De Caro
Born in 1961, in Mar del Plata, Argentina. Lives and works in Buenos Aires.
"I think with my body, I draw with my body, my hands have eyes that spit out lines, shapes, threads and relationships; the images that come out of my hands make me. My body kneads the world. Marina De Caro is an Argentinian visual artist from Buenos Aires, one of the most influential Latin American artists of her generation. She inhabits the world as a painter, a draughtswoman, a dancer, a knitter, a teacher, a performer... She constantly reinvents space, amplifying it with unfamiliar gestures, liberating petrified geometries. She pushes back the limits of the expected to give existence to that which vibrates and invigorates, to that which surprises the norm, the habit, the conventional. To that which disconcerts.
Developing a multi-disciplinary body of work integrating drawing, sculpture and performance, Marina De Caro experiments with notions of space, bodily experience, intuition and emotion within a colorful universe. Her installations unfold in a sensitive, poetic space, often taking the form of flexible, mobile sculptures. Specially created to interact with the viewer-ice/interpreter, these works invite us to experience an unpredictable dimension of everyday life, behavior and bodily and social norms.
EXHIBITION (SELECTION)
EXPOSITIONS PERSONNELLES ET COLLECTIVES (SÉLECTION)
2024
Conjurer l'horizon, Mac-Val, Musée Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, Vitry-sur-Seine, FR
2023
Galerie In Situ - fabienne leclerc, Grand Paris, FR
Marina De Caro, Chromotopie de la Désobéissance Esquisse d?un opéra épistolaire, FRAC Franche-Comté, Besançon, FR
2022
JAIMES, Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille, FR
2021
Tierra de las emociones perdidas, Galería Ruth Benzacar, AR
2019
Arquitectura de un conjuro, Museo Caraffa, AR
2018
Negro que mueve el Universo, Museo de los Inmigrantes, AR
2017
El universo en un hilo, Ópera de cámara, TACEC Teatro Argentino de La Plata, AR
2015
El primer paso en la luna, Galería Ruth Benzacar, AR
Contra la gravedad, Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, AR
Hasta alcanzar la calma, Galería Ruth Benzacar, AR
Paisajes de árboles turquesa, Múseo PROA, AR
2013
La magia contra el estado, Galería Ruth Benzacar, AR
2011
El mito de lo posible, Biennale de Lyon, Lyon, FR
Turista en un agujero negro, Galería Ruth Benzacar, AR
2010
Thinking utopías, Espace Culturel Louis Vuitton, Paris, FR
2009
La belleza es de los artistas cuando la felicidad es compartida. Belleza y Felicidad, Buenos Aires, AR
2007
4 ojos ó dependiendo de tu humor, Americas Society, New York, US
Los trabajos y los días contra horas-reloj, Galería Ruth Benzacar, AR
Desplazamientos, entre la escultura y la instalación, Bienal de Pontevedra, Centro Cultural Recoleta, ES
2006
Entreparéntesis, Bienal de Pontevedra, Galicia, ES
Texts
Extract of a conversation between Marina de Caro and Albertine de Galbert (Paris, 2023)
ADG: How do you choose your colors?
MDC: It?s not really a choice, I don?t really care. It just needs to be organic. I don?t like when it clashes too much with reality. The colors should be ?attached? to one another. For example, for Hormiga argentina [Argentinian ant] ? the pieces made with textile tubes and installed in the gallery?s staircase ? pink helped me create a path. It is mostly the distribution of colors in space that aids the organic perception and reading of the work, so that the visitors can easily feel involved.
ADG: Are there colors you would never work with?
MDC: No, I?ve done the exercise of working with all colors, even the ones that I don?t like.
ADG: What colors don?t you like?
MDC: Purple.
ADG: Ah, you don?t like it?
MDC: I hate purple, I despise this color, and yet I?ve just done a purple painting.
ADG: Do you know why?
MDC: I don?t like it. I couldn?t wear this color for example, I don?t know why. I can?t find any ?purple gestures? in my body. But even if I don?t like it, I work with it because it helps me step out of myself; otherwise, I?d always stay the same.
ADG: I?m talking about color because it?s crucial in your work. You?re even part of a collective you created with artists and art theorists3: Cromoactivismo. It?s a movement aimed at restoring the symbolic and political significance of color (as opposed to Pantone, for example, which classifies and neutralizes the affective impact of color). Is that right?
MDC: Yes, but Cromoactivismo is very specific; it?s not the same as working with color in works exhibited in institutions or galleries. In Cromoactivismo, we symbolically ?load? a color with our individual or collective political experiences. We also draw from archives, which, for me, are alive. On the other hand, here, it?s about building an experience, which then will become ?chromo-active.? Color doesn?t have a symbolic value in itself; it requires the experience. In my opera, I work with this double ?value? of color, as container and as expression of the experience. In that work, color is both a symbol, content, and experience.
