Raúl Díaz @ Maya Frodeman Gallery, Jackson Hole - "Bote de Piedra" Exhibition

Raúl Díaz: Bote de Piedra

Maya Frodeman Gallery, Jackson Hole

December 20, 2024 - February 9, 2025

Raúl Díaz 

Neblina, 2014-2016 

Mixed media on wood panel, 53 x 67 3/8 inches

© Raúl Díaz / Courtesy Maya Frodeman Gallery

Raúl Díaz 

Lago III, 2017 

Mixed media on wood panel, 50 3/8 x 64 3/4 inches

© Raúl Díaz / Courtesy Maya Frodeman Gallery

Raúl Díaz 

Desparramados, 2022

Bronze, 14 ½ x 16 x 10 inches

© Raúl Díaz / Courtesy Maya Frodeman Gallery

MAYA FRODEMAN GALLERY presents Bote de Piedra, a solo exhibition of paintings and sculpture by Argentine artist RAUL DIAZ, on view at the gallery's downtown location. 

Bote de Piedra brings together both painting and sculpture by the Argentine artist. Through his works, Raúl Díaz invites us to seek refuge in a secret universe that exists within each of us – a soothing, friendly space characterized by the presence of beauty and the solitude of personal soul searching that rarely surfaces amidst the chaos of contemporary life. Evoked by the artist’s memories of his childhood, the mystical quietude of Díaz’s artworks is deeply personal and indicative of his own spiritual adventure. The images produce a sense of nostalgia and stillness that compels the viewer to reflect on their own life and their place within the endless story of history.

The surface of Raúl Díaz’s paintings are wooden panels, embossed on handmade papers. He uses unique mixed techniques to produce a tactile impression on the surface of wood and paper that contributes to his otherworldly images. This exhibition also presents sculptural work by the artist that, taking the images into three dimensions, creates a new experience for the viewer and expands Díaz’s own technical prowess. In his practice, he leans into experimentation throughout his oeuvre, employing wood, bronze, resin, stone, marble, ceramics, handmade paper, dry pigments, chalk, acrylic, and watercolor. In what he calls his “permanent search”, Díaz explores and manipulates new materials so that they deftly suit his distinctive style and themes.

Since his first exhibitions in the early 1980s, Raúl Díaz has shown an inclination towards expressing himself through the human figures. Díaz’s construction of the figure is forged from an abstracted ethereal conception rather than an anatomical representation of the human form. The characters that appear in his works are planar, out of scale silhouettes in poses of peaceful work or contemplation. The depth of color and textures in the backgrounds of Díaz’s artworks create a dream-like atmosphere, whether they be serene mountains or stacked kites or boats. Drawing imagery from his childhood memories of lake fishing with his father and grandfather, the sight of wooden fishing boats, either dotting the water or stacked on the beach, is indelible in the artist’s memory, and these same vessels frequently appear in the work. The simplicity of the figures against these dynamic, yet still harmonious, backgrounds instill a sense of calm in the viewer that is distinctive of Díaz’s works.

RAUL DIAZ was born in 1952 in Córdoba, Argentina. In 1990, he moved to Unquillo in the province of Córdoba, where he continues to live and produce his art. Although Raúl Díaz studied architecture, he could not avoid the overwhelming calling he had within himself to be a painter. Self-taught, Díaz has emerged as one of Argentina's most prominent artists. Since 1995, he has participated in National and International Art Fairs, and in numerous group exhibitions in Argentina and abroad. He has had individual exhibitions in Córdoba, Buenos Aires, the United States, Holland, Spain and Italy. He has also received important awards, including the Grand Prize from the National Painting Salon of the Pro-Arte Foundation, Córdoba (1990). In 2005, he held a solo exhibition at the Sivori Museum of Plastic Arts in Buenos Aires, and in 2010, Díaz had a solo exhibition at the Emilio Caraffa Museum in Córdoba. His works are found in important private and museum collections in the countries where he has exhibited his works.

MAYA FRODEMAN GALLERY

66 South Glenwood Street Jackson Hole, Wyoming 83001

www.mayafrodemangallery.com

Constanza Schaffner @ Luhring Augustine Tribeca, New York - "Leones, Flores, Constanzas" Exhibition

Constanza Schaffner

Leones, Flores, Constanzas

Luhring Augustine Tribeca, New York

January 13 – March 2, 2024

Luhring Augustine presents Leones, Flores, Constanzas, an exhibition of new paintings by the Argentine, New York-based artist Constanza Schaffner. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.

