11/09/2018Severine Grosjean
The work of the young Uruguayan artist María Agustina Fernández Raggio could be summarized in this phrase by the French art critic René Huyghe “A portrait is a direct trace of the experience of time”. In fact, Maria Agustina explores in all its forms a classic theme of the history of art: the portrait. The center of her work is the study of the individual, but not of anyone: the one who marks the History. This representation of the figure seems to be a great concern of this young generation of artists of which she is a part. An intrinsic theme in her life, she tries to unravel the mysteries hidden behind the eyes of the person she “finds” to be through painting or performance.
In her urban intervention in 2009 in the streets of Ciudadela de Juan Manuel Blanes, entitled Artigas The Pro, María Agustina Fernández Raggio places 1,000 posters of the portrait of Artigas, a Uruguayan soldier named “El Libertador” who participated in the war of independence of Argentina and Uruguay. What can this portrait mean today? By touching the commemorative portrait, she invokes shared emotion. She gets in touch with the public and among the many answers, she thinks about stories, she breaks down barriers and she provokes a consciousness awakening.
The portrait is everywhere around us like an ancestor hanging on the wall. It is part of our personal and collective history. Maria Agustina Fernandez Raggio looks at the portrait again as a need, as a fascination evoked. Speaking of her latest work Cinco Retratos Digitales on post-dictatorship presidents, she “sees it as a parallel between (her) life and democracy, it is the portrait of an era that integrates us into more important situations.”
Presented at the 3rd Montevideo Biennial, this work seeks to portray the five presidents who governed the country from 1985 until today (Julio María Sanguinetti, Luis Alberto Lacalle Herrera, Jorge Batlle, Tabaré Vázquez y José Mujica). Maria Agustina is looking for a way to apprehend the Other. She gives the icon new life and demonstrates its carnal dimension by scanning it in its private space. The artist crystallizes the meeting digitally and rethinks past events. From a collective image, Maria Agustina invites each one to approach intimately the power.
Portraits create links that are sometimes unexpected, unpublished or even mystical. These links are the basis of an encrypted and reserved language, but they are not the only ones. María Agustina has appropriated many national symbols in her works, including the presidential band or religious icons in Proyecto Comunión in 2013. The symbols become foreign and family rituals, according to its (re) presentation. In the Proyecto Comunión, Maria Agustina Fernández Raggio creates a work that talks about art, religion and current affairs.
For this, she replied and exhibited 33 replicas of the Virgin of Miracles in a pacifier with multiple flavors. 33 as the 33 miracles performed by Christ in the Gospels. It is in the dividing line between the artisanal performance, where there is a know-how and the Eat Art, where an artistic project is exposed. There is a total sensory experience that disfigures the border between design and art, as well as between fashion and art.
The political is an integral part of the life of society. María Agustina Fernández Raggio produces dialogues that encourage the public to think about their coexistence with national symbols and how we identify ourselves as a people. The young artist María Agustina Fernández Raggio transcends the public and the private life.
Partnership: The Nomad Creative Projects
