IRENE KOPELMAN, BETWEEN ART AND SCIENCE
In LABOR Mexican gallery (Miguel Hidalgo 11830, Mexico City), the conceptual artist Irene Kopelman (Córdoba, Argentina, 1974) presents Puntos Cardinales (Cardinal Points) until June 5. After two years of research work around the Argentine ecosystems, Kopelman developed this exhaustive project focused on the social and ecological relationships of landscape.
The starting point of Puntos Cardinales was a conversation at the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires (MALBA) between the Spanish curator Agustín Pérez Rubio –artistic director of the museum at that time- and the artist as part of a homonymous exhibition at the Argentine museum. The exhibition at LABOR was conceived, in this way, as a dialogue: on the one hand, the vision of specialists -scientists-; on the other, the view of Kopelman. Thus, the scientific sphere merges with the sphere of art. From the objectifying field, to the field where the sacrifice of rigor gives place to the cultural object. A specialty of the Argentine artist who, throughout her career, has positioned herself on that dividing line that separates both study fields.
For Puntos Cardinales production, Irene Kopelman incorporated scientific methodologies, convened a group of researchers and collaborators, and developed campaigns in conjunction with scientific groups. The project focused on the territories of the Pampa de Achala, in the Cordoba’s mountain ranges, to work around invasive species and garbage. In addition, Kopelman investigated the floral ecology of the Litoral (region occupied by the province of Entre Ríos and the province of Corrientes), participated in studies in the laboratories of marine biology of the Marine Biology Institute of Marine Organisms of Puerto Madryn (province of Chubut), and traveled through San Juan province territory - the so-called “red landscape” -with geologists and paleontologists of the Center for Research in Earth Sciences collecting materials for later paintings.
The result, an artwork that is constituted as a sort of compendium, or approximation, of the natural sciences to the poetic-visual discourse. It is within this exhaustive and hybrid record -it comes from fields as diverse as ecology, biology, geology and paleontology- that Kopelman constructs the artistic story that addresses all these themes and, simultaneously, creates new perspectives from the four cardinal points.