Constanza Schaffner is interested in the often-contradictory forces that reside within the individual psyche, and the tensions that can arise between poetic and rational approaches to understanding and experiencing the world. In her doctoral dissertation on comparative literature, she focuses on strategies to “re-enchant” the contemporary world, which she sees as largely disconnected from the mythical, the magical, and the sacred – an investigation that permeates her artistic practice as well.

In Constanza Schaffner’s self-portraits, enlarged, exaggerated facial expressions are prevalent; flesh is realized with luminescence and translucence, punctuated by flickering highlights; pores, wrinkles, creases – signifiers of time and age – are lingered over and explored with her dynamic brushwork as sites for experimentation in abstraction. In the work De Terror y de Gloria, a bat-flower becomes a portrait of its own. Petals and stems consume and lift off the canvas in densely rendered contrast, with vessels and veins suggesting traces of vibrant life on the cusp of decay. In La Entrada del Tiempo, a symphony of flowers sprouts out of the heads of two male lions and Constanza. While one lion is captured in a moment of reflection, or dozing off, another looks at Constanza, staring back at the artist with her own eyes. Throughout her work, Constanza Schaffner examines tensions that reside within beauty, gender, and power.

Constanza Schaffner was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1989. Her work has been exhibited at CENTRAL FINE, Miami Beach, FL; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Plymouth Rock, Zürich, Switzerland; Bortolami, New York, NY; Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, England; Park View/Paul Soto, Los Angeles, CA; and Galerie Houssenot, Paris, France. The artist’s work is included in the permanent collections of Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; and the Hall Art Foundation, Reading, VT. She is a PhD candidate at the Department of Comparative Literature in New York University’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

LUHRING AUGUSTINE TRIBECA

17 White Street, New York, NY 10013

www.luhringaugustine.com

Pablo Reinoso @ Custot Gallery, Dubai - "Lines in Motion" Exhibition

Pablo Reinoso: Lines in Motion 

ولباب وسونیر : طوطخلا ةكرحتملا 

Custot Gallery, Dubai

29 November 2023 – 27 January 2024

PABLO REINOSO

Spaghetti Benches and Garabatos to his Frames

© Pablo Reinoso, courtesy of Custot Gallery, Dubai

Photo credit: Pia Torelli Photography

Custot Gallery Dubai presents the first solo exhibition of French-Argentinian artist PABLO REINOSO in the region, titled Lines in Motion. First shown at the Abu Dhabi Art fair, a selection of existing and brand-new works merge together to create a comprehensive survey of Pablo Reinoso’s sculptural practice.

​This exhibition serves to highlight the whimsical world of Pablo Reinoso’s sculptures, from his iconic Spaghetti Benches and Garabatos to his Frames, the works surpass their immediate function to take on a life of their own, elegantly taking possession of the gallery space.

For the series entitled Spaghetti Bench, Pablo Reinoso used public benches, which are anonymously designed and travel across cultures with an out-of-time, old-fashioned quality, as a starting point for his reflections. Started in 2006, these sculptures have multiplied and found homes in very diverse places. In line with his work on the Thonet chairs, the artist explores once again the seat as an object. Yet this time it is no longer the object but matter that frees itself from its function and pursues its fate of wood, tree, plant. 

Pablo Reinoso stages benches that, after having accomplished their task as furniture, revert into growing, climbing branches. This freedom is expressed in a movement that embraces architecture, wondering throughout space.

The Frames series follows the same line as the Spaghetti Benches. Here frames start living a different life once their mission as “objects” has been accomplished. Pablo Reinoso works on the object as a painter does on the “still-life”, determining, for each work, whether the function is preserved or not. Sometimes the object ceases to be "usable" as such; other times, its incorporation into the artwork preserves its function entirely or partially.

The Garabatos, meaning ‘’to scrawl’’ is a series of seats, often of monumental scale, evoking the leitmotif of Pablo Reinoso’s work, namely, his desire to endlessly question by subverting reality, using materials or objects in ways that go against their customary use. The cold, rigid steel takes unprecedented shapes and dimensions that challenge constraints and play with the boundaries of impossibility.

