Alejandra Fenochio
Alejandra Fenochio: Painting the Margins with Dignity and Defiance
June 03, 2025 | nadiaevangelina
In "Ahora" (Now), Alejandra Fenochio’s first solo exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts, the Argentine painter delivers a visceral, luminous chronicle of urban marginality. Curated by Ana Longoni and Carlos Herrera, the show gathers 40 works created since 2001, including large-scale nocturnal street scenes and intimate portraits, all suffused with a raw, empathetic gaze.
Fenochio, who has lived and worked in La Boca for over three decades, paints from within the communities she depicts. Her subjects (neighbors, friends, and fellow artists) are never anonymous. Their presence is rendered with a painterly tenderness that resists voyeurism. As Longoni notes, Fenochio’s portraits begin with the eyes, which "shine and crash against the viewer," initiating a dialogue that unfolds across the canvas without preparatory sketches.
The exhibition’s centerpiece is a series of monumental canvases previously displayed on the Nicolás Avellaneda transporter bridge, connecting La Boca and Isla Maciel. Originally intended for a brief outdoor showing, the works remained in place for nearly two years, exposed to the elements and passersby's gaze. This act underscores Fenochio’s commitment to art as a public, participatory gesture, an extension of her long-standing engagement with political art collectives like Etcétera and collaborations with León Ferrari.
The paintings themselves are dense with atmosphere: dogs prowl alongside sleeping figures; bodies huddle beneath makeshift shelters; light flickers from unseen sources. Fenochio’s palette is dark yet vibrant, capturing the eerie beauty of nocturnal Buenos Aires. Her compositions, often constructed from memory and imagination, eschew linear perspective in favor of emotional truth. These are not documentary images but "fictions of the real," as Cristina Civale aptly describes them.
Also on view is "Naipas," a feminist card deck conceived during a hospital vigil in 2016 and printed for the first time for this exhibition. The deck extends Fenochio’s practice into the realm of participatory object-making, inviting viewers to engage with her work beyond the canvas.
"Ahora" situates Fenochio within a lineage of socially engaged Argentine painters, from Antonio Berni to Marcia Schvartz, while asserting her singular voice. Her work is a testament to the power of painting to bear witness, to dignify, and to disturb. In a world increasingly desensitized to suffering, Fenochio insists on seeing and on making us see.
Fenochio, who has lived and worked in La Boca for over three decades, paints from within the communities she depicts. Her subjects (neighbors, friends, and fellow artists) are never anonymous. Their presence is rendered with a painterly tenderness that resists voyeurism. As Longoni notes, Fenochio’s portraits begin with the eyes, which "shine and crash against the viewer," initiating a dialogue that unfolds across the canvas without preparatory sketches.
The exhibition’s centerpiece is a series of monumental canvases previously displayed on the Nicolás Avellaneda transporter bridge, connecting La Boca and Isla Maciel. Originally intended for a brief outdoor showing, the works remained in place for nearly two years, exposed to the elements and passersby's gaze. This act underscores Fenochio’s commitment to art as a public, participatory gesture, an extension of her long-standing engagement with political art collectives like Etcétera and collaborations with León Ferrari.
Also on view is "Naipas," a feminist card deck conceived during a hospital vigil in 2016 and printed for the first time for this exhibition. The deck extends Fenochio’s practice into the realm of participatory object-making, inviting viewers to engage with her work beyond the canvas.
"Ahora" situates Fenochio within a lineage of socially engaged Argentine painters, from Antonio Berni to Marcia Schvartz, while asserting her singular voice. Her work is a testament to the power of painting to bear witness, to dignify, and to disturb. In a world increasingly desensitized to suffering, Fenochio insists on seeing and on making us see.
"Now"
Location: National Museum of Fine Arts, Av. del Libertador 1473, CABA, Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Opening Date: 7th May 2025
End Date: 8th June 2025
Working hours: Tuesday-Friday: 11am to 8pm/ Sunday-Saturday: 10am to 8pm
Official website:
Artist:
