Heard on The StreetOctober 28, 2022· By Christine Frèrot
Marcela Gómez at Nuit Blanche, 2022
This is the third time that Argentine artist Marcela Gómez (Rosario, 1963) was invited to the international event "Nuit Blanche" held in Paris every first weekend of October. In 2014 she presented the immersive electroluminescent installation "Apesanteurs" (Weightlessness) at the Gymnase Huyghens, and in 2021, at the Eglise Sainte-Claire (Church of St. Clare), where she designed a large flame of the same material. Created in 2002 by the city of Paris, this international event has hosted more than 4,000 established and emerging artists exhibited in the most unexpected places. Artists of the prominence of Michelangelo Pistoletto, Carsten Höller, Pierrick Sorin, William Forsythe, and Subodh Gupta, and Latin Americans Julio Le Parc, Asdrúbal Colmenares, and Leandro Erlich, to name a few, in spaces such as churches, swimming pools, libraries, public gardens, railroad stations, Seine docks, squares or gyms. The idea has been emulated not only in Europe but worldwide, and in Latin America, it has attracted cities like Buenos Aires and Belo Horizonte.
The artist, who has lived in Paris since 1980, exhibits both in France and Argentina. Her curiosity has led her to work with many materials, such as roots, tree branches, rubber, ice, and fire, as well as the use of mirrors. For several years, Marcela Gómez has challenged herself to give life to space, to draw and construct the void to provide it with form and existence, and to make transparency the virtual materiality of her sensitive relationship with the world.
Marcela Gómez's light installation on the façade of the Argentine Embassy is 15 meters high and 9 meters wide (monochrome red/fire). Entitled "Chispa," it was made, like most of her current work, in the material she uses with great mastery, the electroluminescent thread. Weightlessness is the essential spring of her research work; it is the axis of an inner and artistic discourse in which the opposing forces that question space act in a constant dialectic. The path that Marcela Gómez follows, between line and form, line and volume, places her in a Latin American geometric, constructivist and kinetic tradition, which had its debut in the early thirties of the twentieth century. The artist pursues this search for universalism, where the demand for the essential is translated into soft metaphors in poetic and sensitive minimalism.
The artist, who has lived in Paris since 1980, exhibits both in France and Argentina. Her curiosity has led her to work with many materials, such as roots, tree branches, rubber, ice, and fire, as well as the use of mirrors. For several years, Marcela Gómez has challenged herself to give life to space, to draw and construct the void to provide it with form and existence, and to make transparency the virtual materiality of her sensitive relationship with the world.
Marcela Gómez's light installation on the façade of the Argentine Embassy is 15 meters high and 9 meters wide (monochrome red/fire). Entitled "Chispa," it was made, like most of her current work, in the material she uses with great mastery, the electroluminescent thread. Weightlessness is the essential spring of her research work; it is the axis of an inner and artistic discourse in which the opposing forces that question space act in a constant dialectic. The path that Marcela Gómez follows, between line and form, line and volume, places her in a Latin American geometric, constructivist and kinetic tradition, which had its debut in the early thirties of the twentieth century. The artist pursues this search for universalism, where the demand for the essential is translated into soft metaphors in poetic and sensitive minimalism.
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