Since the beginning of November the big installation argentina (landscape) From the group intestines He began his federal tour, which lasted several months through various museums in the country. He actually arrived at Castagnino in Rosario, then traveled via Caraffa in Cordoba and Franklin Rawson in San Juan. This majestic panorama was brought together by 15 plasticine landscape paintings on wood by Juliana Lafitte and Manuel Mendanha between 2009 and 2013, and presented for the first time at the gallery. Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires in 2013. But then he traveled to MAXXI in Rome, performed at MAR in Mar del Plata, and last year at the opening of Malba Puertos and for a short season on the seventh floor of ArtHaus. From there he went on tour with The third skullone of 12 pieces in the series that Mondongo made at the same time he was working on the landscape.
series Skulls This wonderful piece is integrated with an intimate relationship Argentina… Not just because they were implemented simultaneouslyBut because the landscape has skulls in it that sneak out.
The skull theme has a long tradition in art history dating back beyond the Middle Ages, to Pompeian painting, and in contemporary art it continues with artists such as Andy Warhol Or English Damien Hirst. However, the climactic moment is associated with the Baroque, as a symbol of the concept VanitasIt is a Latin term that refers to the transience of life and the insignificance of worldly pleasures in the face of the inevitability of death. The representation of the skull in the composition usually indicates some form or other in an obvious or subtle way such as Distorted image (optical distortion technique that creates an optical illusion) of the famous painting Ambassadorsl Hans Holbein.
Regarding the series Landscapethe two artists stated that it was a reflection of the cycles of life, death and renewal that a trip to Entre Ríos had inspired. “We were shocked because the place floods periodically, but it is being reborn; something like a country,” they said.
It should come as no surprise then that the symbolic relationship that has developed between both genres in the history of painting or engagement with one and the other. Away from fatigue at a glance, They suggest endless readings for multiple reasons Which is configured in a very complex way. Thus, each of these paintings invites us to enter a real maze of meaning.
in The third skulla series of famous dead people – from Toukan Khamon to Mantegna’s Christ, from “Che” Guevara to John F. Kennedy in his US flag-draped coffin – coexist with the English painter’s well-known figure of Ophelia. Everett Millie. The holes in the skull are occupied by an anonymous landscape that the artists have identified with the area where the Pomar family disappeared, and which Buenos Aires police searched unsuccessfully in 2009. Image from a police news report and part of Anatomy lesson to Rembrandtalong with details of a more recognizable virtual Gorillaz band for young visitors to the school. In other similar pieces it is also possible to recognize it The Simpsons Watching TV is probably not that easy for a special person Dante Alighieri Or the late Correa breastfeeding her baby, according to Bernie’s installation at the Fortabat Museum. To form the foregrounds, volumes from The Bible, Moby-Dick, A Clockwork Orange, The Origin of Species, Joyce’s Ulysses or Cortázar’s Hopscotch are assembled. Also not absent from Western and Christian civilization is the controversial statue of Santeria Christ who was crucified on a bombing plane, made by Leon Ferrari against the Vietnam War.
Meanwhile, in The fourth skull They placed the Taj Mahal next to a picture of Damien Hirst’s mortuary cow. “In India the cow is a sacred animal, and in England the artist cuts it into pieces to make a work of art,” notes Manuel, while Juliana points out that “the culture is full of contradictions; when we chose an element we were interested in showing it.” Reference to the United States, in the post of SkullsYou can see from the national menu: a huge amount of small sausages and hamburgers. Each skull imposes careful interpretive work on the viewer.. “When we started, it seemed to us that the skull was a very good container to find a kind of alif in which the entire history of humanity and culture could be interpreted,” says Manuel, explaining some of the derivations for each element. For example, Christ MantegnaWhich is considered the first shortening of the history of art, opening the door to the introduction of many other elements of culture.
“We wanted to illustrate different layers of reality. We could take a newspaper story like the story of the Beaumars family or a piece of art history, and this allowed us to put high culture, low culture, popular culture, and the world of news on the same level,” they explain.
“Doing both series simultaneously allowed us to execute them without giving up,” says Manuel. “It would have been too heavy-handed to focus on just the skulls, and the same goes for the landscapes.” They agreed that the counterpoint was very good and necessary for the work.
In the conversation, they also addressed the complexity of working as a duo and how Their individual personalities have complemented each other to produce this wonderful display of craftsmanship. It is a majestic group.
Regarding the series Skulls It is impossible not to investigate how these numbers are constructed from this dispersion of elements. How do they do it?
“It’s about developing our business,” Juliana trains. “We started working with different materials: strings, paint, meat. When we found plasticine, we first worked with dots and sausages, and that became a drawing. On one occasion, we decided to make a black section in a painting using small figurines. From that we saw that these figurines could also be transformed in the next step so that if you get closer you can see the figurine but When you walk away you see a painting. In this case, each point that makes up the painting is itself a symbol. The sculptures look like pointillist dots that are actually colors. Before starting to work with the several figurines that make up the skull, we draw the skull. This is it Underneath everything is a painting of a skull made of plasticine on wood This gave us guidance on what tones we needed for each shape in each section,” he reveals. For example, in The third skull“On the part of the side of the face that is in shadow, as if it were the sphere of the dark part, there are copies of the paintings he painted Van Gogh also Van EyckBut everything has been toned down. Each of the parts that make up the work generally must have a certain tone to create the image.
Plasticine is attached directly to the surface and handled with a spatula; Thus, this rule roughly provides a tone guide.
Ultimately, as the artists reflect, “what can be seen in Skulls This is the bombardment of information we are accustomed to. We explain it in a certain way, they concluded.
One of the curious things about this series is that there are references to it in several configurations Marcel Duchampan artist who, like everyone else, despised the manual trade and abhorred the tradition of “grid” painting. In this case, Mondongo seems to have regarded Duchamp himself and his work as ReadyAnything that is “finished” or ready to work in another context, an idea invented by Duchamp himself.