one of the corners of the gallery the opening night of the show. And you can tell a lot of Gherstenfeld´s personality just by looking at those colorful high heels.

The support, the materials the artist used, basically paper, glue, and paint - but combined with flowers, nails, wood and real heels and spike heels - are transformed in such a way that the small sculptures look so natural we could even feel attracted to reach them and try them. And I also see there’s an interesting analogy between those pieces and the titles the artist gave them. Simplicity seems to be an ideal she wants to achieve, the main concern she seeks, but the paradox is also present because every title is configured in a cryptic way, far from being easily accessible: the title could represent just capital letters like R.I.P (not much more than an R, an I and a P) that communicate us nothing in case we don’t know the meaning of those letters all together just separated by dots; but it could also refer to the appearance of the shoe-sculpture. We could make the exercise of trying to find out the concept within those unpronounceable words, we could also choose to create the meaning ourselves, or we can just let it go and assume it is part of an intimate pact between the artist and her art work. An original way that Claudia Gherstenfeld finds to relate what an appearance could sell and how words give names those appearances; not always the same thing. As she said: “as simple and as complex as life itself”.

Decastelli Arte
http://www.decastelliarte.blogspot.com/