Marie Orensanz

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Marie Orensanz
Born
Mari Nalte Orensanz

(1936-09-12) 12 September 1936 (age 86)
Mar del Plata, Argentina
NationalityArgentine
Known forPensar es un Hecho Revolucionario
Website marieorensanz.com

Mari Nalte Orensanz (born 12 September 1936) is an Argentine artist. [1] Her artwork examines the integration of thought and matter as a methodology to obtain a social consciousness. [2] Orensanz's experience of Argentina's "Dirty War" has influenced her artwork and translated itself into the work Pensar es un Hecho Revolucionario (Thinking is a Revolutionary Act). Located in the Parque de la Memoria in Bueno Aires, it is attributed as a monument for the victims of state terrorism. [3]

Contents

Orensanz has been credited as a pioneer of conceptual art in Argentina and her experimentation with geometry, mathematics and philosophy later developed into her use of different materials. She is recognized for her use of the Carrara marble, ultimately displacing the canvas. The Carrara marble encapsulates the development of her manifesto "Fragmentism", which accounts for the singular embrace of the incomplete. [2]

Orensanz has showcased her collections in museums around the world, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires. [1] For her work, she won the Konex Award from Argentina in 2002 and 2012.

Early life

Initially, Marie had the intention of studying law, but later abandoned the idea when she took a nine-month trip to Europe with her family. [1] It was this experience that marked a keen interest in the world of art as she was able to find a new mode of communication through it. [4] She began her art education training with contemporary artists in Argentina, Emilio Pettoruti and Antonio Segui, where she learned about analytic abstraction and figurative expressionism respectively. [5] Her experience working with them was foundational in the way that she constructs space in creating her works. In 1972, Orensanz moves to Milan for a period of time, where she finds a new material that becomes the highlight of her artistic trajectory, the Carrara marble. [6]

Eventually, she becomes a naturalized French citizen and currently alternates her stay between Mountrouge, France and Buenos Aires, Argentina. [6]

Argentina's "Dirty War"

Pensar es un hecho revolucionario (Thinking is a revolutionary act), 1999 Parque de la Memoria 2017 - Pensar es un hecho revolucionario (64).jpg
Pensar es un hecho revolucionario (Thinking is a revolutionary act), 1999

Orensanz defines herself as a nomadic artist [7] as she travels back and forth from her birth country of Argentina and Europe, which served as a refuge during Argentina's last military dictatorship that lasted from 1974 to 1983. Orensanz's work Pensar es un hecho revolucionario was selected among 633 projects to commemorate the disappeared individuals of Argentina. This piece is formed from two equal iron parts that are separated from one another by a small distance. According to Orensanz, this intentional separation forces the spectator to reflect in order to appropriately read the perforated phrase that is the title. [8] In a catalogue, she expresses that now of the motives for her dedication is the fight against injustice translated through artistic expression.

Orensanz discovered the political potential in her work through her installation El pueblo de la Gallareta. She had created the installation in response to a workers' rally that took place and included their pamphlet on the gallery walls. Only a day after the opening of her exhibition the show was cancelled as the government noticed the message depicted through her work. [1]

Conceptual art

The emergence of "conceptual art" sought for an idea or concept to take precedence over the traditional formal and material qualities of art. Artists during this time period sought to incorporate text as artwork as a means to incorporate a double meaning. In doing so, Orensanz explores the relationship of text with the chosen object. [2] Her abstract forms are iconic in her conceptualism, which surpasses minimalism where only the idea is represented. [8] Orensanz is able to most effectively express her ideas through the use of symbols. [9] Dots, arrows, broken cars and fallen trees are each given a precise meaning. [2] For example, a dotted line may be indicative of time and a broken car may represent the chaos of the city. [2]

In 2002, the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires houses her installation,¿Para quién suenan las campanas? (2002), which consists of a series of seventeen white bells that propel from the ceiling. [10] Each bell consists of phrase that serves as an answer to the question posed by the title of installation, such as "for those who doubt" or "for those who judge". It is in this way that Oresanz is able to create a dialogue concerning the injustices present in society. [9] In particular, she finds interest in the way in which people move about in the exhibition, experiencing its spatial element. [9]

