The Architectural, Photographic World of Buenos Aires Artist Jorge Miño
Through a photographic world of luminous ramps, infinite spiral staircases, and impossible constructs, Jorge Miño upends the veracity of the medium. In works that recall the twists and turns of Oscar Niemeyer’s iconic Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion (the venue of the Bienal of São Paulo) and the labyrinthine universe found in engravings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, the artist mines fantastic architectural interiors, and makes them into fantastical illusions. Flooded in rich neon light, or distilled to bright white and shades of grey, his dioramic interior landscapes takes stairs, railings, and inclined planes as their subjects, which Miño enlivens. Despite the fact that each work is devoid of human life, his depictions of these elements—means of passage built with the purpose of facilitating access from point A to point B—are reverberating visions of motion, activated through intersecting lines and layered images.
“What he makes are photos after photos, laboratory specimens that release images from their obsession with the referent so that they can show something more than what the eye has seen,” wrote Graciela Speranza, in an introduction to the artist’s recent exhibition at Praxis International Art in New York. “In the age of post-production and appropriationism, Miño preserves every trace of the aura of the place and the photographer: the original image is always one and it is his.” As she explains, the basis of his practice is photographing photographs; each work is instantly a meta experience beckoning a dialogue on perception, sight, and the camera lens.
The Buenos Aires-based artist takes the spotlight on his home turf this week, with a solo presentation in the Praxis booth arteBA. On view are new and recent works, from various series including “Crosslines”—saturated color photographs that focus on ramps, casting image, shadow and light against each other—and “Behind the Invisible”—works that home in on curves and simulate infinity, through a blurred indefinite lens. Notable among works on view is Perspectiva del simulacro, a crisp vision of several staircases, rotated and woven together to produce something of an optical illusion. To look at Miño’s works is to enter his world where nothing is certain, images are multivalent, and passageways are open ended.
See his works at Praxis at arteBA, Buenos Aires, Main, Booth E 41, May 23rd–26th.
Follow Praxis and explore arteBA 2014 on Artsy.
