"Las oferentes" by Carla Grunauer, an ancestral ritual at the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires
October 27, 2021 | nadiaevangelina"Las oferentes" (The Offerors) is Carla Grunauer's first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Curated by Lucrecia Palacios, the show consists of a selection of unpublished works, created by the artist during the year 2021, which revolve around imaginary and mythological figures with a modern treatment that recreates the ancient practice of ritual.
As soon as we enter the room, the viewer is struck by a burst of pastel colors and hybrid forms. The sculptures, the discipline in which this artist trained in drawing and engraving has worked for the first time, mark the rhythm of the exhibition. They are figures composed of soft colors and curved lines that include organic materials such as trunks and plants. In her paintings, we can also find bodies that twist and distort.
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| Inside the exhibition |
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| "Luz mala" (2021) by Carla Grunauer |
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| Inside one of the sculptures |
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| "La cicatriz del tronco" (2021) by Carla Grunauer |
Lévi-Strauss argued that modern art shared some commonalities with primitive art. Modern art broke with the figurative or representational tradition that originated in the Renaissance, which the author associated with artistic individuality and a form of subjugation of humans to the surrounding nature. For the author, figurative works try to imitate and no longer simply signify.
That said, art that is not representational is obliged to signify. With this Lévi-Strauss expressed that modern art returned the significant function of the work as in primitive art. This movement pretends that all human groups are situated in the same way, as if they were part of a group that understands the same rules or the same symbols. And like a ritual, "Las oferentes" invites the viewer to be part of the same group, united in an experience, in contact with nature and not appropriating it, together with beings we do not know and divinities of the most varied.
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