The presence of paper and the intimate character are two constants in the work of Marco Maggi, even in his large installations. Ever since he established his career, in the 1990s, Maggi has wittily and delicately encouraged his audience to slow down their pace, and watch, pay attention, and delve deeper into his works, the life that surrounds them, and the society in which they live.
Read MoreIn a series entitled The Ted Turner Collection–from CNN to the DNA, Maggi shows his acute critical sense by using reproductions of pieces by artists of the likes of Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, and Hélio Oiticica to comment on the mediatised condition of contemporary life. Heaps of white paper cover reproductions, slashed with precision to create reliefs and gaps that reveal traces of tones from the reproductions hidden underneath, forming a big white landscape spiked with small slits of colour. The installations maintain the use of paper, but from a distance, the numerous heaps do not show their nature; one must come closer, become somewhat acquainted with the works and dedicate some time to finding out what they reveal.
Marco Maggi was born in 1957 in Montevideo, Uruguay. He lives and works in New York and Montevideo. He recently showed his work in shows such as Flow, just flow (Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art, Richmond, EUA, 2013); MoCA’s permanent collection: selection of recent acquisitions (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA, 2013); Works from the Daros Latin America Collection (Fundación Banco Santander, Madrid, Spain, 2010); and In transition (Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation, Miami, USA, 2010). He also featured in the 25th Bienal de São Paulo, Brazil (2002); the 8th Havana Biennial, in Cuba (2003); the 29th Pontevedra Biennial, in Spain (2006); the 17th Guatemala Biennial (2010); and the Cuenca Biennial, in Ecuador (2011). Recent solo shows include: Color Files (MOLAA Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, USA, 2013); Lentissimo (Vassar College Museum, Nova York, USA, 2013); Desinformação funcional–desenhos em português (Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil, 2012); and From Huguenot to microwave (Dorsky Museum, New York, USA, 2011). His works are included in the collections of the MoMA, New York, USA; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, USA; Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, USA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, USA; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, USA; and Daros Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland; among others.
Text courtesy Galeria Nara Roesler.