PABLO REINOSO - BIOGRAPHY

Pablo Reinoso (born in Buenos Aires in 1955) is a French-Argentinian artist who has lived and worked in Paris since 1978. The artist’s practice encompasses sculpture, installation, design, architecture and painting, striving to challenge and extend the formal and conceptual boundaries of these mediums.

Since the 1970s, Pablo Reinoso has developed a body of works structured in series that address the notion of materiality, questioning and subverting the nature and limits of materials and techniques as diverse as wood, bronze, marble, steel, textile and air. His research also revolves around the ideas of object and functionality, whose relationship is constantly interrogated and reshaped through his works. By using materials as diverse as construction elements or existing objects from both architecture and design, his sculptures contribute to reconfigure these mediums’ primary functions, beyond their immediate context of use. Since the 2000s, the artist’s research has largely focused on the seating object through his series "Thoneteando","Spaghetti benches" as well as "Garabatos".

His work has been shown in international institutions and as part of major exhibitions, including the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the Grassi Museum in Liepzig, the Boghossian Foundation in Brussels, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Tokyo, the MUDAC in Lausanne, the CID - Centre for Innovation and Design in GrandHornu, the Venice Biennale, the FIAC Hors-les-murs, the Bienalsur or AGORA, the Bordeaux Biennale. His works are part of the collections of the MALBA and the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, the National Fund of Contemporary Art of Paris, the Museum of Modern Art of São Paulo, the MACRO Rosario and the MUSAC of Leon in Spain.

CUSTOT GALLERY 

Unit No. 84, Alserkal Avenue, Street 6A, Al Quoz 1

www.custotgallerydubai.ae

Leandro Erlich Exhibition @ Palazzo Reale, Milan

Leandro Erlich

Palazzo Reale, Milan

22 April – 4 October 2023

LEANDRO ERLICH

Bâtiment (2004)

A building facade laid flat under a mirror suspended at a 45-degree angle

Dimensions variable

Fourteen different facades each specific to the city that

hosted the temporary installation

Nuit Blanche, Paris, France, 2004

Courtesy Galleria Continua

LEANDRO ERLICH

Changing rooms (2008)

Paneling, stools, golden frames, mirrors, curtains, carpet and lights

Dimensions variable

© Kioku Keizo, Morti Art Museum

Courtesy Galleria Continua

Palazzo Reale in Milan will host for the first time in Europe a large-scale solo exhibition of one of the most prominent figures on the international art scene: Leandro Erlich.

An Argentine artist born in Buenos Aires in 1973, Leandro Erlich creates large installations with which the public relates and interacts, becoming the artwork itself.

His unique works represent something absolutely new in the art world, bringing together creativity, vision, emotion, and fun.

Buildings on which one appears to climb, houses uprooted and suspended in mid-air, lifts going nowhere, escalators tangled like threads in a ball of yarn, disorienting and surreal sculptures, and videos that subvert normality.

These are all elements recounting something ordinary in an extraordinary context, in which everything is different from what it seems, and where we lose our sense of reality and perception of space.

Leandro Erlich’s works are the result of a profound and conceptual artistic exploration that flows into paradox and has already won over millions of visitors worldwide: 600,000 in Tokyo and 300,000 in Buenos Aires. Everywhere, the public has thronged to his exhibitions which are characterized by site-specific installations that are highly complex to make, and therefore quite rare.

At Palazzo Reale, visitors will be given the opportunity to become better acquainted with Leandro Erlich’s art through his best-known and most iconic works, brought together for the first time in a single venue with the aim of systematizing the artist’s output.

Leandro Erlich takes us to a magical elsewhere, where the possible becomes impossible, but that astonishes and excites thanks to a great aesthetic sense and a highly intrinsic poetry.

The result his explosive, fun, exciting, and unforgettable.

His work explores the perceptual bases of reality and our ability to question these same bases through a visual framework. The architecture of the everyday is a recurring theme in Leandro Erlich’s art, which aims to create a dialogue between what we believe and what we see, just as it seeks to bridge the gap between museum space and everyday experience.

