Overview
© Kicca Tommasi
Working in a variety of media, Argentine artist Jorge Macchi's work can be defined through its precise sense of perception and observation. Using everyday objects as his focal point, Macchi is able to present these with an acute sensitivity, by placing them outside of their context and highlighting the often ignored.
Fictions, inversions, paradoxes, and metamorphosis: everything aims to displace the „good sense“ and order of the Idea, of the predictable, of the knowable. In their elements and effects, the things in his work are animated by a disorder, by an unprecedented freedom. Macchi, in most cases, constructs paradoxical objects entirely in the real world. The artist’s interest in producing errors that act as jokes and triggers of the uncanny, reveals a determination to embody something that escapes logic. His works put together an image that is both commonplace and impossible, as stubborn in its will to signify as it is in its resistance to signifying. At the same time, he is also almost scientific both in his interests, which unfold around a logical experimentation and the control he exercises over language.
Macchi’s ability to create poetic-visual constructs in different media, languages, challenge the viewer’s perception which alternates between enigma and anecdote. He makes use of refined visual codes while appealing to the viewers’ experience of the world and everyday life. An important key to the interpretation of his work lies in a playful back and forth between the apparent, intentend, and immediate meaning, on the one hand, and the different layers of a posteriori meaning, on the other, a key that privileges the paradox at play.
Another element for reflection on Macchi’s work is the way it is inserted in the exhibition venue, how it seizes the white cube as work surface. The potential transformation and a cold, yet humorous, criticism of space underlines the unspoken alliance between artwork and viewer.
Selected works
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All the words in the world, 2024 -
The Submerged Cathedral (clock), 2020
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NEWS, 2020
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Drift bottle (Hidria segundo), 2020
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The Submerged Cathedral, 2020
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Drift bottle (Stadt Zurich), 2020
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Matrioshka, 2019
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Ladder, 2017
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Extreme Weather, 2017
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Línea y punto (Line against Point), 2017
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Mare Marginis, 2017
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Farmacia (Pharmacy), 2017
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Central Kathamdu, 2017
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Iconoclasta, 2016
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Cardboard, 2016
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The Book of Hours, 2015
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Beehive, 2013
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Second, 2013
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Two of a kind, 2013
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Limmat, 2012
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XYZ, 2012
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Illumination, 2012
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Deadline, 2011
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12 Short Songs, 2009
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Still song, 2005
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Vanishing Point, 2005
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Quotations Nº 1, 2002
Selected exhibitions
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Jorge Macchi
Beaufort24, Beaufort Triennal, Belgium 23 Mar - 3 Nov 2024JORGE MACCHI All the words in the world Monument in Koksijde Beaufort Triennal Belgium March 23 - November 3, 2024 A keyboard without the keys – does it indicate the...Read more -
Jorge Macchi
Argentina. What the night tells the day (Group Show)PAC Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan, Italy
21 Nov 2023 - 11 Feb 2024The exhibition presents a selection of works created by more than twenty Argentinean artists of different generations over the last fifty years. Through sculptures, installations, photographs, videos and performances, the...Read more -
30 Years Anniversary Exhibition
Galerie Peter Kilchmann
Rämistrasse, Zurich
3 Sep - 14 Oct 202230 Years Anniversary Exhibition Rita Ackermann (*1968 Budapest), Francis Alÿs (*1959 Antwerpen), Maja Bajevic (*1967 Sarajevo), Hernan Bas (*1978 Miami), Armin Boehm (*1972 Aachen), Marc Bauer (*1975 Genf), Monica Bonvicini...Read more -
Jorge Macchi
Drift BottlesGalerie Peter Kilchmann, Zahnradstrasse, Zurich
31 Oct 2020 - 16 Jan 2021Different media, such as drawing, text, installation, sculpture, ready-made, photography, collage, cut-outs, prints, architecture, and painting can coexist harmoniously in Macchi's cosmos and are held together formally and content-wise by...Read more -
Jorge Macchi
The Submerged CathedralMusée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland
10 Sep - 11 Nov 2020The installation he has designed and mounted for the Espace Projet starts with the Museum’s wall of plate glass and its seven individual elements. Fascinated since the age of twenty...Read more -
Jorge Macchi and Edgardo Rudnitzky
Maratón, BienalsurMuseo de Arte Contemporáneo de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina
13 Jun 2019For the first time, both artists showed all of their joint work carried out since 2003, which includes videos, video installations, sound installations and performances. The collaborative work of Macchi...Read more -
Jorge Macchi
MikrokosmosGalerie Peter Kilchmann, Zahnradstrasse, Zurich
7 Apr - 27 May 2017Inspired by the collection of progressive piano pieces Mikrokosmos , composed by Bela Bartók between 1926 and 1939, Jorge Macchi creates with his exhibition a little universe: the works on...Read more -
Jorge Macchi
PerspectivaCA2M Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo, Móstoles, Spain
17 Feb - 11 Jun 2017The exhibition showcases around 40 works made between 1990 and the present, and is divided into various thematic cores, ranging from his cartographies, works made with newspaper cuttings, installations in...Read more -
Jorge Macchi
PerspectivaMuseo de Arte Latinoamericano, Buenos Aires, Argentina
1 Apr - 29 May 2016The title Perspectiva [Perspective] refers to a look that goes from the present to the artist’s personal and experiential past expressed in his life work. But it also evokes a...Read more -
Jorge Macchi
PrestidigitadorMUAC Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City, Mexico
8 Feb - 8 Jun 2014Prestidigitator comprises seven oil paintings that put into play the contradiction of sensory experience they offer and the expectations of visual culture. It is an elaborate system of obstacles and...Read more -
Die Nase des Michelangelo
Special location: Marktgasse 4 - 6, Zurich, Switzerland 10 - 19 Dec 2010Rita Ackermann / Francis Alÿs / Maja Bajević / Michael Bauer / Christoph Büchel / Valentin Carron / Urs Fischer / Peter Fischli & David Weiss / Bruno Jakob /...Read more -
Deux Pièces
Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Limmatstrasse 270, Zürich 7 Jun - 24 Jul 2009Mario Comensoli / Trudi Demut / Karl Geiser / Emma Kunz / Adolf Wölfli / Rita Ackermann / Francis Alÿs / Michael Bauer / Raffi Kalenderian / Zilla Leutenegger /...Read more -
15 Jahre Galerie Peter Kilchmann 1992 - 2007
Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Limmatstrasse, Zurich 30 Aug - 11 Oct 2008Rita Ackermann / Francis Alÿs / Maja Bajević / Michael Bauer / Willie Doherty / Bruno Jakob / Jochen Kuhn / Zilla Leutenegger / Jorge Macchi, Teresa Margolles / Fabian...Read more -
Jorge Macchi
'round midnightGalerie Peter Kilchmann
1 Jun - 26 Jul 2008“Twilight” is a collaboration with the musician Edgardo Rudnitzky. In this capacious installation a light bulb slides down a stretched wire until it reaches the opposite corner of the room....Read more -
Jorge Macchi
Still SongGalerie Peter Kilchmann, Limmatstrasse, Zurich
15 Oct - 12 Nov 2005In kilchmann plus there is a new room especially constructed for the installation Still Song. When entering this room the visitor automatically sees the stagnant disco ball, which is hanging...Read more
Press
Publications
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Jorge Macchi
Block - Dibujos 1996 - 2008 Giorgio Gugliemino, 2008 Read more -
Jorge Macchi
Perspectiva, 2016 Text by: Agustin Perez Rubio, Inés Katzenstein, Rodrigo MouraEdited by: Comunidad de Madrid. Publicaciones Oficiales
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Jorge Macchi
Music stands still, 2011 Text by: Thibaut Verhoeven, Sigismond de VajayEditor: S.M.A.K., Ghent
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