Long-awaited retrospectives and anthologies, tributes, rewrites or simply acts of historical and poetic justice. Accentuating a trend that, necessarily, had already established itself in previous years, once again in 2022 the agenda of art projects and exhibitions was dedicated almost exclusively to local artists.
Measured and thoughtful, the spirit of the exhibitions for the closing year has sought repairs everywhere. Photographers Alicia D’Amico and Sara Facio had retrospectives respectively in the Parque de la Memoria and in the Museum of Fine Arts; Even in the rooms of the museum, the Madrid artist paid homage Carmelo Arden Quin and the recorder Eduardo Iglesias Bricklesdisappeared a few years ago.
With beautiful excuses, such as the acquisition of Diego and Ifrom Frida Kahlo and the 80th anniversary of the birth of its founder, the Malba and Klemm Foundation they transformed their legacy to rethink it and show it again.
Fortabat Foundation entrenched in his quest, which has been going on for years, for save recent Argentine art history, with a personal exhibition dedicated to Miguel Harte and a collective one that tries to think about the 90s.
happy lifethe champion who joined Juan Del Prete and Yente (Eugenia Crenovich) in the Malba halls, was one of the most beautiful exhibitions that could be seen this year. Theirs could have been one of those stories of a couple of twentieth-century artists in which their work grows in their shadow. Maybe it was even for a while.
Rejected by classics and avant-gardes, Del Prete He managed to carve out his place in art history as a pioneer in the 1930s of abstraction in Argentina. His work (experimental paintings and collages) had rarely been visited in recent years.
The bright palette of Yente (which he captured in paintings, tapestries and illustrations) had instead enjoyed some recent rescues. Edited by Marita García, the discovery of happy life was show them together for the first time, in an exhaustive sampling, but also receptive to what the works had to say (and to say), which was able to create synergy between these two great masters.
2022 can be seen as the year the National Museum of Fine Arts has been definitively consecrated as the space that should host (and hosts) all kinds of saves. As if he could finally recover the many outstanding debts that Argentine art has with its finest artists, this time it was the turn of Juan Carlos Distéfano, one of the most impressive Argentine sculptors of all time, and Raquel Forner, whose undisputed place among the greatest painters of the twentieth century continues to be considered tangentially.
healed from Maria Theresa Constantinedelayed hindsight of Of Stefano It’s title Residual memory, and distributed throughout the museum’s temporary exhibition pavilion, a large number of resin figures. A sort of dance performance of all the devoted yet reckless characters that the sculptor has created over the course of his long career.
In that same room so far can be seen space revelationsthe exhibition dedicated to Raquel Forner The exhibition presents, for the first time in its entirety, the series of the same name by this powerful artist, whose playful and visceral oeuvre made its decisive inroads into a world that was still male. Curated by Marcelo Pacheco, the exhibition traces the thirty years (1957-1987) in which baker thematically dealt with the space race. An opportunity to be alone with his work. A necessary and repairing champion.
For him Museum of Modern Art, 2022 has been a year of big and profitable bets. In a rigorously coordinated effort, its halls have hosted a large number of exhibitions made with the institution’s heritage, as well as presenting national and international guest artists, in a project that spanned the entire building and was called one day on earth.
With this premise (which promised to think, and has thought, about the challenge of living in today’s world) the museum presented itself I wanted a linkthe first anthological exhibition of Monica Gironeartist whose lucid lucidity has accompanied the Argentine history of the last decades.
On the walls of the Modern there has also been space for some sharp group exhibitions which will undoubtedly serve to rewrite some lines of the recent history of art. Such is the case with abstract life. Curated by Francisco Lemus, the exhibition meant a review of over fifty years of non-figurative painting in the country.
With the very dissimilar works of Mariela Scafatti, Magdalena Jitrik, Elda Cerrato, Cristina Schiavi and Sonia Delunayamong many others, it was a shining example of how abstraction, a strongly masculine heritage, has been appropriated and reinvented by more than one generation of female artists in Argentina.
The internationals
Gone are the years (pre-pandemic and some devaluation behind) in which international stars of contemporary art and successful shows came to Buenos Aires. But that doesn’t mean there haven’t been international artists on the Buenos Aires scene in recent months. There were, and large ones. In almost all cases, however, their presence took place in a close and fruitful dialogue with the local reality, both with their artists and with their audience.
indelible marksthe exhibition of the Cuban artist residing in the United States Linda Farmers which could be seen in the Modern; Y Schhhiiifrom the Brazilian born in Italy Anna Maria Maiolino presented in Malba, are two excellent examples of the international presence in 2022.
Small in his number of works and limited in subject, the sample of matalon It had, however, a power and depth rarely seen in museum halls. His series of subtle drawings recounts, almost silently and in complete confidentiality, the experience of the two pandemics that have hit the world in the last forty years: hiv and covid.
The font and size of the sample that the Painting dedicated to MaiolinoOn the other hand, they have allowed the local public to get to know an artist whose vast oeuvre embraces universal and local, historical and timeless themes, in the most diverse formats, from video to installation, from engraving to ceramics.
Maternity, violence, hunger, migration and identity are some of the themes that Maiolino caresses rather than touches, in a poignant and poetic way.
For his part, Bow has relaunched its Proa XXI space with a brief taste of Luiz Roque, the Brazilian invited by the curator Cecilia Alemani for the main exhibition of the Venice Biennale. In the space of La Boca it is possible to see the work presented in the large international exhibition, as well as a small audiovisual piece that Roque filmed on the streets of Buenos Aires.
in 2023
What will happen next year? Proa Foundation has announced a large collective exhibition created in collaboration with the America’s Society of New York and the Amparo de Puebla Museum, which will have The myth of El Dorado.
To the Fine ArtsMeanwhile, the exhibition which will bring together the work of Leone Ferrari with that of his father, the painter Augusto Ferrari, which the museum had planned for 2020 and the pandemic forced its suspension.
The Paintingfor its part, it promises to continue showcasing modern and contemporary Latin American artists little known in Argentina, with the exhibits arguably full of color from the Cuban Belkis Ayón and the Chilean Cecilia Vicuña. To these two will be added that of Argentina Marcela Sinclairand from heaven to homean ambitious collective that will delve into Argentine material culture, beyond and beyond art.
Without a detailed program yet, El Moderno will host the 2023 Annual Conference of the International Committee of Museums and Collections of Modern Art (CIMAM) in November, a fact that can translate into a schedule of interesting international presences and profitable exchanges.
2022 has been a solid year, in which the exhibitions have, for the most part, not disappointed. Will 2023 be able to support the same essence? The agendas of major institutions suggest this will be the case.
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