Lamothe, Hasper, Sinclair: Visual gestures for unexpected vitality

Awakening the unexpected vitality of what exists . With this phrase, the curatorial text of Beyond Space concludes, one of the highlights of the 2025 art calendar. It features works by three contemporary Argentine artists who are internationally renowned in painting, sculpture, and installation: Luciana Lamothe , Marcela Sinclair , and Graciela Hasper . Until August, this conversation of pieces curated by Nieves Vázquez and Guido Ignatti will be on view at the now-named Palacio Libertad.

The phrase that ends the text is like a shot of fuel for the minds of existentialists : can that passionate, burning sensation of being alive, which comes and goes almost like a circle over the course of a lifetime, be controlled? Or are both its arrival and its disappearance pure enigma, the work of destiny?

“There has to be a willingness for us to be aware of that vitality, although I like to think it's also contained within spaces. With gestures, one can emphasize or mitigate it as much as possible, but the only way it's realized is when a type of space comes into contact with someone,” suggests Marcela Sinclair .

These three static works require an active attitude from the viewer : that of placing the eye where they suggest, or even walking inside them, to discover different ways of seeing, even in the same direction.

The exhibition explores The Great Lamp , an architectural landmark on the sixth floor of this building, which draws attention from the outside with its giant Cubix shape and flickering fluorescent lights. The first work the visitor encounters is Luciana Lamothe 's Function .

Suspicious support structures, fractures, ruins, or constructions with voids that could embody questions are already a trademark of this artist's work, both aesthetically and conceptually. Crumbs of battered matter accumulate here on the arms of a scaffolding, which, with sharp points, has been converted into a spear. On the walls, next to the weapon, like a scene depicting what happened, there are holes. Perforations in the wall that shine for their symmetry and similarity. The destruction here has been prolific and carefully designed .

Adapted to this space, "Function" had already been shown in 2011 in Ruth Benzacar's basement and in some museums. "I need the decisions made to be noticeable," emphasizes the artist from Mercedes, who was the last to represent the country at the Venice Biennale . "When I made this work, which is quite early in my career, I found myself questioning the relationship between function and form, which followed which. In that exploration, what I noticed was happening was that the function swallowed the form. A function like that of this scaffolding, which is used for construction, taken out of context becomes a destructive creature," she states. What the spear did to the wall in this production is almost theatrical; it is seductive and speaks to the power of the eventuality of a possible action.

The holes, an invitation to see what lies beyond, are reproduced in the collection of works presented, A Few Steps to the Side, by Sinclair. For this other production, canvases used for awnings and banners were reworked, their function being negated by cutting them up and unfolding them in space, creating a three-dimensional plane.

This shape is a ceiling, seen from below, and a floating landscape, seen from above. In both cases, a tempting aquatic postcard whose shadows are gently tattooed on the walls.

Both this group, entitled Fleet , and, at one point, Ship —the giant sculpture Sinclair made for Malba Puertos, conceived with the unprecedented, unpredictable, and relative color of the passage of time due to the oxidation of iron exposed to the elements— investigate ways of seeing . They do so because they are filled with circles, squares, and rectangles, sometimes more solid and sometimes more abstract, which outline different parts of the same reality before our eyes. Their perception will vary depending on the angle the viewer obtains when passing through the work.

“Architecture, in the city, is the house one lives in, which determines so many possible behaviors, thoughts, habits, imaginations, or which promotes some and not so much others. I found it interesting to be able to interact with the language that architecture is, which speaks to us all the time,” Sinclair observes.

Graciela Hasper paints with saturated, bold colors that often intersect and touch in her works, giving the mixture a central role. But in this exhibition, she doesn't present mixtures, but rather the opposite: a distance between colored lines that advances across the walls in an almost musical, rhythmic manner.

A silent orchestra that responds, like the beat of a song, to the lighting of the space, reflected in the placement of the lines. In his case, the architecture—including that of the hall's ramped tunnel, which he worked on—comes alive with the emergence of a lively geometry that gives the entire room an impression of spaciousness.

After all, that's what art is: an expansion of reality , a unique and incredible visual and conceptual depth. And after all, what's more like the unexpected vitality of existence than the sensation of life expanding?