Nicanor Aráoz (Buenos Aires, 1981) produces objects, installations, drawings and sculptures using as his references the comic, imagery from Internet and romantic mythologies taken from gothic art. In his works, procedures involving the making of a surrealistic object, such as the assembly of dissimilar elements and the oneiric component, take on frantic forms resembling nightmares where pleasure and pain seem to merge. Aráoz uses materials as if they expiate sadistic sensations, and takes them to the utmost limits of expressivity and torsion. In narrative scenes he mixes plaster monsters, amorphous masses of resin, trainers, neon lights and biscuits with embalmed cats, mice and birds, thus shaping a world of emotional psychedelics with visual references to the domestic environment of an adolescent.
His latest individual projects are Sueño sólido (Museo Moderno, Buenos Aires, 2020), Placenta escarlata (Barro, Buenos Aires 2018), Because I am never what I have (The Emily Harvey Foundation, New York 2017), Antología Genética (Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires, 2016), Glótica (Barro, Buenos Aires, 2015), IMNXTC (Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, 2013) and Librada (Galería Alberto Sendrós, Buenos Aires, 2013).In 2019 he was part of Residents Art Dubai curated by Munira Al Sayegh and Fernanda brenner. He was selected by Alec Oxenford Scholarship to travel to do field research in Tokio (2014), Kuitca Scholarship (2010- 2011) and the Artist Program of Torcuato Di Tella University (2009 - 2010). In 2017 he received a scholarship from ISCP (International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York). Chus Martinez included Araoz's work, specially commissioned for the collective exhibition Metamorfosi – Lasciate che tutto vi accada (Castello di Rivoli, Turin, 2018). Inés Katzenstein, Lucrecia Palacios and Alejo Ponce de León have recently published a book of Aráoz’s exhibition Antología Genética (Mansalva, 2018). In 2019 he participated in the residencies Pivô (São Paulo, Brazil) and Art Dubai (Dubai, UAE). Lives and works in Buenos Aires.
Once again, Aráoz puts into operation his omnivorous system of processing and producing images and objects. As Alejo Ponce de León states in the curatorial text: “It comes as no surprise to see in Future Abolition a gallery organized to display fetishes, interests and yearnings: worldly objects that make the artist the subject as they exercise their control over him. And it is also wholly in keeping to see Aráoz’s impulse to archive and preserve, through self-reference, formal landmarks from his career (given that sculpture is a medium very much suited to these resuscitations and Aráoz is one of the best producers of sculptural phenomena in the country).”
Glótica (Barro, 2015)
Luciana Olmedo-Wehitt, “Yo, tú, él, nosotros, vosotros, ellos”. Revista D-Mag, Julio 2013
Marcela Sinclair, “Nicanor Aráoz, poner el cuerpo!!”, El Gran Otro, 2011
Claudio Iglesias, “Esperando nacer”. Suplemento Radar, Página 12, Mayo, 2010
17.12.2024 Juxtaposing the past and the present, the exhibition presents works from different periods and artistic currents, highlighting visions of LGBTQIA+ historias that transcend time and space, as well as pointing to strategies of resistance. Curated by Adriano Pedrosa & Julia Bryan-Wilson at Museo de Arte de São Paulo, MASP. Until abril, 2025.
06.12.2024 Miami Beach, USA. BARRO presents a series of works by Mondongo, La Chola Poblete, Lucrecia Lionti and Joaquín Boz. The artworks selected for this edition call into question the conceptual relation between materiality and image. Main Sector, Convention Center, Florida.
17.11.2024 Cárcel & Vals, 2024, textile artwork by Lucrecia Lionti, won the Award Gobierno de la Provincia de Santa Fe (acquisition) by unanimous decision. The award jury was made up of Fernando Farina, Nancy Rojas and Lucía Stubrin
16.11.2024 BARRO Buenos Aires presents Los jóvenes olvidaron sus canciones o Tierra de fuego (Parte II), the second exhibition by GABRIEL CHAILE in the gallery. With a text by Filipa Ramos, the show presents a new line of work the artist began this year and consists in a film with mural drawings made from adobe and iron.
15.11.2024 On Saturday November 16th, BARRO Buenos Aires opens Los jóvenes olvidaron sus canciones o Tierra de fuego (Parte II), the second exhibition by Gabriel Chaile in the gallery. With a text by Filipa Ramos, the show presents a new line of work the artist began this year and consists in a film of mural drawings made of adobe and iron.
30.09.2024 SHOW / FAIR / PARTY We celebrate the gallery’s first 10 years (2014—2024) THANK YOU everyone who is and was part of it!—BARRO es 10—Nicanor Aráoz, Joaquín Boz, Nacha Canvas, Gabriel Chaile, Matias Duville, Faivovich & Goldberg, Mónica Giron, Martín Legón, Lucrecia Lionti, Lolo y Lauti, Mondongo, La Chola Poblete, Marcelo Pombo, Pablo Reinoso, Alejandra Seeber, Agustina Woodgate—
21.09.2024 La vida que explota by Gabriel Chaile, Claudia Alarcón and Silät. Curator: Andrei Fernández. The sculptural ensemble of anthropomorphized beings constitutes a group portrait of Gabriel Chaile’s family tree. The work was presented for the first time at the Venice Biennial 2022 and is now exhibited permanently in the Chaile Pavilion at the recently inaugurated MALBA—PUERTOS, Escobar.
21.09.2024 “Argentina” is a set of fifteen paintings made as bas-reliefs with plasticine and other unconventional materials. These represent views of the Argentine Mesopotamian landscape in the province of Entre Ríos, which is characterized by a cycle of flooding that oscillates between the death and rebirth of the region’s flora. At Ensayos naturales I by Mondongo & Luis Ouvrard. Curated by Alejandra Aguado. MALBA—PUERTOS, Escobar.
14.09.2024 More Heat Than Light is Agustina Woodgate’s first individual exhibition in a Dutch institution. The show explores the relationship between temperature and information, and so stages an experimental communications infrastructure that reflects the unpredictable transactions between measuring and knowing.
02.09.2024 GROUP SHOW / We celebrate the gallery’s first 10 years (2014—2024) THANK YOU everyone who is and was part of it!
BARRO ARTE CONTEMPORANEO
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