Revisit again and again known places is to travel and rethink the place you live , where you grow . Marcos López permanently revisits places -phrases-smells-memories of the past: "I look. I like talking about what happens here. Universalizing emotional texture of memories, scenes of childhood, mixing them with what is technically called local color and feeling, believing I'm doing a socio- politics report of the time, even if I am thinking of the first grade teacher´s smell" Photography takes the experience of creating an image in an immediate act to the limit: Come, stand here, I will take a photo. Do not breathe. Lower your chin, a little more, a little more... too much! An impulse, without taking positions, not opening one´s mouth to take a breath before diving, not thinking, so that all the memories of Gálvez and Santa Fe (Aunt ´Negra´, Aunt Delia, Susana, saucers on the rococo wallpaper) come back in time, and survive in images. Black and white, appropriating an irritating local color, so painfully real. The objects and people portrayed become undeniable existence. Treacherous scenography with painted cardboard , which like than a blow to the head, dispatch us its rawness , more than a police report captured in a documentary photography.
Redefine happiness for one´s own benefit. Mark's house, where he lives with his wife and children, is one big fair. It is not known what will be the object, situation or action that will make the image. Always on alert, looking for that right moment for the immediate, fatal "click". This mix of bowls of cereal with milk, ´mate´, art books, the latest technological computers, sound consoles, the ipad, newspaper, taxes, budgets, the scenography leaning over the couch in the living room, and above the stolen paint counter, plastic sausages. The great mounted scene, which suddenly says: I do not want to be photographed... The real scenography of an intense life, lived as an artistic event looks for a new way to be repositioned. Marcos López pinches paint, cuts papers, books, steals school supplies from his children and the breakfast tablecloth. Altogether, one above the other, we are showed that the intention is not to portray it, but to live it, all impulse. A search path to constantly redefine happiness: cardboard, village fairs, thoroughbred horses in the pasture, carnal screams. Now he searches for another course to follow.
A trigger frenzy, an inevitable madness. He comes and goes. He thinks, decides, repents and thinks again that the first attempt is correct. Then, he goes back on himself to start again on what has been done which allow, as a starting point, him to say again what has been said, without thinking about what is repetitive, cunning and resentful as to find that eating simple bread is the most delicious feast. Saying the same thing over again is not food for morons. He interprets what I said again, Richard Avedon, Horace Pippin and we wake up early with such an original idea, that it seems to have been said a long time ago. The realism documented in the work of Mark bears the mark of an historical, every-day, kitsch and grotesque record taken to the extreme in a face, tiger mask, jaguar, a lady returning from the beach with a sunshade or impermeable tablecloth from of barbecue in Flores.
In his ´operated´ posters, Marcos López commits an artistic act. He visits a part of history in order to rewrite it. He buys posters: from Ansel Adams, Roy Lichtenstein, July 4th celebrations all together. He exits the bookshop in a hurry, thinking about the seller´s face, if the cashier had charged him correctly or not. He hurriedly walks with rolls under his arm, as if someone were to discover the intention behind it. In his study turned workshop in Barracas, he begins the day at 5 am: he starts to paint compulsively, as a creative rapture; he removes the lids from acrylic paint jars and begins to act in past scenes captured on posters that need a rewrite to be redeemed from the obscurity they have been in since the 80s. A painting that is not at all shy, yet a little naive in its outline but not in it what it says. That painting, that infantile trace returning intact and sincere from a long journey towards the future. There is re- thinking of the relationship between photography, painting and gesture. A painting, according to the therapeutic him, to soothe the anguish and anxiety. A painting that lets you talk about human gesture, the man and his context. Andy Warhol, Robert Mapplethorpe, Edward Hopper, Richard Avedon. How different it is talking about light in photography and in painting. It is hard to see the limit in photos that fades in painting. They melt along the walls, blurring the boundaries of the work, of the collaboration between photographer and painter, and of a conjunction of real and illusory space that becomes a black hole.
