Dot Fiftyone Gallery (Miami) and Galería Foster Catena (Buenos Aires) present a unique and unparalleled exhibition of Argentinean Contemporary Photography as part of the Art Basel Miami Beach 2011 and the Art Fairs week celebration from November 30 – December 4, 2011.

The exhibition Poetics of Expansion: Nine Views of Contemporary Argentine Photography features a selection of works by both emerging and established artists whose productions evidence a range of tendencies within Argentine art from the specific perspective of photography today. Far from a classical notion of photography as a means of register, these artists and their approaches indicate the expansion of a support in a process of redefinition. In recent decades, vertiginous technological transformation has meant that the traditional limits of photography have been surpassed; new forms of production, perception and circulation have emerged in a medium indispensable to the conception of contemporary art as a whole. This process has taken place in the midst of a period during which photography, as well as art scenes invisible until just a few years ago, has been revalorized. Thus, the Argentine production on exhibit here in Miami –a crucial center for the interaction of art from around the world– participates in current debates on photography in general, questioning its possibilities and scope.

Bruno Dubner´s work explores the basis of the photographic medium, experimenting with traces of light on photographic paper, negatives and slides, or placing his own body between rolls of film and sources of light in a darkroom. In Dubner’s work, the use of the camera is just one of the many possible operations with which he reflects on the photographic support as images and color planes reminiscent of Conceptualism emerge.
There are two very distinct lines of work within aesthetics rooted in digital post-production: Jorge Miño exhibits large-format photographs in transitory and moving architectures, spatialities that suggest the infinite and constant change in the perception of those who circulate through them visually. The visual resources that Miño uses to construct his photographs seem to come from the pictorial tradition; they are perceived in the composition, the use of color and the range of textures. The ghostly quality of the strictly figurative images, alongside other images that border on the abstract, suggests the immanence of time and that which is no longer materially present but lingers on in the distance. Marcelo Grosman’s series Guilty!, on the other hand, makes use of photographic records in prison archives to form archetypical portraits that evidence the operations of institutions of social control as they allocate guilt. This series of complex, digitally-constructed portraits makes reference to 19th-century theories of the supposed correlation between physiognomy and a subject’s “criminal” nature. Grosman’s works question the viewer in relation to the ambiguity of the guilty-victim construction as a political exercise. The textures of the faces and the powerful use of color are suggestive of the media as a discursive instrument of power.

Juan Sebastián Bruno uses the formal and compositional resources of abstraction to intervene on photographs by Edward Weston and Alexander Rodchenko. As he carefully places a selection of objects on existing images, Bruno rethinks the various meanings and problematics operative in the appropriation of historical artistic discourses as they intersect with his personal universe.
Cecilia Lenardón’s still lives present domestic worlds through the delicate placement of dishes and recipients from an array of sources on backgrounds whose graphic and formal qualities suggest unique monochromatic universes. Each element in the image seems indispensable to both the structure’s ability to remain upright and to the composition of the image. By means of a classic pictorial genre, Lenardón speaks of, and renders poetic, daily life.

Ignacio Iasparra’s photographs capture vegetation that becomes illusory as it takes the form of complex weaves of vibrant color, giving rise to a sense of estrangement akin to the one produced by landscapes of magical realism. The long exposure time under the light of the moon turns these beautiful and theme-less images into worlds that reflect on the ability of the photographic technique to do what art does, mainly reveal that which lies beyond the material reality it presents. Nor does the work of Guillermo Ueno attempt to represent a specific theme. By means of analogue photography and direct takes, Ueno portrays everyday scenes from his most intimate universe. He describes his images as koans –phrases used in Zen Buddhist teaching– that depict “companions in an erratic and dreamlike journey.” The artist seems to be someone else as he observes his world and discovers the beauty that underlies the simplest situations whose every detail he captures.
Alejandra Urresti exhaustively photographs a series of sets from cable television programs: from cable television programs: unabashedly ephemeral architectures that in no way try to hide the provisory nature of their manufacture and staging. Devoid of their smiling inhabitants, these constructions call us to a timeless silence. They are still so that their viewer can endow them with meaning.

Finally, with a sense of the absurd and critical humor, the artists’ collective Oligatega -Mateo Amaral, Maximiliano Bellmann, Alfio Demestre and Mariano Giraud- constructs scenes taken from science fiction literature. Their images are often based on a subversion of the use of technologies as well as a reuse of cultural waste to distort the meanings of territories, characters, objects and found materials.

by Guadalupe Chirotarrab

EXHIBITION'S OPENING RECEPTION: Monday November 28th: 7:30 pm - 11pm

This exhibition is made possible by the support of Ms. Stella Holmes, Overseas Partners Realty, The Brickellian; the collaboration of Arte al Dia Internacional, Alma Negra wines by Ernesto Catena Vineyards and the endorsement of the Argentinean Consulate in Miami.

Following the opening reception, gallery hours will be Monday-Friday, 11 A.M. to 7 P.M. On Saturdays private viewings will be available by appointment

Further information regarding the exhibitions is available by calling (305) 573-9994, via e-mail to Isaac@dot fiftyone.com and online at www.dotfiftyone.com
Dot Fiftyone Galery : 51 NW 36 Street - Wynwood Arts District – Miami, FL 33127