La noche agranda su silencio
Madrid | 4 Jun. – 30 Jul. 2013
En el video Zeide Isaac (2009), el abuelo del artista, un sobreviviente del Holocausto, relata un guión que tangencialmente alude a su historia personal, pero que ha sido escrito por Cesarco. La obra cuestiona explícitamente las posibilidades, limitaciones y responsabilidades del testimonio. La superposición de voces narrativas y el paso del tiempo entre el evento y su narración, es decir, de la experiencia directa a la tercera generación, es alegorizada en el tránsito del abuelo de testigo a actor.
Present Memory (2010), originalmente comisionada por Tate Modern, Londres, es un retrato del padre del artista poco después de que aquel fuera diagnosticado con cáncer de pulmón. El retrato fue filmado en su consultorio médico usando una película de 16mm y luego proyectada sobre el mismo consultorio, a su vez, esta proyección fue documentada mediante vídeo. Este trabajo puede ser entendido como una proyección literal de miedos, ansiedades, y una forma de ensayar el duelo. El trabajo documenta la construcción de una memoria anticipada.
Where I’m Calling From (2012), es una suerte de auto-retrato, diagramado en un libro imaginario que reúne una serie de fotografías y textos que aluden o exorcizan trabajos e influencias tempranas. Las referencias compiladas desvelan metodologías que actúan como una confrontación directa con el pasado, tal vez como una forma de eludirlo y poder comenzar de nuevo.
Footnote #11 y Footnote #12 (2013) son partes de una serie de notas al pie de página en la que textos son posicionados marginalmente sobre la pared intentando enmarcar un texto central que de algún modo está ausente o escapando. La pared misma se vuelve la página de un libro, haciendo hincapié en la espacialización del proceso de lectura, y asumiendo la naturaleza referencial de la práctica de Cesarco. En este caso particular, las dos notas provienen de diferentes textos de Silvina Ocampo, como una forma de también incluir más explícitamente una voz femenina en la exposición.
Alejandro Cesarco nació en 1975 en Montevideo, Uruguay, y actualmente vive y trabaja en Nueva York. Sus exposiciones individuales más recientes incluyen A Portrait, A Story, And An Ending, Kunsthalle Zürich, Suiza (2013), Alejandro Cesarco, MuMOK, Vienna (2012), Words Applied to Wounds, Murray Guy, New York (2012) The Early Years, Tanya Leighton, Berlin (2012), A Common Ground, Uruguayan Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennial (2011) y Present Memory, Tate Modern, Londres (2010). Exposiciones colectivas recientes incluyen The Imminence of Poetics, the 30th Bienal de São Paulo (2012), Found In Translation, Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2012), Short Stories, Sculpture Center, New York (2011), y Nine Screens, The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2010).
Throughout Cesarco’s practice, the notion of influence and the possibilities of retelling the past are two interconnected central concerns. In this exhibition, the methodological approach taken to negotiate these two concerns is perhaps as close to home as possible. For his first show at Parra & Romero, Cesarco has selected a group of works that references not only a selected genealogy but an inherited one as the show, through different formats and in different ways, portrays three generations of his family. The show weaves together a tight web of associations, including the tradition of language-based Conceptualism of the 60’s and 70’s and addresses questions of reading, narration, authorship as well as the relationship between the producer and the viewer.
In the video Zeide Isaac (2009), the artist’s grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, performs a script Cesarco wrote based on his personal story. The work explicitly address the possibilities, limitations and responsibilities of testimony. The layering of narrative voices and the passage of time between the event and it’s retelling, from first hand experience to third generation, is allegorically implied in the grandfather’s passage from witness to actor.
Present Memory (2010), originally commissioned by Tate Modern, London, is a portrait of Cesarco’s father shortly after he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. The portrait was filmed in his medical practice using 16mm film, this film was later projected onto the same scene and documented using video. The projection was meant as a literal projection of fears and anxieties, a way of rehearsing his mourning. The work documents a constructed and anticipated memory.
Where I’m Calling From (2012), a self-portrait of sorts, is an imagined book laid out in four prints that compiles a series of photographs and texts that reflects on and exorcise early influences and work. The compiled references are an unveiling of methodologies that act as a direct confrontation with the past, perhaps as a way to lay it to rest and to start anew.
Footnote #11 and Footnote #12 (2013) are part of an ongoing series of footnotes where marginally positioned vinyl texts on the wall attempt to frame a central text that is somehow absent or escaping. The wall itself is made to resemble a page that further spatializes the process of reading, and self-consciously acknowledges Cesarco’s practice as being primarily referential. In this particular case the two footnotes included are quotes from different stories by Silvina Ocampo.
Alejandro Cesarco was born in 1975 in Montevideo, Uruguay. His most recent solo exhibitions include A Portrait, A Story, And An Ending, Kunsthalle Zürich, Switzerland (2013), Alejandro Cesarco, MuMOK, Vienna (2012), Words Applied to Wounds, Murray Guy, New York (2012) The Early Years, Tanya Leighton, Berlin (2012), and A Common Ground, Uruguayan Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennial (2011). Recent group exhibitions include The Imminence of Poetics, the 30th Bienal de São Paulo (2012), Found in Translation, Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (2012), Short Stories, Sculpture Center, New York (2011), and