Tag: Marco Maggi

Marco Maggi at Bienvenu Steinberg & J

You need good eyesight to appreciate Marco Maggi’s minutely crafted cut paper collages and etched glass, but ironically in the artwork ‘Global Myopia’ at Bienvenu Steinberg & J, the artist proposes that our collective vision has deteriorated as technology has come to dominate our lives.  Quoting the artist, the gallery explains, “We live inside a phone: a screen that brings us closer to what is faraway and takes us away from what is close to us.” Maggi covers this huge lens with minute geometries as delicately engraved as frost.  Viewers are invited to slow down and view the work carefully, appreciating the details and the process of discovering them.  (On view in Tribeca through Nov 12th).

Marco Maggi, Global Myopia, engraving on biconvex lens, 20 in h x 20 in w x 3 in d, 2022.

Marco Maggi at Josee Bienvenu Gallery

It took a good part of the summer for Uruguayan artist Marco Maggi to install his immersive installation at Josee Bienvenu Gallery in Chelsea, yet it’s possible to visit the gallery and not even notice the artwork.  Maggi employed his signature technique of cutting tiny geometric shapes and strips from adhesive paper and adhering them to the wall in his latest show, but he keeps the gallery lights off, forcing viewers to employ flashlights to hunt for the work.  As the show’s subtitle, ‘From Obscurantism to Enlightenment’ suggests, Maggi wants viewers to enjoy the process of looking, slowing down and letting enlightenment unfold.  (On view through Nov 11th).

Marco Maggi, installation view of ‘Initialism (From Obscurantism to Enlightenment)’ at Josee Bienvenu Gallery, Oct, 2019.

Marco Maggi at Josee Bienvenu Gallery

Uruguayan artist Marco Maggi’s labor-intensive installation at Josee Bienvenu Gallery – consisting of thousands of forms in self-adhesive archival paper applied directly to the gallery wall – is, according to a handout, intended ‘to promote pauses and make time visible.’ The incredible profusion of tiny cutouts sometimes resembles diagrams of electronic devices, sometimes a shape-based language system in disarray; the takeaway is a sense of wonder at the myriad systems which escape our day-to-day observation. (In Chelsea through Nov 7th). Marco Maggi, installation detail at Josee Bienvenu Gallery, Sept 2015.