06/14 — 09/30/24
Gallery 1. Level -1
The work of the Argentinean artist duo Mondongo (Juliana Laffitte and Manuel Mendanha) is characterized by a reinterpretation of classic works and topics from the history of art. In their practice, they try to establish a conversation with the past in order to transit the present.
Invited to develop a site-specific proposal for Gallery 1 of the museum and as a tribute to Antonio Berni, Mondongo proposed the challenge of establishing a dialogue with an emblematic work of Argentine art: Demonstration (1934), part of the Malba Collection.
"Berni is a central artist in our production, because in some way he opened the path for us to paint the world with diverse and meaningful materials. We understand that the themes and forms that constitute this multiple portrait that is Demonstration are projected ninety years ago and continue to have the capacity to question us in a profound and beautiful way," the artists maintain.
The large-format piece, created especially for the exhibition, allowed Mondongo to condense for the first time in a collective portrait all the possibilities of working with plasticine that they had discovered and perfected over the last 20 years of research with the material.
Guided Tours
Thursdays at 5:00 p.m.
Included with museum admission ticket.
Catalogue
On the occasion of the exhibition, Malba is publishing a catalogue that, in addition to reproducing the works on display and documenting the site-specific installation, will include texts specially commissioned for the project. Written by twelve authors from various disciplines, the contributions will form a kind of unique, choral text around the concept of “manifestation.” Drawing on art history, film, literature, and contemporary urban thought, Albertina Carri, Fernando García, Francisco Garamona, Carmen González Taboas, Sergio Bizzio, Gastón Cammarata, Margarita Martínez, Laura Isola, Fernando Martín Peña, Ariana Reines, and Marie Gouiric will construct a multiple sounding board for Mondongo's work and the new meanings it offers for reading Berni's great piece in the present.
About Mondongo
Mondongo is a pair of Argentine artists who have been working collaboratively since 1999, consisting of Juliana Laffitte (Buenos Aires, 1974) and Manuel Mendanha (Buenos Aires, 1976). Their work addresses recurring themes in art history, generating opportunities to engage with existing debates around work—as a fundamental condition of human life—, the economy, and systems of power. Their images seek to consolidate and update the conversation with the past that has nourished contemporary art through atypical material and procedural experimentation that gives rise to the representation of fantastical and strange scenes.
About Demonstration by Antonio Berni
Antonio Berni's Demonstration (1934) is a key piece in the Malba Collection that is usually part of the “Transforming Society” section of the exhibition Tercer Ojo. Colección Costantini en Malba, on display on Level 1 of the museum. The work will be temporarily moved to the Level -1 gallery as part of Mondongo's tribute exhibition to the artist from Rosario. Manifestation is an iconic painting of the new realism that Berni promoted in the 1930s to work artistically on the social dimension, denouncing inequality, exclusion, and poverty. The artist conceived it as a transportable mural to be displayed at strikes and political rallies. The materials and technique —tempera paint on burlap bags sewn together— are in keeping with the situation of the working classes represented, while the new resources he uses —reference photographs, cinematic framing, multiple points of view— reflect a modern take on the subject.
In 2021, Malba undertook the institutional project Manifestación en foco, an interdisciplinary research project that gathered previously unpublished information about this paradigmatic piece, which can be accessed both in the museum's galleries and on its website.
