Jorge Macchi
Ruth Benzacar. Buenos Aires
The works exhibited in “Crónicas eventuales” confirm the fact that the art of Jorge Macchi (Buenos Aires, 1963) resides in the possibility of poetry, forged in his notorious sensitivity and his different visions of everyday life. The show occupies the two spaces of Ruth Benzacar Gallery and offers complex gestures, reveals minimal signs. Illusion and reality in the various supports and ranges with which the artist works; and he doesn’t hide the tricks with which he manages to surprise time after time.
In this way, the observer might see a frigate inclined sideways (because of the wind, a wave?) in a still, blue sea, instead of a photograph of a matchbox with one of its ends cut off, on a blue plane. It is the artist’s magic that induces the viewer to feel a light loss of balance while standing in front of a wardrobe that seems to melt, while failing to perceive that it is only an old piece of furniture (cut in half) with a mirror, which reflects on another oval mirror placed on the floor. The visitor may stop to watch a video that tells a story that turns into music, with a text printed on the paper with holes in it of a music box that when decoded, composes a musical score resulting in incidental sounds that may be heard through the headphones.
The objects and images exhibited become a challenge to perception, they modify the vision of the habitual and possess a great emotional load. All that Macchi needs in order to ponder on anguish and fleetingness, for example, is a projection on the wall showing a clock whose hands cannot move as they collide in an illusionary way with the ceiling of the gallery room. The large wooden structure the “formwork”of the “Umbría” (mountain slope not reached by the sun) installation as well as the delicate watercolor paintings, confirm the contrasts and refinement of the artist’s simultaneous processes.
