Situations in Space: A conversation with Karina Peisajovich
By María Carolina Baulo


Karina Peisajovich was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1966. Her approach to art theory and practice begins by studying at the National School of Fine Arts Prilidiano Pueyrredón between 1984 and 1988. Three trips would be crucial in her career: the first one at the beginning of the 90´s when she visited the United States and Europe, where she gets in contact with the matrix of every inspiration that seemed to be so far away and distant. In 1995 she participates in the Kuitca Scholarship and in 1998 she starts working with the light works. One year later, she makes a second trip back to the US where she participates in a residence for international artists, ART OMI. In 2001 she receives an award from the National Fund of Arts and Fulbright Commission, to participate in a new residence in New York, the ISCP (International Residency and Curatorial Program). This third trip made her stay in the Big Apple for a year and a half, taking advantage of the international scenario that was opening its gates right in front of her eyes. She returned to Buenos Aires in January 2003, where she actually lives and works.

Peisajovich is open to spontaneous, ephemeral and even hazardous situations, as well as the constant fluctuation between what is real and what an abstraction. She creates environments that compromise and transport us to fantastic sites with an enchanting aura embracing the entire work of the artist. Karina invites us to imagine those invented worlds, where fabulous chromatic dialogues welcome the spectator to an experience developed here and now; an experience that disappears as soon as the light illuminates the salon. The materiality of the work, remains unseen in the darkened gallery. These amazing scenarios that our minds away, if only for a few moments, from a reality that sometimes seems unbearable, encouriging us to exercise our ability to dream. Peisajovich solo shows include "Fade" at Galeria Braga Menendez in Buenos Aires and "Paisaje Doméstico" at Casa de America in Madrid. She also participated in numerous group shows, inluding the Lodz Biennal and the exhibition "Surface Charge" at the Anderson Gallery, at Virginia Commenwealth University in Richmond.

MCB: How did you get involved in the art world?

KP: To become an artist wasn't something I planned. Since I was a little girl, I always participated in activities related to art: I took piano lessons and dance classes, and somehow, I think, it developed naturally.

MCB: Do you feel art chose you or was it the other way around? Is there a story behind this choice?

KP: My profile as an artist took many different roads that influenced one another as time went by. Sometimes the influence came from unexpected situations such as playing drums, taking classes with an electrician or participating in a seminar of the history of rock and roll. I have this constant feeling that something that begins as simple curiosity, conspires to finally turn into a work of art. The years I studied at the National School of Fine Arts were those first fragile years when democracy was recovered in Argentina. During that time, I got deeply involved in the underground scenario which was one of the most interesting cultural things happening in the city. In 1992 I went back to my painting, but it isn't until the end of the 90´s when I started making my first experiences with lights.

MCB: How would you define yourself: as a plastic artist, a painter, a sculptor?

KP: I prefer to define myself as a visual artist. I guess that definition allows me to think about my work freely.

MCB: What role does sculpture play in your production?

KP: I think about sculpture as the irruption of space in a certain material, and vice versa. If sculpture is associated with objects, it's hard for me not to feel this definition far from my work. My installations use space as a "form" and this space create a new body with a volume of its own. Sometimes I even design specific sites for each work.

MCB: What do you think that the third dimension allows you to express that you wouldn't be able to represent in any other plastic way?

KP: It allows me to manipulate the space and real time. The third dimension expressed in two dimensions, is still a selection, a window that traps the images of the world in time and space. When I started working directly in the space, I realized I could express other ideas that were impossible to imagine in two dimensions. When I transfer my paintings from the canvas to the wall and then to the architectonic scenarios, I decide to make a turn in my work, based on the tensions that relate the representation with its own possibilities. The work of art emerges from the intersection of the architectonic space and the space of the representation. The work of art becomes what it really is.

On the other hand, working with real space allows me to include the spectator in the project. The spectator becomes the theme and substance. For example, when I'm working in the design of an installation, I imagine the spectator's eyes and the possible moves within that space. I make sketches, drawings and scale models, always keeping in mind all those possible movements. Space invades the perception field, which is larger than the visual field.

MCB: We want to highlight that space, no longer bi-dimensional, and which compromises the spectator. Regarding the light works, so typical in your production, what are they telling us?

KP: When I create an installation, I use the space as a battle field where all the elements I used to use in my paintings, interact. The difference is that in the installation, I start working in the dark. Darkness as a state of light and shadow as a level of obscurity. Obscurity attacks the light and volume emerges, but that volume doesn't really exist. Light becomes a brush stroke that spots the wall. The wall looses its definition because of the shadow. Real space starts looking like something else. The eye gets anxious. These unstable situations are part of the mechanism of the work of art. My work takes place in time, using special devises that activate and graduate sequences that determine when lights go in or out. The work of art mutates making the images and time become one.

My works, sometimes conceived for specific architectonic spaces, inherit the space of the Renaissance, but they don't contemplate an audience located in a safety and commensurable place. On the contrary, I invent situations in the space held by geometrical forces that try to alter and dissolve the main constructive lines in the room. In some way, I feel like an artist of the beginning of the XX century.

Published in Sculpture Magazine,
December 2007