THE INTERIOR GARDENS OF VALENTINA ANSALDI

This exhibition is part of the cycle Obras Amigas: "Obras Amigas is a visual glossary of collective construction, a capricious archeology, born from intuitions, intuitions, and imprecise signs, which tries to find vestiges of something remote and primordial. Exhibit by exhibit, artists and curators establish a network of affiliations –sometimes unsuspected– among diverse artistic objects. What happens when works from different periods, materialities or aesthetics come into contact with each other? What activates this new relationship? What does this selection show us and what does it hide? What stories can be forged? The proposal revolves around showing the great variety of links and dialogues that can exist between images," writes Irene Gelfman.

Valentina Ansaldi's work forms the landscape of an ancient garden, with designs, plants and grounds intended solely for the enjoyment of the senses, without any further use or function.

Sofia Reitter writes in the curatorial text: "Emblem of a supposed domination of nature by reason, these Renaissance-inspired gardens abided by the principles of harmony through restraint and symmetry. Behind this distilled taste, there was a blind faith in a mathematical matrix that would structure everything and make it predictable. This incipient humanism found its inspiration in the Greeks and defined the classical heritage by looking at their buildings ­–or what was left of them–, reading their treatises and adoring their sculptures, or the Roman copies, false originals that saved the first ones from time.

The color in Marcela (Olivera)'s sculptures, which ornament this interior garden, seems to remind us that the whiteness on which the West founded its genealogy was a lie and its pantheon of gods boasted a varied palette. In the paintings, the sky echoes the green that invades and calms everything. In them, the handprint betrays the digital appearance and the symmetry is only apparent, enunciating the disbelief in the reason that represents, straight and constant. His workmanship is ritualistic, patient and methodical; a practice of appeasement".

Valentina Ansaldi was born in Buenos Aires in 1994. She has a degree in Visual Arts from the Universidad Nacional de las Artes (UNA). She attends the artwork clinics of Gabriel Baggio, Pablo Siquier, Leila Tschopp and Verónica Gómez. In 2018 she received the Creation Grant from the National Fund for the Arts and the First Stimulus Award for Painting from the Central Bank. In 2019 she has her first solo exhibition 'Última Dimensión' at Quimera gallery curated by Gabriel Baggio. In 2020 she receives the 321 prize from Oda Arte in Otra Feria de Arte.

She participates in several group exhibitions among which stand out: National Visual Arts Award Nuevo Banco del Chaco (2022); Fortabat Foundation Award (2021), 109th National Visual Arts Salon (2021), 15th National Competition UADE -Young Mention- (2020), 50th Fernán Félix de Amador Visual Arts Salon (2019), XIII -Acquisition Mention- and XI Painting Award Banco de Córdoba (2020 and 2018), XI -Young First Prize- and X National Painting Award Banco Central (2018 and 2017), Biennial of Young Art Buenos Aires (2017) and Project A Award (2017, 2015, 2012 and 2010), among others.

Marcela Oliva was born in Banfield in 1978. She is a sculptor and professor of Sculpture at UNA. She is a student and assistant at Omar Estela's workshop. She attended seminars and workshops with Marcelo Pombo (Excursiones workshop, Universidad Torcuato di Tella), Mariana Schapiro and Grisel Sala. Lives and works in Buenos Aires. She participated in collective projects among which stand out Museo Urbano (2010/2020), Niundíasinununalínea (2006/2009), Autores Ideológicos (2004/2008), a work that belongs to the Centro Cultural de la Memoria Haroldo Conti. She is co-author of the sculpture "Construcción Islera", selected in the Arnet Award 2010, acquired by the Municipality of Tigre and installed in the Camino de los Remeros (2011). Solo Exhibitions: 2014: Rara Avis. Oficina Proyectista, 2014: Travels of Rara Avis. Urban Museum, 2010: Sculpture and drawings. Museo Urbano, 2008: Food Sovereignty, in Niundíasinunalínea.

Canopo. Solo exhibition by Valentina Ansaldi.

Until April 21, 2023.

Quimera Gallery. Güemes 4474, Buenos Aires, Argentina.