Over the past decade, the Museo Moderno has undertaken an exhaustive programme of research, design and production to bring to the public exhibitions featuring artists of major historical significance in Argentinian and Latin American art.
In 2017, the Museum produced an ambitious retrospective exhibition of the great artist Liliana Maresca, an unprecedented institutional challenge which required a bold effort from the Moderno’s specialists in the historical reconstruction of her works. Among them was El Dorado (1991) which embodies a critical view of European colonialism in Latin America. Drawing on the myth of El Dorado, the imaginary city of gold sought by the first Spanish conquerors, Maresca produced an installation in which a red ingot symbolised the blood spilt in the fruitless search for the city, a golden sphere and golden cube represent opposing geometric forms of alchemical symbols, and a computer prints out the results of an equation that calculates the ratio of litres of ancestral peoples’ blood spilt and kilos of gold transported to Spain.
The valorisation and exhibition of this work, generously donated to the Museo Moderno by the artist’s family, is a perfect opportunity to bring together a series of recently acquired and donated monumental works. With a similar critical and poetic gaze, they explore areas of profound pain that run through society: colonialism and racism (Washington Cucurto, Martín Legón and Liliana Maresca); violence against women (Nicanor Aráoz and Ana Gallardo); violence against the planet (Matías Duville and Gabriel Valansi).
Artists: Nicanor Aráoz, Washington Cucurto, Matías Duville, Ana Gallardo, Martín Legón, Liliana Maresca, Gabriel Valansi
Curated by: Victoria Noorthoorn and Francisco Lemus
Exhibition Design: Daniela Thomas, Felipe Tassara and Iván Rösler
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