Artists

Argentina

Cecilia Soldano
Piedras Brujas

Cecilia Soldano was chosen by Mariana Rodríguez Iglesias (guest curator invited by Fundación´ace) to showcase her work Witch stones in the Transversal Space.

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Exhibitions

Witch Stones
Cecilia Soldano

18.12.19 13.03.20

Fundación´ace invited Mariana Rodríguez Iglesias (Argentina)as guest curator to propose an exhibition project for the Transversal Space. Mariana chose to curate a solo show by Cecilia Soldano, Argentinian artist living and working in Buenos Aires, for which she wrote the following text:

To make the void paint

Thirty radios unite in the center;

Thanks to the hole we can use the wheel.

The clay is modeled into the form of a vessel.

Thanks to the hole the cup can be used.

Thus, the wealth comes from what exists,

But the valuable comes from what does not.

Taoist proverb.

What will the tao have to do with Celtic witchcraft? Surely very little, except for the place in which they overlap briefly: The issue of emptiness. There is a special interest in the Celtic tradition for certain stones that must be found by chance –  they must never be a gift and much less be purchased – and that can be recognized as magical due to the fact that they carry a hole through which one can see from one side to the other. These can be called in many ways, although the artist – of Scottish origin – chooses, amongst all those names, that of “Witch Stones”.

A tock of this category owes its identity to the hole made by the water and to the time of its extense complicity. It is a “Witch Stone” thanks to the cavity inside. Here lies the link with Taoist philosophy: the importance that this worldview gives to to the organization fostered by, and around, vacant spaces, which are never “nothing” but the evocation of a relationship. The areas that were not painted and the blank spaces in a Chinese print work as illusions of volume. The misty and diffuse areas of an oriental landscape are visual strategies that evoke much more than they can represent on the surface.

The power of these type of gaps is that they put into play a relationship and where there was absence a new sense can now be metaphorized. Or what would happen to our witch stones without its hole? Without it they would no longer be what they are: amulets, elements for magic, time portals and space. It is a dynamic conception of emptiness, of seeing “for the other”. As it happens with our own identities: that impossibility to know who we are even though we try to sketch a provisional approach from our own edges, spoken words, gestures and actions. This repertoire of what we do in this world is a representation, a trace, of who we are in it. And as a trace, an absence.

What Cecilia found in the witch stones inspired her to work the pictorial matter with a twist seeking to incorporate whoever looks at her art pieces within them and – as the uncertainty principle points out – gets the observer to modify what is being observed. The artist had been working on two lines sustained in her painting: one that echoed small details, passing lights, bland but interesting corners from a pictorial perspective; the other – which she never abandoned and will become the substrate of its plastic praxis – is that of pure abstraction and without reference, autonomous to find meaning in itself. In this series, the plastic language composes the scenery, the actors and the script of a scene that can only happen in the painting. The need to incorporate the spectators, as well as space into her work led her to investigate the materials. In that way, she found a ludic space of investigation in the iridescent pigments and the refractory surfaces (such as aluminum and other metals) that, by reflecting the light and the colors of who is observing the work, get to make them enter the scene itself.

We can stand in front of the polyptych of witch stones on metallic paper or closely observe some of the linens subtly attacked by Cecilia Soldano’s painting. While doing it we have nothing left but to see each other. It is not that we see our own image with clear and delimited borders, in any case, we intuit our presence by the reflection of a color that we are wearing or the projection of our body as a gloom. We see from “the other”. It is the painting, the shadow and trace, with whom we enter into a relationship to recognize ourselves and, if our sensibility allows us, to curiously peer at the artist’s way of telling (herself) the story.

Mariana Rodríguez Iglesias, curator.

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BIO
Cecilia Soldano
1977, Buenos Aires. Argentina.

2015 | BA in Visual Arts. UNA, Argentina.
2002 | National Painting Professor. Escuela Nacional de Bellas Artes Prilidiano Pueyrredón, Argentina.

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2019| Espacio Corner, curated by Carlos Carpaxo, Madrid Spain; Pop UP cwith RED NARA, Frankfurt, Germany. 2018| PEZÓN, curated by Sergio Bazán, Panal 361, Bs As, Argentina.
El fragmento que ocupa, curated by Mariana Rodríguez Iglesias and Jorgelina Dacil Infer. Dacil. Urbana, Vicente López, Argentina.
2016| Situación V, site-specific installation, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
2014| Grieta, con el colectivo Furor, Panal 361, Buenos Aires, Argentina.; TMPRL, group exhibition of Furor; Se alquila Estado, simultaneous group exhibition Madrid-Buenos Aires-Guatemala, Panal 361, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Imágenes de la memoria, Espacio Cultural de la Biblioteca del Congreso, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2015 | Colmada, Pintura e Instalación, Espacio MOEBIUS, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

HALLS AND SELECTIONS
2019| Salón de Mayo del Museo Rosa Galisteo; 2018| Salón Nacional Premio BANCOR; Museo de Artes Plásticas Eduardo Sívori; Salón Nacional de Tucumán; 2015| Museo Timoteo Navarro; Cuerpo inferior, Videoinstalación, Salón Nacional de Rosario, Museo Castagnino; Sobre la ruina, Cuerpo Inferior, Intervención y Video Instalación, La Verdi; Salón Manuel Belgrano Pintura Seleccionada en el Salón Nacional, Museo Sívori

RESIDENCIES
2011-2012 | EPAC, Espacio de Proyectos Audiovisuales Contemporáneos, Galería Arte x Arte. Bs As, Argentina.

