2019
Bilingual edition, Spanish/English
Texts: Javier Villa, Claudio Iglesias, Florencia Qualina, Rafael Spregelburd
Graphic Design: Vanina Scolavino and Laura Escobar
Translations: Kit Maude
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200 pages
Format: 25 x 18 cm
ISBN 978-987-673-487-5
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This volume is dedicated to The Enchanting Present, the exhibition in which the artist Diego
Bianchi drew on the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires Collection to create a large,
enfolding, walkaround installation combining his own pieces and pieces from the Moderno
Collection. This publication is designed to recreate that experience for readers in a circuit with
multiple entry points, including a fold-out cover with images of the long passageway running
almost all the way around the gallery. A curatorial text by Javier Villa and a biography of the
artist are accompanied by an imaginary conversation with Diego Bianchi scripted by leading
Argentinian playwright Rafael Spregelburd, and essays by Florencia Qualina and Claudio
Iglesias. The book includes full details of the works the artist worked with from the Moderno
Collection, as well as numerous gallery views.
‘Diego Bianchi was invited by the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires to prepare a project
for one of its galleries. During my conversations with the artist, the idea arose to arrange an
encounter between his artwork and pieces from the museum collection. Although Bianchi had
never before worked with historical pieces by other artists, the idea still seemed fitting. He often
responds to the contexts in which he is working, drawing inspiration from the space, giving it
unexpected uses, or reacting to prevailing ideological conditions. His output also bears material
and formal echoes of Informalist and Optic landmarks in the museum collection. In El presente
está encantador [The Enchanting Now], Bianchi made the collection into a great artwork of his
own featuring pieces by Aldo Paparella, Ruben Santantonín, Emilio Renart and many more. Thus
the present devours the past but the past still haunts the present as though it knew its true destiny:
certain artists from the collection challenged the notion of Bianchi’s authorship; several of his objects
could easily be mistaken as having been made by Alberto Heredia or Enio Iommi.
No doubt some of the artworks never felt so comfortable in their lives while others had no idea how
they ended up there. While the visitors were the protagonists in the hallway, now they felt as though
they’d snuck into the party through a back door thanks to an unknown password. If they wanted to fit
in, they had to become artworks themselves. During this process, the past became present and the
present cloned itself like a chameleon to shift the past from its place. Time fell apart. The sculpture
no longer knew where or when it was. ’
Javier Villa
