Two exhibitions at Macba to test more questions about geometric abstraction

In the exhibitions that open to the public this Friday, July 5 at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Buenos AiresSpontaneous and disorderly brushstrokes are contained in the accuracy of the geometric shapes; while the colors and shapes seem move away or get closer to the viewer –depending on where you stand to look at them–, in a sharp and also fun fight among them for monopolizing attention.

Is about The mirror and the disorder of Natalia Cacchiarelliy Utopian drift of Gilda Picabeathe two exhibitions that are inaugurated, both curated by Belén Coluccio. These two sets combine in total more than 80 works that extend throughout the four floors of the building and, from a current perspective, they once again raise questions about the geometric abstraction (chapter of art to which the museum is mainly dedicated).

And they do it as if they were sweeping away the dust of prejudice that sometimes forms on the corners of those prolific lines, which become the characteristic squares and rectangles of This current emerged in the 1920s, as an attempt to distance ourselves from the emotional.

“Geometric art avoids showing feelings,” says Cacchiarelli. “My paintings do not have any dramatic load because I always preferred to keep that to myself.” However, expression and emotionality end up showing when, as she tells it, her hand loosens and the material takes on a bit of a life of its own. Thus giving rise to more surprising, sloppy brush strokes, dark textures and traces of previous paint that reveal changes of opinion. “Now I am interested in continuing along this path that is new for me, and fun, of the improvisation”he suggests.

With that “disorder” of the title of his exhibition, they also have to do a montage lacking chronological order and with contrasts of heightsin addition to the nocturnal atmosphere of the 90s that “Natalia always brings in her paintings,” according to the curator.

On another floor there are works by Cacchiarelli suspended in the air that are like small black and white labyrinths made in Chinese ink on tracing paper. “Natalia’s work has to do with the encounter with the city,” says Coluccio, the curator, “with her decision to come from Bahía Blanca to Buenos Aires with a strong desire to participate in the world of art and live Buenos Aires intensely. His geometric abstraction is the way in which he saw those shadows, the architecture and daily life of the city, which he also documented in photographs,” he points out.

And the artist remembers: “I left Bahía Blanca, where my life was very small and orderly, and I came here, where I started traveling by subway, bus, there were escalators! “A huge fan opened up.”

“People think I’m organized, rational… and it’s the other way around.“It is only in my works where I can generate some of that,” considers Picabea in relation to geometric art; branded as radical, mathematical or structured, led by a Piet Mondrian who repudiated textures and surfaces, curves, everything figurative and even banned the color green in his own house.

But Gilda’s large oil paintings in Utopian drift They are full of circles and dots. Almost like objects of study, these are reproduced on the canvases, they are crushed and folded, they are lost, they disappear and they are found. “My work asks a somewhat semiotic question, what it does not mean and what it does.Yo. “I explore language as abstraction,” she says. “I find the shot extremely disturbing, uncomfortable, and the color super unstable. “I can’t talk about the fact that I enjoy painting,” she reveals.

His exhibition dialogues with the movement’s pastin some way rethinking what painters and intellectuals were debating at the time, rescuing articles published in magazines of that time and questioning at the same time the place that women occupied in said movement.

And one last surprise: a sixth floor transformed into an immersive, bright and colorful atmosphere in the fusion of the sun rays that appear from the glass in broad daylight, and different shapes and soft and progressive gradients, by artist David Petroni. This solo-show on the highest floor of the space is the beginning of the proposal museum cabinet -which has been led since April by the former director of the Cultural San Martín, Diego Berardo– where visitors are invited to live an experience of closeness and intimacy with art.

The mirror and the disorder de Natalia Cacchiarelli, y Utopian drift by Gilda Picabea, open at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Buenos Aires (Av. San Juan 328) this Friday, July 5 at 12, with free admission. The two exhibits will remain at the museum until mid-October and will offer different activities.