Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

El viento inmóvil [The Still Wind]

Image caption
JORGE MACCHI

El viento inmóvil [The Still Wind]

  • 2005
  • Printed cut-out paper & pins on board (MDF)
  • 204 x 247 x 10 cm
  • Cat. P_743
  • Acquired in 2008
By:
Beatriz Herráez

The Still Wind (2005) is a large canvas from which fragments of cut-out maps are suspended via pins. It is a cartography that calls out to the imagination resulting from the shifts and détournements presented by members of the Situationist International in the 1960s: imaginary maps that cover urban geography, offering a new experience of cities through fragmentation. Specifically, The Still Wind leads us to the emblematic image of The Naked City, the psycho-geographical restructuring of Paris produced by Guy Debord in 1957. Jorge Macchi's piece seems to rise up and float over the canvas like a fragile sculpture on paper through which the wind blows.

Similar 'deviant' urban structures, in which the flâneur and the prowler take centre-stage, can be seen in earlier works by him. In Buenos Aires Tour (2003), Macchi presents eight itineraries for alternative, 'uninformed' sightseeing in the Argentine capital, preceded or determined by breaking a piece of glass onto a street plan of the city. In a gesture that directly recalls Ducahmp's notion of random chance, Macchi draws up routes for rediscovering the city on the basis of the ephemeral, the accessory and the accidental.

In a conversation with María Iovino in 2016, he described his project Guide to Immobility (2003) as 'a note-book in which each page showed part of the map of Buenos Aires [...] In that note-book I cut out each city block so that only the streets and avenues were left. This cut-out effect meant that a complex web of streets could be seen through the pages. When creating this obsessive piece, I asked myself what would happen in a city where there was no place to be, no place for intimacy, for work, for leisure; in short, a city where there was nowhere to go. All that you could do in such a city is to remain immobile, though obviously there would first be a moment of frenetic movement and desperation'.

Beatriz Herráez

 
By:
Roberto Díaz
Jorge Macchi
Buenos Aires 1963

Jorge Macchi studied at the School of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires, where he graduated in 1987. His dislike of the neo-expressionism and trans-avant-garde trends that predominated in Argentina led him to join Grupo de la X ['Group X'] that same year. With the group he produced paintings and sculptures based on everyday, trivial elements. This was a style that he would maintain throughout his career. His work took a step forward after 1996, when he was invited by the Rotterdam Kunststichting to take up a residency with the Duende Artists Initiative. This was followed by further residencies in London and Germany. His work shifted towards the poetry of the everyday and the banal, with pieces that he grouped in accordance with semantic and visual links that tended to the paradoxical, trapping viewers in nonsensical situations laden with tension and unknowns. His works contain references to chance, accident, fate and death through aspects such as time and music. His collaborations with composer Edgardo Rudnitzky stand out in this regard. He brings to light the difference between our logical understanding of the world and how we actually experience it though our senses.

He has received many accolades, including a grant from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (New York, 2001) and awards such as the Banco de la Nación de Argentina Prize (2000). Solo and group exhibitions of his work have been held at venues such as the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires (1998), the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp (Belgium, 1998), the Blanton Museum (Austin, USA, 2007), the Centre for Contemporary Art of Galicia (Santiago de Compostela, 2008), the Künstlerhaus Bremen (Germany, 2009), the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo (2009) and, more recently, the Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires (2016) and the Dos de Mayo Art Centre (Móstoles, Madrid, 2017). He has also taken part in international events such as the Havana Biennial (2000), the Istanbul Biennial (2003), the São Paulo Biennial (2004), the Venice Biennale (2005) and the Porto Alegre Biennial (Brazil, 2007).

Roberto Díaz

 
 
Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 3.