After many years of rigorous and restrictive work, the artist opens a new chapter in his production.
‘There is a very famous curve at the Autódromo Gálvez called Salotto. It’s a sharp curve.’ —Pablo Siquier
The exhibition will be accompanied by a text by Pablo Katchadjian.
OPENING
Wednesday, 10 September, 6 p.m.
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They are not even trees
Pablo Katchadjian
One could always ask oneself, when faced with anything that has been created, the following question: what did the artist want to do, and what did he actually do? The answer can only be speculative. This exhibition, however, gives us an advantage in our speculation, because there are, let’s say, two series: some small drawings of trees and some enormous oil paintings with a less clear motif. I know this because the artist told me, and I can reveal the following: Siquier drew those trees in surprise and somehow, without understanding how, ended up with the paintings. So one could say: he wanted to paint trees and those paintings came out. But also, so as not to skip the speculation, one could say: he wanted to paint those paintings and the trees guided him there. And then, in front of the paintings, one might ask: what did he do?
The surprising thing about the trees is that they seem to explain what was there before they appeared. I mean: all of Siquier’s previous work, although it was not evident, is now revealed to be made of branches. Or wicker, perhaps. I mean that these trees, for me, say: “We come from there, from before”. But if there were branches before… There is, as is often the case, a saying that causes confusion: “Don’t let the tree prevent you from seeing the forest”.
The sequence could be:
-don’t let the branches prevent you from seeing the tree
-don’t let the tree prevent you from seeing the forest
-don’t let the forest prevent you from seeing…
The branches? If that were the case, we would be in a horrible loop. How do you get out of it? Either by speeding up the loop so that everything explodes, or by responding differently. ‘Don’t let the forest prevent you from seeing that what you want to see is something else.’ What else? The river, the earth, the sky, perhaps.
But why do I have to see the forest if what I’m looking at is a tree, and how is the tree going to prevent me from seeing it if the tree is also the forest, and the branches are also the forest? In the high-speed loop, everything melted together and became one, which is what it was before it was broken down by speculation. And if everything became one, one’s self also appears: let the tree not prevent you from seeing yourself looking at the tree.
Then we can reach a conclusion. What did he want to do and what did he do? He looked at trees with fascination, drew them with fascination in a notebook, and immediately realised that there was a problem with representation, with the mirror. Siquier surely thought: ‘Let the drawings of trees not prevent me from seeing the trees.’ How can we continue to see the trees? By maintaining our fascination, that is, by doing things without understanding them.
One wish, to conclude: may the kilos of oil paint not prevent you from seeing yourself looking at the trees.
