New Paltz-based Uruguayan artist Marco Maggi ’98g (Printing) is representing Uruguay in the 2015 Venice Biennale, a major contemporary art showcase that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy.
Maggi’s exhibition, Global Myopia II, is scheduled to run through November and comes after the artist’s whirlwind springtime stay in Madrid, Spain, during which he installed a solo show in two Galeria Cayon spaces. He considers those exhibitions rehearsals for the Venice Biennial project.
“Madrid was a short story,” said Maggi. “Venice is a novel in four chapters.”
Inspired by technology, biology and symbolic alphabets, Maggi’s work deconstructs methods of communication. In Global Myopia II, Maggi attempts to detach the two basic elements of drawing, paper and pencil, and split the act of drawing into two stages.
For the exhibition, Maggi was challenged to create an artistic presentation that could travel in a carry-on suitcase to Madrid. His inventive solution was to assemble a portable kit composed of 10,000 alphabetic elements, cut out of self-adhesive paper on his table in New Paltz, which he then carefully folded and pasted onto the gallery walls during the three months preceding the biennale.
Revealing the artist’s awareness of the realities of modern communication, the intricacies of Maggi’s work are meant to make the viewer slow down and reflect upon the exhibition’s painstaking detail and complexity.
“In a world obsessed by long distance and acceleration, the only goals of my exhibition are to promote pauses and approaches that make time visible,” said Maggi.
Maggi splits time between New Paltz and Montevideo, Uruguay. His artwork and approach are known best for his use of commonplace materials such as aluminum foil, apple skins, acid-free office paper, and convex mirrors as the basis for his creations. Maggi transforms these ordinary items into complex and often repetitive patterns that shape abstract landscapes and rich illustrations.
Maggi’s work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America. He represented Uruguay in the 2002 São Paulo Bienal, and his works have been shown in institutions including El Museo del Barrio, the Whitney Museum, and the Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo in Mexico City. The artist’s exhibition “From Hugeuenot to Microwave: New and Recent Works by Marco Maggi” was featured at The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art in 2011. He also has solo shows planned for Paris and New York City this fall. Learn more at http://www.marcomaggi.org/.