Blank Space, Fellowships

Blank Space [4]
Cecilia Soldano

08.04.19 20.05.19

OUT OF THE BLUE
An ideas´residency for contemporary photographic practices

During the months of April and May 2019, a new edition of BLANK SPACE will open the Poliglota Hall at Fundación´ace’s house, in an attempt to frame the void and look forward to allow reflection, exchange of ideas and discussion. BLANK SPACE is a residency format that has started in 2017 and which has been successfully developed during three editions. For this fourth edition, and first of 2019, we have invited the curator Mariana Rodríguez Iglesias as coordinator, who has also proposed the theme and the program for it. Mariana will be assisted by the ´ace team, which will be available for consultation along the whole residency.

ABOUT OUT OF THE BLUE (by Mariana Rodríguez Iglesias)
Many times when a work is in its beginnings appears as pure sensation without form, an impossibility to say concretely because the language. In that intuitive moment, does not reach, it is necessary to create it, to give form to the verb.

From out of the blue we will work with oblique exercises, practices that seek to retrace paths and trace senses against the grain. The realization of these experimental exercises will always be followed by a meta-cognition moment, that is, a space-time to understand what was lived, what was learned and how we experienced that experience. It is, therefore, a work residence both practical and theoretical, both individual and collective.

AIMED AT:
The residence is addressed to all those people who are enthusiastic of photography at any stage of their careers and any age (however, Fundación´ace offers one fellowship to applicants under 35 years old).

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MARIANA RODRIGUEZ IGLESIAS

1980, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Lives and works in Buenos Aires, working in curatorial practice since 2006.
She does portfolio reviews and teaches writing workshops for artists. In addition, Mariana has been practicing yoga and meditation as fundamental parts of her daily life for more than 20 years.

_  Bachelor of Arts. University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
_  Kundalini Yoga instructor

2016 | Invited Curator. Curatorial Program for Research in Eastern Europe. Ministry of Culture. Argentina
2013 | Fellow Curator. Torcuato Di Tella University, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

_  Member of the ramona art magazine without images’s team. Buenos Aires, Argentina
_  Producer. Bola de Nieve project for Fundación Telefónica.
_  Designer of courses specially requested by the Friends of Malba Association
_  Member of the award Jury at  Itaú Visual Arts Award in Buenos Aires; C.Lab # 4 – Mercosur in San Pablo, Brazil
_  Member of the Selection Jury in FACA/Contemporary Art Fair; First Solo Show, Panal 361 and Oxenford Travel Grants, among others.

Proyecto´ace
Artist-in-Residence International Program

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International Airport

Ministro Pistarini- Ezeiza (EZE)
Buenos Aires
45' to 60' trip

Domestic Airport

Aeroparque Jorge Newbery
Buenos Aires

Buses

38, 39, 41, 42, 59, 63, 65, 67, 68, 151, 152, 161, 184, 194 and 168 (stop in the front door)

Subway/Metro

D Line (Green)
Olleros Station (4 blocks, 4')

Train

Mitre Line (either to Leon Suarez or Mitre)
Colegiales Station (1 block, 1')

The Latin America's Paris

Buenos Aires is Argentine Republic's capital city. With 15,000,000 inhabitants, it is one of the largest cities in Latin America and one of the 10 most populous urban centers in the world. Its cosmopolitan and urban character vibrates to the rhythm of a great cultural offer that includes monuments, churches, museums, art galleries, opera, music and theaters; squares, parks and gardens with old groves; characteristic neighborhoods; large shopping centers and fairs. Here we also find a very good lodging facilities, with accommodation ranging from hostels to five-star hotels of the main international chains. Buenos Aires also show off about its variety of restaurants with all the cuisines of the world, as well as to have cafes and flower kiosks on every corner.

A neighborhood founded on the Jesuit farms in the 17th century

We are located in Colegiales neighborhood where the tree-lined streets, some of which still have their original cobblestones, invite you to walk. Although the apartment buildings advance, low houses still predominate. It is a district of the city where about 20 TV production companies, design studios, artist workshops and the Rock&Pop radio have been located. The neighborhood also has six squares, one of which pays homage to Mafalda, the Flea Market, shops, restaurants and cafes like its neighboring Barrios de Palermo and Belgrano, with which it limits.

Proyecto´ace
Artist-in-Residence International Program

2024 Open Call #2
Residencies 2024

Deadline
April 30th, 2024

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