intervenciones

$Catholic University, Argentina, UCA 2001 - 2010 Works Alejandra Mettler, is a transhumant explorer, she arouses with her work an awakening in observer’s conscience and experience. As initial concept she takes the emblematic Argentinian flag, a heart-shaped candy, several rosaries or a field fence, wrapping them with new supports, creating original images and situations with a touch of poetry. In this way, she provokes in the observer, before any reflection an instant of intensity and a singular approach to the work. Mettler performs urban interventions with a delicate Argentinian flag of 200 metres long, knitted by thousands of willing volunteers. This act had been gestated at "Banderas Unidas" Civil Association, created by the artist. Knitting needles and white and blue wool were distributed among hard-working neighbours who, reunited in community centres, neighbour organizations, schools, churches and squares, knitted cloths of 30 centimetres, to be woven together to extend a big flag. Finally, and once again, that work would be fractioned in blankets to help warm up the needy. Knitters, men and women, were called together to recover a symbol, from a small sample already knitted by them: the flag. A performing act, fully loaded with emotions, which coming from our most intimate and collective memory, produces undreamed of effects in each of us, and the community. The knitting language as a support contributes a dialog, of understanding and approaching atmosphere. That is how we can see grandparent knitters, worked in the past before the invasive technological world, being able to recover their traditional space, taking over their responsibility as keepers of traditions, costume and values that were heritage from their ancestors. The flag then is not only a symbol but also a beacon that marks a route of integration and pacific coexistence. When the artist place the Argentinian flag in public sites such as the Congress, the Flag Monument in Rosario or the impressive Law University of Buenos Aires, she seeks to direct our sight and sensitize our perception by granting these urban icons with a singular augury. The ideas expressed in each of these interventions are closely related with the physical space where they are placed. In this way, urban space becomes an essential part of the work, getting cover with a subtle poetic and daring aura, renewing the value of their true social function. Alejandra Mettler also shows us her concern for those who live in extreme poverty, through images that connect two worlds reunited by the national symbol. With that knitted flag, the artist walks through the streets of a humble neighbourhood such as San Jorge, and captures in a series of photo-shoots a perspective that goes from inside to outside, from very poor to sumptuous. Another approach to understand the bicentennial celebrations and using this as support for this original performance. In another act, the allegory of the flag knit by anonymous hands covers the Virgin as a cloak, changing the depiction of this image and demanding another look from the observer. By an instant, her holy and traditional message of love transforms itself; being echo of the secular love, without nullifying her holy luminosity. The usual mystic perspective represents the heart, always in red colour, as a symbol of merciful depiction and the source from where love flows; that is how it has been represented through art history and traditional iconography. Through a sequential production in time, Mettler associates the red heart to a "candy material”, which instinctively she integrates in our daily environment giving form to the collective imaginary that identify us and give us a sense of belonging. The act of eating sweets implies a code of behaviour and a parameter of communication, a solid form of images and flavours that could remit us to a system of uses, tightly bonded to certain moments and social contexts. For instance, we can name the informality, the absence of fixed schedules and strict rules that we can find in the realm of candies. From that red heart, ambivalent candy, mercy sprouts in a symbolic way. Alejandra also aspires to transmit her spiritual message using other objects from the religious imaginary; she hangs several rosaries, close reference to the holy, essential aspect in human kind life. In her presentation, the accumulation and intense colouring, becomes dialog, communication. "Corralito" (2001), make another interesting focus, allusive to what it meant for us the economic crisis. Here, the artist intervenes a fence by painting it with sky blue and white, the flag colours. Through this work we can refer to our ancestral traditions of animal husbandry (gauchos, herdsmen, shepherds, producers, consignee) that were passed from generation to generation, forming a work environment of social responsibility and solidarity, as for example in the pens of Mataderos. There we can also find the flag, guarding... Alejandra Mettler surprises and amazes, transforming perceptions, and constructing alternative visions of our world. Released from their rhetoric but making an impact and touching the spectator from different angles, her artistic interventions achieves in creating an own language for her works, that in some way, do not depend on critics to be explained or justified. Lic. Cecilia Cavanagh Curator and Director of Fine Arts Pavilion - UCA$

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