“I am not an environmentalist, but I made my way because the damage that climate change produces about Antarctica met me”Says the Italian artist Paola MarchTto. “During my first trip, five years ago, in an expedition that National Geographic invited me, I was another spectator, innocent if you want. But what I saw, and that led me to register all that only with my iPhone, moved me, disturbed me. It was not that I, as a photography artist, went to the object, but that the object came to me. ”
Two years later, aboard the Irízar Almirante, MarchTto He returned to the frozen continent in a more professional way. He carried a Canon Eos R5 camera, and made a three -week journey, going down in different Antarctic bases. “The drama I witnessed imposed the need to document it. I saw everything much more closely, the damage that advanced. Environmental risk condemns not only man but all creatures, animals, plants, to the entire planet. I have traveled a lot of world and I can make comparisons. For example in Australia, and even in Patagonia, whales jump in the water, in Antarctica they navigate to the edge of the water, submissive. ”
Next Saturday, when Antarctica day is commemorated, MarchTto will open for the public at the Libertad Palace, Domingo F. Sarmiento Cultural Center, its new exhibition “Aurora. Antarctica, beauty that melts “. Cured by Pablo Padulathe exhibition presents unpublished photographs in large format, captured in direct shots during the aforementioned expedition aboard the Irízar Admiral Rompehielos. The images will be exhibited simultaneously in two spaces: in the Libertad Palace, where 20 photographs will be presented, and in the ecoparque, with a selection of 14.
“The subject never stopped worrying”, Says MarchTto. “I signed requests, I donated, I supported campaigns. He did things, but for something he considered something distant. Only from 2020, with the pandemic, upon my return from the first trip, I realized that it is a apocalypse what is being lived. My conscience changed since then: but I also realized, because I also come from journalism and I am accustomed to the social media, that people have no empathy or sympathy with environmentalists, except the youngest. The fight is double: against climate change, and against people’s disinterest in that fight ”.
Beauty of the remote
The photographs that make up the current exhibition are unpublished. The padula points out that the photographs of MarchTto “They tend to a strange pictorial beauty of the remote. They bring us closer to a metaphysics of the territorial and, in that access, they position humanity all before the sublime, as a bridge towards the time of life, the original. This approach is reflected in the introspective use of the camera to explore a spiritual and contemplative connection with the most remote landscapes ”.
The exhibition, sponsored by the Ministry of Culture of the Nation, the City Government, CECA LAC (Committee on Education and Cultural Action for Latin America and the Caribbean) and the Laetitia D’Arenberg Foundation, in collaboration with Eye-V Gallery , is part of a series that MarchTto started in 2020, which he called “Melting beauty “the expression in English to “Beauty that melts.”
Paola MarchTtoborn in Venice, descend from a family of lineage: she is the daughter of Humberto and Marta MarchTtoand granddaughter of the count Gaetano MarchTtofounder of one of the most important textile companies in Italy, his mother became the inspiring muse of the paintings of Gutusso “Guttuso was a communist, a great friend of Pasolini whom I also met as a girl. In 1941, he painted his most famous and revolutionary work, ‘La Crucifixion’, reminiscent of Picasso, in which one of the soldiers who torture Christ has Hitler’s features. We had an apartment in Rome, in Piazza Di Spagna, and on the other side lived another great painter, Giorgio de Chirico. At night, from my window, I saw him paint ”.
In his career as a photoreporter, MarchTto He was in the Philippines jungle during the filming of “Apocalypse Now”of Francis Ford Coppola. “At that time, the late 70s, only work with 36 celluloid were worked, you had to have a very good eye to take the photos because then the scenes were not going to be repeated. I was photographing the entire part of the walky ride, that of helicopter attacks, with Robert Duvall. ”
“The works that make up my new sample will be exposed for the first time, not only in the country but in the world”, Continue. “In October they will arrive in Madrid, where I am now participating in a collective sample, in the Polytechnic, called ‘fingerprint’. Also in other parts of the world. Beyond the aesthetic, because in this new exhibition those photos will be seen that transpose a metaphysical character, they also contribute to raise the dangers that global warming involves for humanity. We have a disaster before us if nothing is done to prevent it ”.
When we notice that, in the agendas of many countries, where the right advances, that is an issue that not only does not take into consideration but, on the contrary, it is underestimated, when it does not know how to despise, the artist responds : “That is true, and it is what produces the most fear. You have to see, without going any further, the amount of natural disasters that have been produced, such as fires in Patagonia, or in Malibu, to get an idea of the dimension of danger. I do not know, you have to see if artificial intelligence is smarter than that of man and intervenes, but if the political will is missing, it is useless. Look at a person like Elon Musk, he does not live in nature, he lives in another order. In Europe, although not in all countries, they seem to be understanding that danger ”.
The struggle of MarchTtofrom art, it is rooted in a family tradition. “Although they are different risks, I always remember that my grandfather, who had to live in Mussolini’s Italy, did everything to prevent his company from collaborating with war. In those days, the factories were forced to contribute to the manufacture of weapons of war. Many years ago I met the famous engineer Rudolf Hruska, the creator of many automobile models, including Maggiolino (the Italian ‘beetle’), who told me: “I contributed to his family. I declared that the factory was not suitable for the manufacture of weapons’”
A similar theme is the one that addresses the famous movie of Luchino Visconti “the fall of the gods”set in Nazism, when a family of steel industrialists are forced to collaborate with the war despite the disgust they feel for Hitler.
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Painting and metaphysics
The curator, The padulawrote: “The impulse to explore, to go further, is nothing but the echo of that cosmic trip. We are reflections of that first expansive movement, witnesses of a constant development. And in that movement, art rises as an eternal testimony, a way of sculpting memory, as a record of the final judgment, according to theologians, or as the basis of progress, according to scientists. But beyond its functions, art records what has been lived in affective memory, weaving culture and creating knowledge. “
Regarding the metaphysical dimension, the night of the soul, as expressed San Juan de la Cruzan Italian critic compared photographs of MarchTto With the paintings of the Swiss painter of the nineteenth century Arnold Böcklinespecially with one, “The island of the dead”which reflects the lonely arrival of Barquero Caronte to Hell, as described Dante in “The divine comedy.”
“I was very unique”reacts MarchTto When we mention this comparison. “I did not know Böcklin’s work and, after the critic mentioned it, I started studying it. And, shortly after, two followers on Instagram told me the same! It was amazing. ”
The title “Melting Beauty” It gives unity to all the exhibitions of MarchTto dedicated to Antarctica. In this case, the title is “Aurora”but Not in the sense of dawn but of twilight, end. “” The conductive thread is that of the title, a beauty that melts, which makes a word game with ‘Sleeping Beauty’, the ‘Sleeping Beauty’. But in this case there is no beauty that sleeps but melts. I believe that I represented Antarctica as it has to be represented in this historical moment. “
The exhibition, as stated, will have two headquarters: from February 22 to April 20 in room 607 of the Libertad Palace, 6th floor (Sarmiento 151), from Wednesday to Sunday from 14 to 20. (No prior reserve of tickets). And in the Ecoparque, Central Glorieta (main income by Av. Sarmiento and Las Heras), between the same dates, from Tuesday to Sundays and holidays, from 11 to 18, with free admission.
Source: Ambito
I am an author and journalist who has worked in the entertainment industry for over a decade. I currently work as a news editor at a major news website, and my focus is on covering the latest trends in entertainment. I also write occasional pieces for other outlets, and have authored two books about the entertainment industry.
