ON THE OTHER SIDE
Magma Futura

Artist: Eduardo Cardozo

Audiovisual: Álvaro Zinno and Eduardo Cardozo
Curator: Elisa Valerio
Assistents: Luisa Lebrogne and Sofía 
Dates: Agost 23 until September 7, 2024
Place: Magma Futura, Pablo de María 1011, Montevideo, Uruguay

​Photography: Álvaro Zinno

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​On the other side of the ocean, on the other side of the river, on the other side of the mirror, on the other side of the reflection, on the other side of the shadow: what is there on the other side?

The idea that guides this intervention by Eduardo Cardozo at the Nave of Magma Futura is to preserve the gesture of dialogue that is present in the installation Latent in the Uruguay Pavilion at the Biennale di Venezia 2024. Trying to reproduce or imitate that in another enclave made no sense, which is why the artist assumes this new space from the same conception, but reaches a completely different formal resolution, although it maintains a certain parallelism and relationship with what was exhibited in Venice.

We can think of this installation as a reverberation or an echo of Latent in Uruguay, conceived and designed specifically for a place dedicated to experimentation and technology. With this in mind, the artist proposes an internal relational act: Montevideo looking at Montevideo. We recover the view of the characteristic and well-known Montevideo promenade from Malvín Beach. Thus, in a concave space we lose ourselves in an extensive horizon that accompanies us from its immensity, with the sound of its waves.

The projection of this audiovisual loop can be seen and sensed in the mirrors on the other side of the room. The mirrored surface was mostly covered with Chinese ink, except for the area of ​​the sky that expands towards infinity. In this ink we can appreciate its marks, its wateriness and its different translucent layers. In this way Cardozo seeks to recover the shadow of a landscape, like the memory or evocation of that which we know and is no longer there. This absence of light allows us to outline the contours that generate the shapes, which subtly differentiate themselves from the background. The horizon guides our journey and gaze, we see ourselves in that opaque reflection.

With these two simple resources, Cardozo takes us into the history of art—a subject that particularly interests him—and into the motif of the landscape, into the vast Chinese landscapes and the landscapes that were beginning to be glimpsed in the background of the paintings of the Italian quattrocento. Thus, a dialogue of absences in space and time is generated.

In contrast, a set of fabrics sewn and darned from scraps appears. These presences emanate from the ground and rise towards the sky, seeking a certain transcendence. In these accents of light, which bear witness to Cardozo's artistic work in his studio, we can find a chromatic correspondence between the fabrics and the beach, as if they could be continued one into the other. Finally, a small painting on a frame on an easel, which takes up the projected beach landscape, reminds us of the gesture of Continuity of the Parks, from the short story by Julio Cortázar. This painting is the origin from which the work unfolds.

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Elisa Valerio