In liquid love, Zygmunt Bauman expresses it with pinpoint precision: “In every love there are at least two beings, and each one of them is the great unknown of the other’s equation. That is what makes love seem like a whim of fate, that disturbing and mysterious future, impossible to foresee, to prevent or conjure, to hasten or stop. To love means opening the door to that destiny, to the most sublime of human conditions in which fear merges with joy in an indissoluble alloy whose elements can no longer be separated. Opening to that destiny means, ultimately, giving freedom to the being: that freedom that is embodied in the Other, the partner in love.” How much does love weigh? asked Daniel Fischer, curator of the magnificent exhibition that occupies Cronopios and rooms J and C of the Recoleta Cultural Center, and immersed himself in an unfathomable sea that bore powerful fruits. In 1,500 square meters in the Recoleta, the exhibition includes more than 120 works that are a delight and that question us – lovingly, of course – about the inexhaustible folds and nuances that this feeling entails. One cannot help but think of an endless kaleidoscope that goes from the love of young Werther to the most liquid of contemporary times.
“According to Nietzsche, love makes us human, too human. It is one of the most complex and multifaceted concepts that exist; It represents a force that transforms our lives and can lead us to ecstasy or maximum desolation,” says the curator. And he adds that he also based it on Raymond Carver’s book titled What do we talk about when we talk about love. This is why Fischer thought of an exhibition that would be experienced as “a passionate and emotional experience.” The exhibition, in which passionate love coexists, love for parents, for work, for God, for those who are no longer here, for those who will be missed forever, brings together paintings, installations, videos and photos by 60 national artists and international.
It is organized into three cores: life, death and spirituality. Death at the center of Charly Herrera’s work creates a reflection on the transience of life. Some more religious Judeo-Christian visions are proposed, as well as the construction of love in childhood and its possible ghostly disturbances. He questions how the subject of love is constructed. And it goes from a playful and festive vision, with works by Petu de Mareca, Alexandra Kehayoglou, Elisa Strada, Edgardo Giménez, and Fabián Bercic, to an opaque future where the blows of heartbreak forged body and soul, as in “Sea of Tears.” , by Pablo Suárez, and “Lágrimas de cristal”, by Nicola Costantino.
There are works that have a more devotional focus, they include everyday, domestic objects to talk about love. “They are all like javelins: they discharge the death drive. They try to see themselves as formulas, that’s why they are so intense,” says the curator, who refers especially to site-specific works such as those by Charly Herrera or Daniel Joglar. The fragility of love is latent in the shocking luminescent network of rosaries by Daniel Joglar, in the work of Manuel Ameztoy and in the installation with nightgowns by Claudia Casarino, which alludes to trafficking. The delicate pieces of “How much does love weigh?”, the work of Charly Herrera and Claudia del Río, are made with cut crystals painted with gold dust: they are pieces that they made together with carvers from the San Carlos factory. They contain different aromatic substances and rice. “The Girl with Pumpkin,” by Antonio Berni, dialogues with a work by Débora Pierpaoli, where there are two portraits united and inspired by an Eastern tradition. “When someone dies and has no family or partner, they are married in the cemetery so that they can migrate to the other world accompanied,” says Fischer.
When his wife died, Daniel García painted some black dahlias. There are also flowers by Carlos Alonso. Nearby, the kiss that feels like fire from two figures made with charcoal by Vicente Grondona: that piece embodies passionate and, at the same time, infertile love. Passion and desire captivate in the works of Hernán Marina, Marta Minujín and Nicolás García Uriburu (Green Sex, 1971). For Nicola Costantino, “there is nothing more monstrous than motherhood.” In the photograph “Madonna”, she is seen sweetly hugging a ball pig, one of her most iconic creations. To make them, the artist used pigs from which she removed the meat. With the leather, the head and the legs, she formed a kind of flexible cloth that she mummified and squeezed inside a hollow sphere. Thus she made the mold that would give rise to one of her hyperrealistic and hypnotic sculptural pieces. The love for parents is present in the creations of Ana Gallardo, Gabriel Baggio and in the shocking mega-installation of Charly Herrera, of which there are a series of pieces from the series “Copper, misery, shit”, which refer to the power of death : with a perfect workmanship, you can see doors that become beds, that become tables, coffins, ritual space, phallic shapes.
There is also the large installation that Herrera made after the death of his father. “My parents were flower growers and I worked with them in the crops, in the flower shop and making offerings for the dead,” recalls the artist. That exuberant and fragrant imagery makes up the mega-installation that pays homage to him. “This time I return to it with the incorporation of many elements that were not in the original piece. The piece will be modified over the days and months,” says the artist.
There are also works by Amalia Amoedo, Mónica van Asperen, Fabiana Barreda, Delia Cancela, Flavia Da Rin, León Ferrari, Roberto Jacoby, Margarita Paksa, Alberto Passolini, Cindy Sherman, María Torcello and Paula Toto Blake, among many others. “The Reverse of the Armor,” a video installation by Silvia Rivas, leaves you breathless. “There are scenes where I want to put into action the extreme fragility, vulnerability and conflict with one’s own image and with everything we produce from culture because it is part of us,” says the artist. In one of the scenes a woman is seen interacting with some tissue paper garments treated with oils and lacquers that turn the light silk into a brittle, sharp material capable of hurting. “It is a material that scratches, punctures, which has to be gotten rid of because it is something of its own but that is no longer useful. But like everything that is one’s own, one cannot tear it apart and that’s it. It is something that is being let go of with all the pain that that implies.”
How much does love weigh It is exhibited at the Recoleta Cultural Center, Junín 1930. Tuesday to Friday, from 1:30 p.m. to 10 p.m., and Saturdays, Sundays and holidays, from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Free.