LEANDRO ERLICH

The cloud (2012)

Digital ceramic ink printed on ultra-clear glass, wooden case, and LED lights

Dimensions variable and different series

© Kioku Keizo, Morti Art Museum

Courtesy Galleria Continua

LEANDRO ERLICH

Classroom (2017)

Two rooms of identical dimensions, wood, windows,

desk, chairs, door, glass, lights, blackboard, school

supplies and other classroom decorations, and black boxes

Dimensions variable

Kioku Keizo, Morti Art Museum

The artist describes himself in the following way: I like to present myself as a conceptual artist working in the realm of reality and perception. My subject is reality, symbols and the potential for meaning. I strive to create a body of work – especially in the public sphere – that is open to the imagination, subverts normality, rethinks representation, and proposes actions that construct and deconstruct situations to disrupt reality. Speaking generally.

Each of Leandro Erlich’s works is to be read as a window onto the world that is sensitive to the gaze, that instead of misleading reveals the landscape that every person holds within his or her self.

At first reaction, an Leandro Erlich work elicits a sense of familiarity with respect to the everyday, before raising a certain, insinuating doubt. By carefully gazing at the work, viewers begin to doubt what they perceive, as they are confronted with an inexplicable phenomenon.

Stirring up questions, doubts, and emotions in the public interacting with his works is leandro Erlich’s primary thought, and it is the viewer’s participation that makes the work complete. It is difficult to explain Erlich with words. He has to be experienced to be understood.

Promoted by the Municipality of Milan-Culture, the exhibition is produced and organized by Palazzo Reale and Arthemisia in collaboration with Studio Erlich, and is curated by Francesco Stocchi.

LEANDRO ERLICH - BIOGRAPHY

A world-renowned contemporary Argentine artist, Leandro Erlich creates works that use optical illusions and sound effects to shake our notions of common sense. Although what the public sees, from the large-scale installation to videos, might appear familiar at first sight, closer examination reveals a surprising and unsettling deviation from the usual, in the form, for example of a boat floating in the absence of water, or of people attached to the wall in various poses.

Born in Argentina in 1973. Lives and works in Paris, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo.

In recent times, his exhibitions have broken all admissions records, regardless of geography or type of institution: from MORI Art Museum (Tokyo, 2017) which attracted more than 600,000 visitors, to HOW Art Museum (Shanghai, 2018) and Liminal, the major anthological exhibition at MALBA (Buenos Aires) seen by more than 300,000 people; at The Confines of The Great Void at CAFAM (Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing), China’s leading museum, Erlich became the first non-Chinese artist to occupy the entire exhibition space until the retrospective currently touring Brazil (CCBB Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo). In December 2022, a new version of Liminal, his first anthological exhibition in the United States, opened at PAMM in Miami, where it will be on display until September 2023.

Erlich began his professional career at 18 years of age with a solo exhibition at Centro Cultural Recoleta in Buenos Aires and, after receiving several grants (El Fondo Nacional de las Artes, Fundación Antorchas), continued his studies in the Core Program, an artist residency in Houston (Glassell School of Art, 1998), where he developed his famed works Swimming Pool and Living Room. In 2000 he participated in the Whitney Biennale with Rain, and in 2001 he represented Argentina at the 49th Venice Biennale, with Swimming Pool, an emblematic piece that is part of the permanent collection of the 21st Century Museum of Art in Kanazawa (Japan) and the Voorlinden Museum (Netherlands).

Erlich has been honoured with numerous international critics’ awards, including the Roy Neuberger Exhibition Award (NY, 2017), Nomination for the Prix Marcel Duchamp (Paris, 2006), the UNESCO Prize (Istanbul, 2001), the Leonardo Prize (Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires, 2000), and Fondo Nacional de las Artes (Buenos Aires, 1992).

His works can be found in many private and public collections, including The Museum of Modern Art, Buenos Aires; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Tate Modern, London; Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; 21st Century Museum of Art Kanazawa, Japan; MACRO, Roma; The Jerusalem Museum; FNAC, France; Ville de Paris et SCNF, France; Voorlinden Museum, Netherlands; MUSAC, Spain.

PALAZZO REALE, MILANO

www.palazzorealemilano.it

Valentina Liernur @ Simon Lee Gallery, Hong Kong - Juro Que

Valentina Liernur: Juro Que

Simon Lee Gallery, Hong Kong

25 June - 7 August 2021

VALENTINA LIERNUR

Señora rosa y perro, 2021 

Oil on canvas , 167 x 125 cm (65 3/4 x 49 1/4 in.) 

