Movil: A Renewed Space for Contemporary Art Opens with Irina Kirchuk

By Ana Martinez Quijano, Buenos Aires

Curators Alejandra Aguado and Solana Molina Viamonte opened with Móvil a modality of management which to date was not known in Argentina. The project was launched with the exhibition Termo by Irina Kirchuk at CheLA, an industrial building of Parque Patricios.

Movil: A Renewed Space for Contemporary Art Opens with Irina Kirchuk

The proposal is ambitious. The curators shall select artists in their mid-career or emerging artists, capable of creating a “key” and important work for their careers. The proposal consists in holding medium-scale individual shows aimed at the most diverse audiences, accompanied by first level educational programs. Exhibiting in Móvil is meant to be a milestone.

This kind of platform, frequent in Europe, the USA and Latin American countries such as Chile, Colombia, Brazil and Mexico, received support from collector Erica Roberts, who made possible the implementation of Móvil. Then those who contributed with their trade, their time or their money, and above all, with the CheLA space (Fabián Wagmister and Dara Gelof, two Argentineans residing abroad), came on board. Now, both managers aspire to generate a sense of belonging; they wish to establish a collective of friends with different categories of participation, who will contribute mixed funds – public and private, large and small, temporary and permanent.

Aguado and Molina Viamonte aspire to receive remuneration for their work in the future. In the meantime, they present the first limited editions of Móvil: a series of original works produced by Rosana Shoijett and Erica Bohm, who took photographs during a residency, and by Kirchuk, who produced a work in the middle of her exhibition. Created as a non-profit initiative, Móvil does not target the market, but will rather be devoted to supporting the production and exhibition of artists during a special period: the experimental phase. The sale of these works will provide continuity to the new projects.

On the other hand, Irina Kirchuk (1983) celebrates industrial architecture with Termo, and intervenes the room with attractive elements which make up a setup. The subject of heat expressed in the title of the exhibition is perceived in the melting or softening of various materials. The excessive heat softens the high-impact plastic forms of the yellow stands which in this way acquire the quality of modeling clay molded with the hand. A mirrored and distorted plastic wall attracts glances with its gleams and undulations. The vast landscape of the room is divided by some metallic chimneys coated in fine red dust. Color gleams. The forms of two moons or round windows and those of a grill which is vaguely reminiscent of the kitchen we have at home generate estrangement. Familiar objects acquire a fantastic condition. The vision of the room surprises the viewer with the extraordinary event of a world in a state of euphoria. Kirchuk speaks of the hallucinations which can be provoked by high temperatures. And then tells the story of “a city in which the heat seems to make the asphalt sweat, the reflecting surfaces shoot light beams, the fierce rains pour over the façades and the sweaty bodies…”.