JORGE MACCHI: LAS FASES LUNÁTICAS

The Lunatic Phases of Jorge Macchi
(or A River Without a Name)

A series of cardboard pieces found in the streets, punctured with holes suggesting a former function, forms the starting point for Jorge Macchi’s (Buenos Aires, 1963) new exhibition at Luisa Strina. In Las fases lunáticas [The Lunatic Phases], the artist investigates vision, light, and image formation, establishing connections between discarded materials, painting, and rudimentary optical devices.

The exhibition is mainly organized into diptychs that place cardboard and painting in dialogue. On one side, pieces of cardboard with a constellation of holes; on the other, oil paintings on paper that mirror these perforated structures, transforming the holes into atmospheric landscapes composed of delicate color gradients. As the oil seeps into the paper, it creates halos that intensify the sense of something diffuse and evanescent: what is seen is always partial, filtered, suggested. These arrangements also evoke the workings of the camera obscura, the optical device that preceded photography. The images are born from the projection of light through the cardboard openings, capturing the traces and luminous effects resulting from projections mediated by precarious surfaces.

The exhibition’s title derives from one of the works, in which shadows cast by various light sources pass through a perforated matrix, alluding—ironically and poetically—to the phases of the moon—or, as Macchi suggests, the lunatic phases. This slight twist in the expression hints not only at instability and change, but also at a play between reason and delirium.

The use of discarded cardboard highlights a central dimension in the artist's practice: attention to chance and the everyday as structuring elements of his work. By collecting and presenting these materials, Macchi interrupts their path toward disposal and reintegrates them into a new circuit of value. This gesture connects more broadly to his body of work, characterized by subtle displacements, temporal slips, and fragile structures that consistently evade fixed categories.

The mask—and what it allows us to see—not only defines the formal gesture in this series, but also encapsulates an ongoing investigation into how we perceive the world: fragmented, in shadows and partial reflections that demand time and attention from the viewer. On various occasions, Macchi has stated that he prefers his work not to be seen as a monolithic or formally coherent whole. His intention is for one to perceive an “underground river” flowing beneath all his pieces. “Even though I cannot name this river,” he confesses.

Leo Felipe