Two simultaneous exhibitions, in the Fortabat Collection – where there are also two more scheduled between July and December – and in the Ruth Benzacar gallery, present an overview of the work of Gustavo Marrone, an “elusive” artist who has a lot to show and say .
The exhibition presented in the Fortabat Collection, curated by Roberto Amigo and Nicolás Cuello, is the first of three successive ones: the current one, until the end of June, and the next two during the second half of 2024. The text of both curators starts like this: “Since the beginning of the eighties, as well as during his prolonged stay in Barcelona, Gustavo Marrone (Buenos Aires, 1962) has been an elusive figure in Argentine art. This doesn’t end anymore It is the first exhibition that comprehensively addresses his work, unfolding and contracting in three acts that, as a whole, address the humorous complexity of morality, the plebeian drives of the body, and his singular conception of language as matter.
“Ideologically unstablethe first act, assumes the subjectivity of the artist in collision with institutions, sexuality and politics from the force of the jester who imposes himself on power with image and word, in the enjoyment of the ambiguity that facilitates mockery.
An exhibition of drawings by Marrone is presented at the Ruth Benzacar gallery, curated and text by Marina de Caro.
Page 12 spoke with Gustavo Marrone and what follows is part of that conversation:
–Are image and word inseparable in your work?
-For me they are united. In the specific case of drawing, we can say that writing is a drawing; It is the need to affirm. The text and the image for me are simultaneous, they appear together: without an image there is no text. When I am working in the workshop and I hear the delusions that come out of the radio, I feel like responding and those texts and drawings come out. At some point I thought I was wasting my time, but I kept them anyway. Until I realized that for me it is a working system.
–The work as a response, almost like a diary in an artistic key.
-It’s like a diary, yes. For me, the work is the response to friction with everything: with society, with the art system, with work, with sexuality. You walk through the city and you have to continually look for your place, it is a constant negotiation. Faced with all this, one is always a weak subject, looking for dialogue strategies. I can’t think about a work without thinking that it is related to something that is happening to me. My work always comes from humor, irony and, of course, also frustration.
At some point I realized that my work began in the bus, when I left my house for the workshop. And everything I was seeing, hearing or imagining becomes a work. In my work there are many intersecting themes, I couldn’t say that I focus on this or that theme. In any case, those ‘molds’, those ‘boxes’, shrink. That’s why I never felt pressure, but I do what comes out. I did all my work for the sake of doing it, out of necessity. I rarely had to fulfill orders. Later, when they invite me to a place, it is a circumstance, we see how to display it. On the other hand, my training was in the workshops, in the search with colleagues, in making a work as a response to what is happening.
Marina de Caro, for her part, adds:
-Our generation works more on the edge because it received a heritage of critical thinking: no we bought the system in a direct way. We keep a certain distance. We are constantly evaluating where things are going, if they are going that way, why. For many of my generation, art is one thing and the art system is another. There is an area in which they coexist and another in which they do not. Our production often extends into very diverse practices. And the system is a dialogue but there are also intersections. On the other hand, young people were born in a more developed system, with more possibilities and are more concerned about entering than looking at it with a critical eye. That is why the work of Gustavo Marrone, who does not run behind any agenda, is very pertinent. And if I can help give visibility to an artist, I will be delighted to do so. At the same time it is part of my view, what I like to share. I would like this to be talked about. How one defines oneself as an artist.
* In the Fortabat Collection, -first part of a series of three samples-; Olga Cossettini 141, Thursday to Sunday, from 12 to 8 p.m., until the end of June. At the Ruth Benzacar gallery, Ramírez de Velasco 1287, from Tuesday to Saturday, from 2 to 8 p.m., until June 15.
