Luciana Lamothe works by placing two key elements of artistic practice: form and function, under as much stress as possible. If the modern principle of the truth of materials, by which every material should be used in the most appropriate way without hiding its nature, is also included, the combination gives rise to a dramatic tension within the work.
This drama plays out as action. In the spine of the building of the Museum of Modern Art, Lamothe has placed a mechanism that needs to be activated. Interaction with the spectator gets the structure moving and the momentum gradually grows more expansive and viral as it makes contact with the negative space of the stairs in the Museum lobby. The machine has a constructive spirit, emanating from its materials (pipes, joints and phenolic slabs) which are usually used to build scaffolding. But the work’s purpose is not to be an architectural prosthesis, enhancement or tool for the construction, but a monumental sculpture.
With the extension of the body into a sculpture and the sculpture into a building, Lamothe is seeking to gradually reduce leaps in scale: to offer the sensation of encompassing something much larger than ourselves. The objective of Contact is to create an individual experience of spatial recognition and constructive reflection, injecting tension into a public space, its existence and everyday elements, exploring their limits, shifts in use and spatial awareness alongside actual bodily perception in real time.
Luciana Lamothe (Buenos Aires, 1975) was certified as a National Sculpture Teacher by the Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón in 1999. In 2016 she was the resident artist at MANA Wynwood, USA. Between 2010 and 2011 she took part in the Beca Kuitca at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, directed by the artist Guillermo Kuitca and during 2007 was a guest artist in the Skowhegan Residency in Maine, USA. She has been invited to take part in the 11a Biennale de Lyon and the 5th Berlin Biennial. Her recent solo shows include: Metasbilad, Prisma KH, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2016; Patio de la fuente (Fountain Patio), Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2016; and Bidimensional Bisagra (Two-Dimensional Hinge) at the Centro Cultural Haroldo Conti, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2015.
