Considered the most important living Mexican sculptor, in 2015 the exhibition in the capital of his country welcomed more than 600.000 visitors. Javier Marín, who lives and works in Mexico City, has developed a solid career over the span of thirty years, with over 90 solo exhibitions and more than 200 participations in group exhibitions in various countries in South America, the United States, Asia and Europe. His works can be found in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in Mexico City, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. He has exhibited in prestigious public spaces, such as the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome, the Musées royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels and the Museum of the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. He has also participated in reference events for emerging art such as the Venice Biennale. The artist is also the creator of works commissioned by institutions (in 2010 he created Retablo, the monumental altarpiece that stands in the cathedral of Zacatecas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Mexico), as was the case in the colonial Baroque tradition. Not surprisingly, the art of Javier Marín has also been defined as Baroque. That movement born in the Rome of the seventeenth century, spread in Europe and, thanks to the Spanish conquests, subsequently declined in native forms in some countries of Latin America. The Casa Rusca exhibition will allow the public to get closer to the work of Marín, a purely figurative artist, through a significant overview of his work. The anthological exhibition will focus, through the selection of about fifty medium and large works, on the development of the sculptor's artistic career from the mid-nineties to today.
The fulcrum of Marín's poetics is represented by the human body. The artist constantly dialogues with the figure, male and female, naked, imposing, disjointed, broken up, twisted, torn and pierced, dismembered and reassembled - possibly held together by a wire - highly dramatic. In his innovative approach to the contemporary art scene, he nevertheless draws on references to ancient art, but also to the works of Michelangelo, Cellini, and Rodin, reworked with images and subjects typical of the culture of his homeland. Marín's works are the result of a process marked by intense experimentation aimed at discovering new solutions, thus filling his research, which aims to investigate the present through the past, with new content. The artist's intention to emancipate himself from the mere reproduction of anatomy in favor of the creation of a personal language, simple and accessible, able to relate tradition and innovation, is evident. The exhibition itinerary unfolds through large heads, torsos, whole figures of various sizes and reliefs that exemplify the expressive universe of Marín: the famous Cabeza de mujer; the groups of Mujercitas y Hombrecitos (2000); the Barbudo I-VII series (2005) in which the excessive enlargement of a detail (the foreground on the beard) with respect to the complex of the face invites a sort of cinematic reading of the work; the Mujer suspendida (2015) in which the position raised from the ground seems to want to free the woman from the weight of the human body and the imposing forms of the Bucles cycle (2015), just to name a few. Meditative or agitated, his figures develop the theme of corporeality as a testimony, as a burden of the human condition. The movement, which always seems to be in the process of animating his sculptures, generates in the observer a state of constant alertness and unpredictability. The viewer is stimulated to free himself from passive contemplation, to reflect, to ask himself questions, to participate actively and to relate to the work and the surrounding space. The uniqueness of Marín passes not only from the strong narrative incisiveness, from the mastery in the use of different techniques, but also from the vast and varied range of materials used (bronze, terracotta, resin) which, in recent years, has resulted in a combination of natural, artificial and synthetic materials. For the sculptures, the artist favors polyester resin (a material that is normally used for industrial uses) which makes it more lively and brilliant by mixing it with amaranth seeds, earth, tobacco, dried meat, flower petals, creating original colors and shades. The use of organic elements reflects his desire to give a temporal dimension to his creations. The evolutionary cycle of life-death, development and decay is emphasized even more by the signs generated by the various processing steps and by the numerous cracks and scars that damage the material and that the artist leaves in evidence on the work. The sculptures visible in the rooms of Casa Rusca will allow you to see in action the dynamics of interaction between the work of art, the spectator and the surrounding environment. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue featuring colour images of all the works on display, along with critical contributions by curator Rudy Chiappini, as well as texts by Roxana Velásquez and Adriana Martínez.
Municipal Art Gallery Casa Rusca, Piazza Sant'Antonio, Locarno
Hours: Tuesday - Sunday 10.00-12.00 / 14.00-17.00 Monday closed
Reservations: +41 (0) 91 756 31 85
www.museocasarusca.ch