Some of the works Orensanz is most recognized for are the following:

Thought and matter

According to Christine Frèrot, Marie Orensanz explores different ways to integrate thought and matter, questioning both the world and society simultaneously. [2] She has been driven by key experiences in her life that conduce her to create a social consciousness in her work. Early in her artistic career, she added an 'e' to her name after an incident where a gallery owner has mistaken her for a man. [1] The man admired her work, but remarked that there was a major defect in her work, she was a woman and that her career as an artist would be limited by it. [8] This experience marked her awareness of gender discrimination.

Fragmentism

Frèrot has stated that the concept of fragmentism is practiced by Orensanz through her selection of the Carrara marble. She questions the traditional notions of sculpture as she purposely leaves the marble in its natural state of environment as she views it as part of a larger whole and finds beauty in its broken condition. [2] She uses the color white to convey neutrality and contrasts it with the color black to characterize a dynamic quality. [2] Additionally, according to Orensanz, thoughts can also be fragmented and relies heavily on the "intersection of the fragments with the viewer's own thoughts and experiences." [12] Later on she developed a theory called Fragmentism and writes a manifesto in Spanish, English and Italian. It reads, "Fragmentism searches for integration of a part with a totality; transforms by multiple readings in an object non-terminate and unlimited, traversing time and space." [5]

Selected solo exhibitions

Selected collections

Public works

Video works

Further reading

  1. Marie Orensanz. Works from the '70s. Wall Street International Magazine. July 8, 2014
  2. Catalogue Centre Georges Pompidou "Livres de Artistes", Paris, France. 1985
  3. "Elles" Catalogue Exposition Centre G Pompidou, Paris, France. 2009
  4. Del Pop a la Nueva Imagen, J Glusberg, Buenos Aires, Argentina. 1985
  5. Ministerio de la Cultura, Año del XXX Aniversario del desembargo del Granma. Ciudad de La Habana, Cuba. 1986
  6. Materias Memorias 10 Artistas de América Latina Bienal de Arte de Pontevedra, Buenos Aires, Argentina. 1996
  7. Imagines de Argentina Analogias, Fundación Santillana
  8. Fabienne Dumont, Artistes de féministes dans la France des années 1970. 2014

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fajardo-Hill, Cecilia; Giunta, Andrea. Radical women : Latin American art, 1960-1985. ISBN   9783791356808. OCLC   1032305940.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Frèrot, Christine (December 2005). "Marie Orensanz: Aesthetic Thinking". Art Nexus. 4: 74–79.
  3. "Art and the Wounds of the Argentine Dirty War: Deepening Resistance by Documenting Horror and Preserving Memory". International State Crime Initiate. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
  4. "videos reportages". MarieOrensanz.
  5. 1 2 "Marie Orensanz". Sicardi. Retrieved 3 February 2019.
  6. 1 2 Verlichak, Victoria. "Marie Orensanz: Loaded with Future". The Argentine Review.
  7. "MARIE ORENSANZ". RUTH BENZACAR (in European Spanish). Retrieved 2 February 2019.
  8. 1 2 3 Orensanz, Marie (2007). Marie Orensanz : obras 1963-2007. Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires. OCLC   252093773.
  9. 1 2 3 "Marie Orensanz "... A Path to Share..." interview with Domitille d'Orgeval" via www.youtube.com.
  10. "Marie Orensanz". AWARE Women artists / Femmes artistes. Retrieved 27 February 2019.
  11. McDonnell, Patrick J. (24 March 2006). "Argentines Remember a Mother Who Joined the "Disappeared"". Los Angeles Times. ISSN   0458-3035 . Retrieved 1 March 2019.
  12. "MarieOrensanz | biography". monsite (in French). Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  13. 1 2 3 "expos-news". MarieOrensanz (in French). Retrieved 26 February 2019.