Selected Press

Telam, Buenos Aires, 2004.

Culture / Murlender Laura - Written on the wall - by Elba Perez

Although Laura Murlender can be inscribed in the “Rioplatense” (*) tradition of Constructive Universalism initiated by Joaquin Torres Garcia, this fact does not exhaust the resources displayed by the artist in her current exhibition at the Principium Gallery. Painter, muralist and photographer, Murlender holds to her credit an extensive international training in these disciplines.

The constructivist mark prevails in these images and their richness is revealed to the careful observer. Murlender uses orthogonal layouts for the majority of the compositions. In this way, she sets the internal structure of the painting in the bidimensional plane.

But the reticulum is frequently altered by groupings of formal cells and limits become diluted by the superposition of tones and textures or by the addition of different materials (sand, cardboard, marble dust). The interaction of the materials evokes eroded walls, worn away by time and nature. This is suggested by the composition resembling layered bricks or the geometry implicit in lithic art. And both suggestions remit to constructions as remote and significant as those of Assyrian art, the Western Wall or the American temple fortresses of Sacsahuaman, Teotihuacán or Tahuantisuyo.

The symbolic value of these walls also contributes to Laura Murlender´s art metaphor. She makes good use of her knowledge of mural painting and “fresco” techniques acquired at the workshops of Olivier Debré and P. Dellamarche where she furthered -on a grant awarded by the Government of France- her studies commenced in Israel (Bezalel Academy, Jerusalem) and at the Ecole des Beaux Arts (Paris).

The historical, cultural and symbolic stimuli accumulated by the artist –born in Buenos Aires in 1957- are stratified and imbedded in her work. She turns her painting virtually into a palimpsest, that is, into a superposition of texts and messages to be decoded and given a meaning by the viewer.

(*) Expression that refers to anything common to both Uruguay and Argentina countries that are divided by the River Plate.

Boundaries become blurred by the superposition that contaminates the successive layers until it produces yet another message.

The behavior of matter and the passing of time add greater complexity to the proposed metaphor.

The constructivist canon organized in an almost abstract geometry, contains the strong subliminal pulsations. It exercises its control from the preeminence of the orthogonal composition, although, in a manner of exception, spatial or more expressive incursions are present.

In a more severe order, “Red” (acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 185 x 185 cm- 73” x 73”) stands out. The regular format makes its statism more dynamic through areas that are constructed according to the golden section. Light is concentrated in the central area, diffusing the reticulum and boundaries. Impastos, dilutions and rubbings animate the totality of the surface.

Austerity and richness alternate in these potent and suggestive images. Of greater dynamism and ease, “Blues” (oil on canvas, 190 x 150 cm, 75 x 59”) includes expressions that are almost calligraphic. In this work, two compositional schemes overprint and displace one another. This resource is repeated in isolated areas where a saturated red that opposes and contrasts the cold hues is predominant.

The chromatic restrictions of “Territories II”, “Verticals” and “Raw Material” place these works in the more severe range. These three paintings pay homage to Joaquin Torres Garcia. The Uruguayan master’s imprint is present in the pallet of ochers, greys and earth colors modulated with the extreme sensitivity of the textures.

These and other rewritings are successively present in the works shown in Murlender´s exhibition at the Principium Gallery. Vigorous but without a rhetoric emphasis, suggestive without lapsing into vagueness, these paintings succeed in abolishing the distance between what is ancestral and the spirit of the esthetic vanguards of the XX century.

Between 1985 and 1991 Murlender lived in Mexico. She participated in the workshops of Jim Dine, Frank Stella, Pierre Alechinsky, Osvaldo Romberg and Fima Roeytemberg. Among others, she won the Helena Rubinstein Foundation prize and the Brenner and Agfa prizes. In 1991 she returned to Argentina. Her works are part of private and public collections such as the Bass Museum of Art (Miami), Mizrahi Bank (New York) and The Museum of Latin-American Art (La Plata).