Courtesy of the artist and Simon Lee Gallery

Photo: Santiago Ortí

‘Liernur is something like a contemporary flâneuse, carefully observing women [in her work]. Motivated by the pleasure that comes with concealing one’s identity as a painter, Liernur’s observational processes become both sly and sneaky’ – Ana Vogelfang, Texte Zur Kunst.

Simon Lee Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings by the Argentinian artist VALENTINA LIERNUR. The exhibition is the artist’s debut show with the gallery and marks the first time her work has been presented in Asia. 

Valentina Liernur’s practice is rooted in an ongoing exploration of the ways in which material can be rendered in the pursuit of painting. Often working in groups of work defined by a single medium, Valentina Liernur considers the physical qualities and mark-making capacity of oil paint on canvas in the same way she engages with less conventional materials such as denim and gabardine in other series. Shifting between abstraction and figuration, and often encouraging tensions and slippages to emerge between these modes of painting, Valentina Liernur seeks to manipulate and enhance the materiality of her chosen medium, embedding each work with a distinct, visceral quality.

For her exhibition in Hong Kong, Valentina Liernur presents a series of new paintings that continue her interest in recent years of depicting female figures in everyday scenarios. Valentina Liernur’s observations are based on photographs of friends, family and strangers taken in various settings including domestic spaces, public transport and city streets. Although not conceived as such, the works together form a loose sequence that the artist refers to as an account of a stroll through an urban environment. Valentina Liernur often takes the photographs that inform her paintings surreptitiously, resulting in works that capture fleeting moments that have an abrupt, confrontational and, at times, voyeuristic dynamic between the figures in the painting and the standpoint occupied by Liernur and subsequently the viewer. This awkward interaction is heightened by the prominence of sunglasses worn by many of Liernur’s subjects and the way their faces are often obscured by shadows, denying the viewer any sense of connecting and identifying with the women and girls that occupy Liernur’s works.

While the paintings in the show borrow from the language of figuration and portraiture, for Liernur the true subject of her work is the paint she uses rather than the image she creates. Valentina Liernur works intensively on each canvas, building multiple layers that shift between rough, spontaneous brushstrokes and slow, carefully executed details. Thinking of paint as information, Valentina Liernur likens her method of painting to the impulsive process of capturing thoughts in written form and the consequent, more methodical act of editing.

Valentina Liernur’s use of colour defines her work and the way the viewer experiences it. Despite starting each work from a photograph, Valentina Liernur’s choices in executing the work are more akin to the effects used in post production. In some works, flashes of lurid and luminous colours make a jolting appearance in an otherwise dark and muted palette. Elsewhere, paintings have a solarised quality or are rendered almost entirely in evocative hues of pinks and reds. Valentina Liernur’s paintings take on a dream-like quality, capturing fleeting moments in paint that speak to the experience of being deep in thought and glimpsing a sudden, incomplete aspect of reality.

VALENTINA LIERNUR was born in 1978 in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she lives and works. She studied between Beca Kuitca, Buenos Aires, Argentina and Städelschule, Frankfurt, Germany; and in 2013 completed the Artist in Residency program with FAAP, São Paulo, Brazil. Liernur’s work has been shown internationally and has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions including Scarlata, Ruth Benzacar Galería de Arte, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2019); Sumisión, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, NY (2016); MEGA POR NO, Colmegna Spa, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2015); Ahhhhhhh, Campoli Presti, Paris, France (2015); Ahh...Ah..., Campoli Presti, London, UK (2014); Corruzione, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York, NY (2014) and Fiebre, Ruth Benzacar, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2010). Group exhibitions include four corners of the landscape, Reena Spaulings Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA (2020); Call Giovanni, Revolver Galeria, Lima, Peru (2019); The Vitalist Economy of Painting, Galerie Neu, Berlin, Germany (2018); Theft Is Vision, LUMA Westbau, Zurich, Switzerland (2017); United States of Latin America, Museum of Contemporary Art of Detroit, MI (2015); Faux Amis, Simon Lee Gallery, London, UK (2015); Seven Reeds, Overduin & Co., Los Angeles, CA (2014); Broken Windows, New York Gallery, New York, NY (2013) and FSPC, Formalist Sidewalk Poetry Club, Miami, FL (2012).

SIMON LEE HONG KONG

304, 3/F The Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central, Hong Kong

www.simonleegallery.com