Exhibitions
Lautaro | The Map and the Territory
Date and place
Place: Praxis NY
Start Date: March 18 2021
End Date: July 09 2021
Description
Praxis is pleased to present The Map and the Territory, a solo exhibition by Lautaro (b. 1987, Buenos Aires, Argentina). The exhibition will be open from March 18th, until May 8th, 2021. We are open to the public Tuesday to Saturday, 10am to 6pm at 501 W 20th Street, New York, NY, 10011.
Lautaro’s latest exhibition “The Map and the Territory,” explores the concept of transversal, pilgrimage and inner discovery. Large canvases portray spacious landscapes which are inhabited by lone figures that appear either in the midst of a journey or at other times in repose. Somberly and peaceful they are garbed in modern apparel in contrast to the primordial landscapes they find themselves in. It may be inferred poetically that these landscapes represent the inner realm which modern man duels with day to day. One thinks of Emerson: “Man is a dwarf of himself. He filled nature with his overflowing currents… the laws of his mind, the periods of his actions externalized themselves into day and night, into the year and the seasons. But having made for himself this huge shell, he no longer fills the veins…he is shrunk to a drop.” The show, according to its title, begs the question, are we inhabiting the map or rather the territory? Lautaro depicts this recurring drama: modern man at odds with the plethora of existential options, left with no other solution but to submit to a tireless search. Yet there is redemption in the beauty of the path itself, and absolution in this revelation.
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More Information
Lautaro was born in Buenos Aires. At the age of nine he immigrated with his family to New York. In 2011 he graduated from the Cooper Union with a bachelors in Architecture. Upon graduating and following a spiritual impetus he decided to pursue painting professionally. He now resides and works in Southampton New York.
“Without a doubt painting holds a fundamental purpose in modern life. If the wall is the transcendence of nature, then the painting is a transcendence of that very wall. The painting is a mediation from the cocoon of modernity and the sublime profoundness of the universe and nature. Therefore the artist is the interlocutor between these two worlds. The precious task of painting is to create an immediate and sinuous imprint of transcendence from the sublime to the modern condition.”
Lautaro is magnetically attracted to working on a monumental scale, and at a 1 to 1 scale on canvases stretched over firm wood. To suit the mission of his practice, which is to graph and register the will of his impression within a unique moment, the canvases are heavy and robust to mirror this action with strength. Lautaro does not resort simply to conventional tools of painting such as the brush, but relies on spatulas, squeezes, rollers and even his fingers as the mediation between his inspiration and the picture.