Anna Maria Maiolino
Vacuum I, 1971. Mapas Mentais Series. Courtesy: Fundació Tàpies
The artistic work of Anna Maria Maiolino is little- and inadequately-known in Spain, and what we know of it is only thanks to what we have heard each time she has shown her work in the major international fairs, whether individually or as part of collective anthologies. However, the work by this artist is one of the most fertile and stimulating in the Latin American panorama of the last five decades, although it has inexplicably passed unnoticed here. In order to correct this historical injustice, offer an updated view of a career which is deserving of attention and, ultimately, reclaime her undeniable importance in the current contemporary art context, the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, the Centro Galego de Arte Contemporáneo and the Malmö Konsthall are jointly presenting, for the first time in Europe, an itinerant retrospective show on the Brazilian artist, covering more than half a century of her work, and bringing together everything from her first reliefs and xylographs to a recent sound installation.
Curated by Helena Tatay, the show sheds light on the radical singularity of Maiolino’s work in comparison with that of her closest contemporaries (Hélio Oiticica, Carlos Vergara and Lygia Clark, to offer three examples) and constitutes, as a whole, a very thorough journey through all the stages of her career, one of the most open and diverse in Brazilian art, and which, almost haft a century after her debut at the Galería G., in Caracas, has turned into a showcase of versatility and sensibility. These qualities can be observed in some of her most representative works: drawings, sculptures, photographs, films and installations which gradually reveal, from their apparent and fake superficiality, the deepest concerns and desires of the artist; specifically, her interest in the body and language, understood as modulators of subjectivity and the social dimension of the individual.
At first, Maiolino’s work seems touched by a levity which gradually disappears as the show progresses and we notice the details of her laborious and methodical production. We become increasingly aware of the importance of technique, form and matter in her work. On the basis of these three elements, she builds a body of work undergoing constant change, open to the exploration of any medium or discipline. The pieces contain evocations on identity, allusions to the political situation in Brazil during the dictatorship and an audaciously evocative driving force, enriched by a poetic patina which multiplies the power of their meaning and sense. Seen in context, Anna Maria Maiolino does all sorts of things, always achieving excellence, which emerges from both her curiosity and her willingness to experiment, to be passionate and to reject common places, making it clear that these are matters of choice as much as of commitment.
It might be difficult to see Anna Maria Maiolino as an emblematic artist in the 20th century, although she has proven so much during her uninterrupted career, in terms of quantity, quality and uniqueness. The wide range of subjects, interests and attitudes which popular her project does not follow a linear development, and demands the attention of viewers and their full reflection capacity. Her work, then, does not extend an invitation to simple contemplation. The different registers of her pieces, full of symbolism and meaning, are turned, though their arterial connections, into a spectacle of charm and mystery, where it is very difficult to highlight one work in detriment of the others. The writer Vicente Núñez says that only poetry disobeys language: it disobeys it to overcome it. Anna Maria Maiolino takes this sophism to its maximum expression and applies it to her work, in order to rip moments of unexpected beauty from art, which demand, with magnetism, the decision to look.
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