Liliana Porter, the trace of the mundane

Madrid,

If Jorge Luis Borges considered it relatively easy to become a good writer, and tremendously difficult to be a talented reader, the works of Liliana Porter, from Buenos Aires like him, challenge us to gradually become better spectators, to overcome the barrier of observation to transfer what we find in their paintings, sculptures or installations to our own fields of interest, perhaps drawing personal conclusions or creative readings.

Last year the National Mint and Stamp Factory – Real Casa de la Moneda awarded him the Tomás Francisco Prieto Medal Prize in recognition of both his international career and the diversity of techniques he has used (drawing, engraving, photography, sculpture). in his reflection on the methods of reproduction and the possible frontiers of representation. Currently, photography, video, collages and small installations predominate in his creations: figurines and discreet memories taken from his travels – with a historical and geographical background – which he arranges on empty monochrome backgrounds to allude to philosophical issues and emotional states. This award is endowed with 20,000 euros and implies the commitment to design a medal that is then minted by this institution, in addition to an anthology in the Casa de la Moneda Museum itself, which we can visit until March 2025 and is titled “Traces and vestiges.”

Curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio, director of the Argentine MALBA until last November (Rodrigo Moura has taken over), this exhibition opened its doors just as “Otros unfinished stories”, his last exhibition in Espacio Mínimo, his usual room, was closing, as well that this autumn has given us a double opportunity to introduce ourselves in the capital to the playful yet significant games of this artist, who manages both space and proportions for her purposes from fine irony, subtlety and an expressive intensity that does not demand large sizes or provocative evidence.

Porter defends that the world, the story of history and our time, needs to be narrated from alternative approaches that break the established orders, that is why he seeks, whatever the discipline he manages, to break and disorder given situations and behaviors, to propose forms new ways of understanding time and space and building languages that can respond flexibly to changing environments. He emphasizes that his objects are what we materially see, but also the memory they harbor, the idea that those of us who contemplate them have of them and their emotional implications; For this author, who defines herself as postconceptual, everything has a real and a virtual aspect, and she is rather interested in delving into the second.

In his proposals he usually displays a look of estrangement towards the environment, which he recreates from a small perspective, highlighting its potential timeless and abstract dimensions, trying to combine all places and all times and seeking to merge what an object or figure is and its plastic embodiment. that is, blurring the much debated boundaries between what is real and what is represented. If in Doctor Fourquet’s room we could see the installation The sweeper appropriating practically the entire exhibition space (a woman repaired the messes of a man with an ax destroying everything, as a metaphor of time, of memory, of what is built and reconstructed during life), this new assembly has pieces representative of all the stages of his career, several unpublished in Spain and articulated in five sections: Leave a trace: potentiality of an action; Timelines; Still lifes: between disorder, collapse and the return to normality; Spinning in perspective; and Destabilize the representation: Crumple of the paper to the white cube.

These projects date back to the sixties and bear witness to the poetic and conceptual implications that Porter gives to the materials and his peculiar ways to intertwine geometry and humor through gestures with which the viewer will necessarily be able to commune, given their completely everyday root; Porter’s field of reflection is that of worldliness, its excesses and paradoxes. The medal that the Argentine created after being awarded in 2023 is part of the tour: an untitled gold piece that will be incorporated into the funds of the Mint. Esther Ferrer, her successor in the call, will arrive at these facilities in 2025.