2023
Bilingual Spanish-English edition
Texts: Sofía Dourron, Magalí Etchebarne, Laura Isola
Translation: Ian Barnett
Graphic Design: Eduardo Rey
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120 pages
Format: 20x22cm
ISBN 978-987-1358-94-6
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In 2017, Elba Bairon produced the work Sin título [Untitled] at the Museo Moderno and, with it, she began a series of architectural sculptures in which absolute minimalism is the way she finds to achieve an expressive synthesis. The two sculptures, being barely defined and built in white, that formed the Sin título installation confront us with a primordial, pure and abstract idea of habitat. In addition to texts by Laura Isola and Sofía Dourron that analyse the visual enchantment of this daring minimalist quest, the book examines several of the subsequent works by the artist that continued the series. Moreover, writer Magalí Etchebarne provides these deserted forms with a disturbing family history.
“In this work, Bairon pursues a precise image where the purity of form prevails and the diaphanous simplicity of the lines transcends geometry, which becomes soft, emerging from organic shapes: an ‘affective geometry’ or ‘a state of compensation for the curve,’ as the artist defines it. Bairon’s house is not an ideal home: it is the image of a search for the never-attainable balance between forms, light, and dark, an image that, in its strangeness, refuses to be determined by its own weight, because any such determination would signify the ultimate failure of that momentum”.
Sofía Dourron
“The windows of all the houses are invariably misted up. From the street we can see the interiors, the lights on, the families sitting at the tables at six in the evening. In every house around us smoke is always pouring from the chimney and a cold, sometimes icy drizzle falls all the time”.
Magalí Etchebarne
“Like Hölderlin, Elba Bairon asks the question: ‘Does not silence dwell in the Land of the Blessed?’ And the answer: ‘Above the stars the heart forgets its needs and its language’. It’s true. Above this whole work stretches an obscure sky in which, like someone guessing the constellations of a starry night, we can search for the words that are missing to set free this landscape of mystery”.
Laura Isola
