When I met Oscar Neuestern for the first time, I understood that things that go undiscussed are in some ways equivalent to those that are talked about.
It was sometimes during 1968. I started visiting Neuestern since I was interested at the time in intentionality. A year later, I published the only text that exists today on Neuestern's work. That article published in ARTNews was the starting point for the new work by Mario Garcia Torres. The Transparencies on the Non-Act, perfectly reveals Oscar Neuestern's obsession for the void. While others at the time would carefully move toward the dematerialisation of the work of art, Neuestern was a step ahead: he had built his entire artistic career on absence. This has become the central piece of
Garcia Torres's "A Solo Exhibition" at Kadist Art Foundation.
In this group of works Garcia Torres not only puts together the story of someone who lost himself in memory, but insinuates an extended history of erasure and withdrawal. July 2007, August 2007, An Undisclosed Month in 1953 as well as
Neuesterns's ideas of the absolute towards a different approach of the refusal of creativity, while relativising its rapport with fiction. I imagine that Neuestern would have been very surprised to discover that his ever-forgetting thoughts became an inspiration for other artists and that his insistence on removal could actually leave revealing traces.
*For this occasion, a publication 'Date due' will be published with texts by Steve Rushton, Raimundas Malasauskas and Mario Garcia Torres.
July 2007 - Mario Garcia Torres - 2007
black and white negative on slide mount
Installation view - Mario Garcia Torres - 2007
Still from 'The Transparencies On The Non-Act' - Mario Garcia Torres - 2007
52 slides, black and white
Still from 'The Transparencies On The Non-Act' - Mario Garcia Torres - 2007
52 slides, black and white
Still from 'The Transparencies On The Non-Act' - Mario Garcia Torres - 2007
52 slides, black and white
Still from 'The Transparencies On The Non-Act' - Mario Garcia Torres - 2007
52 slides, black and white
Monochronic film on A Polychronic Story - - 2007
Film 16mm, back and white
