Winter exhibition
"FONS VITAE" a painting by
José Alberto Marchi
with a sound concept by CIRCULAR (J.A. Marchi and Daniel Varela).
Share this moment on December 13th and 20th
from 6 to 8 pm
and on Sunday December 16th from 2 to 6 pm
or by appointment from December 14th
until January 31st 2008
"FONS VITAE" a painting by
José Alberto Marchi
with a sound concept by CIRCULAR (J.A. Marchi and Daniel Varela).
Since 1999 José Alberto Marchi has focused his interest on the representation of the dematerialization of image and sound.
His work is often expressed in successive panels in which figures from the religious iconography as represented by
Da Vinci and in particular Jan van Eyck, gradually fade away in cadence with alternations of abstract musical sounds and intervals of silence.
While only executed on a single piece of 17th Century canvas FONS VITA is the most developped example of this technique as it transposes in full size but in muted terra cotta tones the lower half of the internal central panel of the famous poliptych of the Agneau Mystique.
As the viewer decyphers the image he is accompanied by brief minimalist musical compositions, punctuated by longer silences, which are executed on the organ, harp and viol, those selfsame instruments in view which are being played by van Eyck's angels.
J.F.C.
José Alberto Marchi
Born in Buenos Aires, in 1956, graduates from the National School of Visual Arts Manuel Belgrano and the National Academy of Fine Arts Prilidiano Pueyrredón.
During the last thirty years, he performes individual exhibitions of drawings in the galleries Arthea (1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980) and Wildenstein in Buenos Aires (1982 and 1984). He takes part to collective exhibitions and art fairs and obtains, inter alia, the Second Price of Drawing for the Young Artists of the Hebraica Argentina Company (1976), the First Price of the National Fair of Drawing (1986), the Second Price of Painting to the 9th Biennial one of Sacred art (2004). In 1992, he carries out his first individual exhibition of painting to the Gallery Zubarán, Buenos Aires, where he exposes regularly and in exclusivity until the year 2001. In 2004 he exposes "Solis Flamma" at Podewil, the center of the contemporary arts of Berlin, a series of paintings accompanied by a sound installation of Circular, a duet in which he develops his musical activity with Daniel Varela.
Circular: Duo formed by José Alberto Marchi and Daniel Varela in 1999, with the purpose of creating music that would be based on the colour (timbre) of the sound and the suspension of time, using strategies that come from minimalism, ancient music, and non-Western traditions. Circular’s discography includes Circular (2000), El Jardín Blanco (2001), and Inner Time Makers (2002) -all of them brought out by minuscula, Berlin-, and Stillness (2003), with the collaboration of Japanese musician Ko Ishikawa on sho (independent edition, distributed by minuscula, Berlin). By request of British curator Benjamin Green, Circular wrote Inner Time Gardens (2004) for his show One Hour As (FM Resonance, London). Their installation projects includes Solis Flamma (2003-2004, Podewil, Berlin), Música Blanca (2004 – 2005, Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires) and El Canto Celeste (2006- 2007, Dübendorf, Switzerland). Also, Circular composed a piece for winds in collaboration with Fluxus artist Philip Corner (USA-Italy). The duo has been included in internet project P-Art Web of Artists curated by Belgian experimental composer Paul Timmermans, and it is part of community of composers Frog Peak Music (New Hampshire, USA). They gave concerts at festival Der Negative Horizont (Podewil, Berlin), Rachel Haferkamp Gallery (Cologne), and festival Experimenta 2005 (Buenos Aires), Museo Latinoamericano de Arte Contemporáneo (MALBA, Buenos Aires) and Religio Music Nova festival (Zürich & Dübendorf, Switzerland).
He lives and works in Buenos Aires.