Liliana Porter
Galería del Paseo. Punta del Este
“They are visual commentaries that make reference to the human condition. What interests me is the simultaneity of humor and affliction, the banal and the possibility of meaning that may be found behind the works,” Liliana Porter (Buenos Aires, 1941) comments in relation to her exhibition at Galería del Paseo. Once again, her works seduced her followers as well as those visitors who approached her oeuvre for the first time, and there were many of the latter, since in January Punta del Este attracts a discriminating but heterogeneous public. The world − according to Porter − is populated by everyday contexts and devices which, thanks to her subtlety and talent, are transformed into amazing narratives.
The exhibition gathered together 15 small format works − video, installation, collages, objects − that attempted to develop new gazes on issues that are as old as humankind, life and death, power and manipulation. The body of
works exhibited was a powerful synthesis of several decades of artistic activity, developed from 1963 to the present in New York. The removal of boundaries between diverse languages and the freshness with which Porter reflects on situations as ordinary as they are implausible, presented via heterodox but believable protagonists, were an inspiration for the viewer. With powerful ideas and enviable humor, the artist developed an absurd logic created on the basis of minimum gestures achieved in an impeccable way.
In almost every work, recognizable or anonymous inanimate figurines embarked, despite their minuteness, on titanic tasks, most of the times in an unsuccessful way. Even starker, the video Matiné (2009, digital video, 20:43 m., starring Ana Tiscornia and music by Sylvia Meyer) displayed more than twenty minimalist scenes featuring figures of chickens, soldiers, ducks, rabbits, dolls, that paraded before the camera. A non-existent lightness characterized these appearances which, successively disrupted by tragicomic gestures, became established as metaphors for the fragility of existence, of the status quo.
