The Xippas Arte Contemporáneo gallery is pleased to present X-ACTO an exhibition by Marco Maggi. He is one of the most important artist from the Uruguayan contemporary art scene. The exhibition will show 11 new works, mostly sculptures specially realized for the exhibition.
We are familiar with the DNA structure but we cannot remember the genome’s alphabet. We are not capable of reading a hair despite knowing it has sufficient information to clone our best friend. I have only one question: is the inability to relate to this type of information blindness or should it be described as a new form of illiteracy?
In both cases the most advisable thing to do is to patiently resign ourselves to the fact that we are doomed to knowing more and understanding less –the victims of semiotic indigestion. Every day we watch the news on CNN without noticing the difference between a live transmission and death.
The extreme percussion of news prevents any repercussion of the news. An overdose of drama is the perfect anaesthetic, a tool for censorship that is more efficient than a pair of scissors.
We are setting up the society of dysfunctional information: reality becomes illegible; and visual arts become invisible.
Drawing resembles writing in a language I cannot read. Understanding less is my profession. Understanding less and less each day demands rigorous training. Not understanding is basic and very healthy. When we do not understand we doubt, we feel insecure. We reduce the speed of our decisions, we expand our attention, and we are subtle and very cautious. When we have no doubt, when we are accompanied by faith and its certainties we become a danger to the public, capable of making urgent and radical decisions.
In art, in diplomacy and in cars, speed is tragic.
Drawing demands complying with one road sign only: STOP.
When I understand, I speak; when I understand less, I write; when I do not understand anything, I draw or cut out little pieces of paper.
Over the past few years I have spoken little, written a page a week, and drawn for 14 hours a day.
All my works are linked to insignificance, slow scandals far removed from universal and instantaneous revolutions. Cultural mutations are hardly noticeable but they allow a rock to turn into pebble. I work to make the time visible and the space invisible. Nowadays scale is a tool for humanization and delicacy is a subversive activity.
