“La economía de la atención” is Marco Maggi’s first exhibition at the Iberê Foundation. The exhibition proposes a reflection on the ways in which attention is constructed and directed.
Maggi’s works form a visual system of minimal, almost imperceptible structures. Understanding is like entering an analogue code of an algorithm that will repeat and reformulate itself over and over again. Micro-cuts in paper, incisions on acrylic or graphite only exist from the intangible: light and shadow.
The Iberê Foundation built by Álvaro Siza Vieira, an architect who is able to direct our attention through minimal spatial and visual emphases. A small window in a long blind wall induces us to look outside the museum.
While Siza, in this case, invites us to look far away, Maggi requires us to look closely. Two seemingly contradictory focuses that have no other function than to minimise distractions, creating a pause to enable active and concentrated observation. Marco Maggi composes an observation protocol that is activated only when the viewer’s body decides to approach and maintain their gaze.
In his proposals, both the titles of his exhibitions and those of his works usually conceal a meta-meaning. The ambiguity of the title of this installation is not a lack of clarity, but a critical tool situated on a deliberate threshold of meaning. On the one hand, that of the circulation, management and exchange of a scarce resource (economy) and, on the other, that of perception, sensitivity and the ability to pause (attention). The exhibition experience unfolds in the middle ground between these two poles. It does not designate univocally, but opens up a field of tensions that each visitor must negotiate on their journey.
In this method of proximity, there is no spectacle of impact, but rather a relationship; there is no message, but rather cooperation; there is no efficiency, but rather attention. From this perspective, his work does not combat acceleration with nostalgia, but with concrete techniques of slowness, proposing possible practices that are by no means guidelines. In the face of the shortcuts of speed, looking slowly can even be understood as a cultural technology.
Patricia Bentancur, curator
