Diorama

What is the link between matter and form in capitalist societies? In other words: what are objects? These are philosophical questions with strong sociocultural components that Gaspar Libedinsky (Buenos Aires, 1976) answers with his own work.

Libedinsky is a visual artist, architect, and educator with a broad international career. His interdisciplinary work mediates between social urban phenomena and private, intimate space.

In Diorama, Libedinsky once again challenges all categories without any naiveté. His academic and professional career reinforces his empathetic attitude toward marginalized materials and—not without a certain irony—he offers as works of art rags with haute couture cuts and beautiful clouds, bursting with color and sharp plastic bursts, constructed with cobweb dusters.

From the everyday, domestic realm, these cleaning products, considered second-rate due to their utility and price, rebel in a queer gesture and shift genre to present themselves as glamorous works of art, redefined by the context that protects them: that of art galleries.

Consumer societies have distorted the life of objects, exchanging need for a supposed desire that seems to be, the artist tells us, colored mirrors typical of the market. Neither matter nor form. Brands: we no longer buy consumer goods but rather consume status, image, appearance.

In Diorama, an exhibition at Praxis New York on view until April 5, an aesthetic and disruptive experience is enabled in front of the works, which attract with their elegance and disturb with the disrepute of their materials. In a Duchampian gesture, by incorporating cleaning products into the artistic circuit, the work acquires a heightened conceptual meaning.

Another significant fact complements this exhibition: the gallery where Diorama is displayed is adjacent to and overlooks the High Line Park, a project in which Libedinsky participated 20 years ago as an architect working for the renowned studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

The artist states: “As the designer of that park, the fact that it can be seen from the gallery is exceptional for me. The possibility of showing the work as an artist with a view of my work as an architect makes it unique. There is a spatial, conceptual, and emotional connection. The High Line was a marginal structure, and we transformed it into an element of desire in the city. That driving idea is the same one I work with in my work as a visual artist: transforming the domestic into an object of desire: the rag becomes a garment, and the broom becomes coral formations, or clouds.”

The exhibition features a curatorial text by Diller Scofidio + Renfro. Floating on the gallery's façade is a unique, earthy, pompous, and multicolored cloud made from 300 ceiling cobweb dusters. The work of a Renaissance-style artist, who makes the world's materials his own laboratory and his life a constant exploration.

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Diorama is on view until April 5 at Praxis Gallery, 501 W 20th St, New York.