Where does this leave photograph? Why does Marcos Lopez not take photos? He got tired of intermediaries. He needs contact with reality. He requests a closer reality, helping him to understand the evolution of his situation, his life and his relationship with others. More settled, more direct: in short, a relationship that is more real than existence itself. In rereading this text, written and re-written, lectures lead to some reflections. Mark says: "Photography is something else: the very act of squirting an entire tube of red acrylic paint on a mountain from an Ansel Adams museum poster. This immerses me with memories of Santa Fe, childhood and priest school".
A painting tells truths, revelations that are even more iconic than photography, because of the dialogue with the model. The painter enters into communion with that model and he feels it between his fingers. That communion, by means of the brush, rewritten in the poster, framed and hung, allows a statement of sincerity and happiness. The Indian runs through the pampas mocking ´huinca´ (Spanish conqueror), and in a deafening scream, declares the freedom of his spirit…freedom to paint, talk and say whatever he likes.
Natasha Kinski, resentment of the Chinese gymnast who receives the bronze medal and disappoints her father. The dark side of Edward Hopper, the ghost hidden in the apparent calm of American society. This divine light through the scene where nothing happens but everything is threatening. The swimmer and her alter ego that whispers in her ear – don´t worry. You did what you could. Cheer up and move forward, we can succeed... a redemption that appears in the painting, brushstrokes above the photography. James Holmes saving the world, relieving Batman of his responsibilities. Holmes is the joker laughing at us. The revealing aspect of this story built by Marcos, is the association of images, pictorial and facial gestures, which goes beyond presenting things as they are. In the supplement ´elespectador.com´ from the ´El Mundo´ newspaper of November 14, 2012, the following appears: "It had been 15 minutes into the projection of Batman, when James Holmes appeared in the movie theater as if he had come out of the big screen and killed 12 civilians. This murderer dressed in black, had a gas mask, a bulletproof vest, two pistols, a shotgun and an assault rifle AK -47" Write the true story in one´s self. "In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes" said Andy Warhol. Reinvent oneself from fiction, from a past: appropriate an account and make it more your own than another´s. Batman is now Holmes. Holmes, the swimmer, the Chinese gymnast, Natasha, Andy Warhol and Robert Maplethorpe are from Marcos Lopez. In medieval times it was very common to "erase" the scrolls in order to re-write them. Making a new one was more expensive. So, many texts have survived as palimpsests. In Marcos López´s works this idea appears of writing over writing. The re- writing that takes on new meaning. In the series of The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen, the merman in the Río de la Plata, an oil painting of this same merman; a fountain where the merman wets his tail. A bottle of Inca Kola, photography of the bottle, an oil painting inspired by the photo, a sandwich sign painted with synthetic enamel on plate. This is not talking about the same thing over and over again, repeating like a crazy person. It's like when we were told the same bedtime stories for kids, and although we knew the outcome, we expectantly followed the story until the very end, which was never the same. Marcos López´s trips, on which he acquires saints, statues, skulls, for his collection of Latin American folk art. Photography of crafts, the "altar of saints" where Venezuelan felons, Evita and ´Las Tres Potencias´ live. Pieces of native crafts from Oberá and India, in dialogue in the exhibition hall. Jimi Hendrix and his white alter ego that looks at him suspiciously. Chasman and Chirolita in dispute over name order on the billboard. Which of the two is the real one? Which is false? Someone is protagonist, someone is extra.
Would photography be an area where it is difficult to tend to oneself? I do not know. I am a painter, and I can speak as far as what I know how to do. As the Chinese landscape painter Shi Tao said, "Painting is saving things from chaos". It's like doing a ritual dance: letting oneself go with the rhythm of the body, liberating the latent urge to leave everything on the cloth. In the words of Marcos López: throw all the meat on the grill. Because of this, I enjoy this farewell -by halves- to a mechanical device / digital mediator for a manual one: the brush. Again and again. A farewell that means a search for something alive.