Advertisement

Gallerist Nora Fisch, Buenos Aires-native and Arbiter of the Argentine Art Scene

Artsy Editorial
May 12, 2014 10:11PM

Argentine gallerist Nora Fisch was born in Buenos Aires, lived in New York City for 20 years, and returned to her hometown in 2008 with a dream to open a gallery. Welcomed by a dramatically changed milieu, Fisch immersed herself in the local art scene, quickly discovering a community filled with artists well aware of global trends, who placed their energy into the locale. “I saw a niche to be filled in Buenos Aires,” she told Artsy. “A gallery that would embrace emerging and experimental art and at the same time, have an international profile.” By 2010, her eponymous space was born, and in the four years since, it has emerged from a quasi-alternative independent project to a gallery at the crux of the Buenos Aires contemporary art scene.

This year the gallery sized up substantially, but Fisch’s motivations were far wider-reaching than simply creating a larger exhibition space. Her gallery’s move was part of her goal to bring like-minded galleries together within walking distance. “In Buenos Aires, we do not have a concentration of art spaces as one can encounter in Chelsea, LES, or Bushwick,” she says, noting that galleries are often siloed by neighborhoods that are far from one another and distanced by heavy traffic. “In my view, this would strengthen the presence of contemporary art in the cultural landscape of the city and the local art market as a result.”

As arteBA sets up in town, we asked Fisch about her approach to the fair, which she confesses is different from her strategies abroad. “I believe that given the specific characteristics of the Argentine contemporary art market, there is a need to represent the gallery’s program in a more broad and extensive way,” she says. At the fair, the gallery’s booth features six artists (one emerging, two established, two with “cult status” and one “artists’ artists,” as she explains) in addition to the backroom—the “trasienda”—which will be integrated into the booth, and inclusion in the fair’s Cabinet section. Read Nora Fisch’s highlights from the fair:

Fernanda Laguna:

“Fernanda Laguna has been immensely influential on Argentine artists of her generation. She participated in the Mercosul Biennial in Brazil in 2013 and the Cuenca Biennial in Ecuador in 2014; her work entered several important collections with a focus on contemporary Latin American art and was included in one of Artforum’s ‘Best of 2012’ listings as ‘one of the most interesting visual artists in the Americas.’”

Tiziana Pierri:

“Being the fourth generation in a family of well-established Argentine painters must have had an influence on the development of Tiziana Pierri’s work. She explores the limits and conventions of pictorial language with utter freedom, creating large canvases that combine abstraction, figurative elements, line drawings, gestural work, and a very particular use of color and of the ways in which paint is applied to the surface. Her works have a subtle sense of absurdity and humor; a painterly intelligence that subverts their apparent elegance.”

Roberto Jacoby:

“Roberto Jacoby is an early pioneer of conceptual art, an active participant in the Latin American avant-garde movement of the ’60s, and someone who kept a relevant and often transgressive presence in the culture of Argentina throughout the decades. One of the pieces we are presenting in our Cabinet section is Scale Model of an Artwork (Maqueta de una obra),which was conceived in 1966.”

Amadeo Azar: 

“Amadeo Azar is particularly interested in the way Modernism got articulated with the specific social and cultural circumstances it encountered in Latin America. He has taken fragments of architectural projects by Russian Constructivists, such as Iacov Chernikhov, or by local Argentine designers from the 1930s, such as Ingeniero Salamone, and combined them with his own fantastic architectures to quote the visual style of Constructivist compositions.”

Nora Fisch’s Buenos Aires hit list:

- MAMBA, the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires (More info)

- MALBA, the Museum of Latin American Art of Buenos Aires (More info)

- Fundación Proa: “During arteBA, they will have a s show of Joseph Beuys.” (“Joseph Beuys: Works 1955-1985” is on view at Fundación Proa through June, 2014. More info)

- Faena Arts Center in Puerto Madero: “They will be presenting a ‘performance carousel’ organized by Russian artist Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich and a site-specific work by Agustina Woodgate.” (“Agustina Woodgate / Fyodor Pavlov-Andreevich” is on view at Faena Arts Center through May 25th. More info)

- The Department of Art at the Universidad Di Tella: “They will exhibit the work of Spanish artist Dora García.” (“Exilio” is on view through June 6th, 2014. More info)

Visit Nora Fisch at arteBA 2014, Booth F47, May 23rd–26th.

Explore arteBA 2014 on Artsy. 

Artsy Editorial