Critical Path (and some other deviation)

Painting is no longer a place that happens in a closed space, but one that dialogues actively with its environment.

Critical Path is a project by Magali Lara and Cecilia Vázquez, painters and professors of the Art School, who have decided to take, metaphorically, the studio to the exhibition room. Starting from two even-sized, same-color rectangles –in the way of enclosed arenas, from which they pose questions to the rest of the space– each artist opens up her own visual investigation in situ, while setting off a conversation with the work of the other one.

The central idea parts from the fact that frequently, in the studio, plans, explorations and working pieces are concocted that remain out of view, as they never get to be exhibited. They exist in an almost secret sphere –like traces or vestiges that are left behind– when as a matter of fact they are on occasions the very matrix of what later on will be recognized as finished work and, thus, “worthy” of being shown. This exercise seeks to reverse this tendency: by allowing the cohabitation of work developed from these initial gestures, a alchemic space of sorts opens up, one that allows the understanding of the creative process as the whole sum of breaths, hesitations, tests and final decisions that shape a body of work.

Additionally, joint work fosters the articulation of new meanings: by favoring unexpected solutions and unusual kinships, the space can be read as a four-hands work. It subtly questions the myth of the single author, celebrating painting as a heap of shared issues, through time and space, that is shaped precisely by the sustained conversation between those who have devoted themselves to it.

To recreate a studio situation in the exhibition room –from the dialogue established amongst the two artists, to the presence itself of the rudiments of their makings– is also an invitation to close the traditional breach between artist and viewer.