Insights

This interview with Mercedes Azpilicueta accompanies her exhibition An Art Student in Munich, organized by Salta art with Instituto Cervantes. The artist reflects on Anna Mary Howitt, a 19th-century British painter and spiritualist, and themes of sisterhood, intuition, and feminist practices. Sculptural figures in the show evoke Howitt and her peers—modular presences shaped by research, memory, and reconfigurable forms.

Argentine artist Mercedes Azpilicueta reflects on her research-based, interdisciplinary practice—merging installation, textile, drawing, performance, and sound. In this talk, she revisits the inspirations behind her exhibition in Munich, taking the 1853 book An Art Student in Munich by Anna Mary Howitt as a starting point.

We are happy to once again share an editorial collaboration with Contemporary& América Latina.

In this interview by C&AL, curators Raphael Fonseca and Yina Jiménez Suriel present “estalo” (snap) as a conceptual framework for the Biennial.

Salta art proudly supported the writing of an insightful article in Contemporary & featuring Amanda Carneiro, the first curator in residence in Munich and current artistic organizer of the Venice Biennale.

Alfredo Jaar discusses “Chiaroscuro, 2024”, drawing on Antonio Gramsci's philosophy that culture can affect change when politics fails. He views art as one of the last free spaces and urges artists to leverage it for impact. The work contrasts light and beauty with the growing shadows of fascism across Europe and beyond.

At the Opening of Alfredo Jaar's latest installation "Chiaroscuro, 2024" at Sorry Square, Munich, the artist gave a speech alongside Iván Argote, one of the curators from Espacio Temporal.

Sofía Lanusse and Ivan Argote are the founders of Espacio Temporal, an independent non profit exhibition space in France. Their goal is to create a platform that acts like an institution but remains independent, ephemeral, and experimental, defying norms and fostering dialogue between Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe.

Curator Sarah Theurer discusses cutting-edge curatorial practices that extend beyond traditional exhibitions. In her talk, she highlights the importance of storytelling, immersive experiences, performance art, and AI-generated works. Theurer advocates for exhibitions that are dynamic and responsive, positioning curators as key facilitators of new artistic interactions and creative dialogues that engage and challenge audiences in innovative ways.

Sarah Theurer is part of Salta art's program, undertaking a curatorial residency in Buenos Aires from 30th July - 15th August, 2024. She is a curator and editor specializing in time-based art practices and techno-social entanglements.

In the interview Theurer talks about her curatorial approach, with a focus on immersive, unconventional exhibitions that transcend traditional gallery settings, emphazising how technologies shape human interactions and perceptions.

Chilean curator Mariairis Flores Leiva (Marchigüe, Chile, 1990) was nominated by Raphael Fonseca and selected by Salta art's jury for the Munich Residency, AIR-M Ebenböckhaus from from October 7th to December 20th, 2024.

Her work as a contemporary art researcher and curator explores the dynamic interaction between art and politics, focusing on feminist perspectives in art history to encourage reflection on social issues through her curatorial practice.

Julia Retz is part of Salta art's program and will participate in the Munich Residency at Ebenböckhaus in collaboration with the City of Munich from 7th October – 20th December, 2024. Retz seeks to enliven spaces by transcending predetermined structures and making them more inclusive and sensitive to diverse ways of living. Through her interdisciplinary practice, she challenges conventional notions of space and identity, exploring Brazilian architecture and its modernist discourse.

Buenos Aires-based artist Andrés Aizicovich (Buenos Aires, 1985) was selected to participate in the residency at Ebenböckhaus, Munich in collaboration with the City of Munich from 7th October - 20th December, 2024.

Aizicovich transforms speech into art, questioning how spoken words become matter. His deeply social process challenges narratives, sparking conversation and fostering new connections through his interactive installations.

Munich-based artist Vincent Scheers (Belgium, 1990) was selected by Salta art's jury to participate in the residency at Pivô Art and Research, São Paulo from August 7 to November 6, 2024.

His work explores transient structures, creatively limiting object lifespans and challenging preservation norms through chemical transformation. Using humor and linguistic manipulation, he critiques oppressive systems and societal categorizations, advocating for freedom from constraints.

Discover Marta Minujín’s pioneering "environments" and significant body of work, beginning with her iconic piece, ¡Revuélquese y viva! (1964), featured at the exhibition Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists 1956 – 1976 at Haus der Kunst. Join Marta Minujín, along with Andrea Lissoni, artistic director of Haus der Kunst, and Marina Pugliese, co-curator of the exhibition, in an engaging conversation.

"In the video, Mureb orchestrates collisions between organic and non-organic existences. In the reflection
in the car, we can see our bodies and their eventual decline, [...]. In alignment with the principles of the circular
economy, materials like plastics, textiles, and iron are reincarnated into refrigerators, cans,
or even another car." If you would like to read the text by Sarah Theurer that accompanied the exhibition Crash, 2023 please download it through the link below.

Working across various media such as installation, sculpture, and video, Munich-based artist Diogo Da Cruz creates speculative socio-political scenarios that reimagine histories and geographical spaces. Captivated by the ocean's mythical allure, his film AXECIDYR is directly influenced by the Afrofuturistic myth of Drexciya, examining dimensions of deep-sea mining's impact, history, future, and exploitation.
Da Cruz is part of Salta’s 2023 program.

In the interview, Gabriela Mureb explores her artistic practice, inspirations, and approach to materialising new project ideas. At the core of her works lies a profound interest in the invention and production of machines and the sociological and political implications they entail.
Mureb will be undertaking a residency at AIR-M Ebenböckhaus, Munich from July 6 to September 27, 2023.

In the interview, Noujaim speaks about her use of the Greek myth, Leda and the Swan, in which the god Zeus, in the form of a swan, seduces and copulates with the wife of Sparta, Leda. The story reflects the artist’s ongoing interest in hybrid manifestations of interspecies relations.

Time as a lake: no matter which direction you take, it is always forward.

Lake as a space for hybrid and mythological beings.

Swan as a question.

Lake as silence.

Maria Noujaim, 2022

In an interview with art critic Cristina Sanchez-Kozyreva, Brazilian curator Raphael Fonseca relates his recent experience co-curating “Sweat” at the Haus der Kunst, his first such undertaking in Europe. Although it was disrupted by the pandemic, the show featured twenty-five artists and sparked a lively response. Fonseca also describes his reaction to Munich–the architecture, the weather, the art scene–and talks about the way he uses a country’s history as a filter to view its art.

In 2022, Salta art takes its first big step with a series of events in Munich, Germany, which will bring the project into dialogue with the local cultural scene. Salta art is a new foundation whose purpose is to strengthen ties between the contemporary art worlds of Germany and South America. Salta art comes from the Spanish word saltar, which means to jump, an allusion to the support given to artists and curators in making a “jump” or “leap” in new directions.