Santiago Taccetti. Photo by Wilkosz and Way
Is it possible to share authorship of an inanimate object? This is the theme that drives the work of Berlin-based artist Santiago Taccetti. Born in Buenos Aires, he was raised in Texas and New york and studied in Mexico City. There, his art education took place in part outside of his studies, while working with the ambitious project space La Panadería. He moved to Barcelona for a stint before settling in Berlin in 2011. recently he founded the Stoneroses curatorial collective with artist Mirak Jamal, which, in the dwindling days of summer, brought hordes of Berliners out of their comfort zones to the forests of grunewald, for walks through a temporary installation.
Santiago’s approach to his work has a touch of self-abnegation. He turns over authorship to the material, unexpected ways. For example, with his stone works he simply coats stones with trippy, iridescent colours.
“I shy away from authorship,” he says. “I’m interested in the aesthetics but I want to be in collaboration with the content of the materials. The stones are sculptures, but I never touch them except to layer paint on them, and it’s not even hands-on painting. you could call it sculpture, based on how you perceive the object, but I’ve never sculpted it, its form existed before I came in to contact with it.”
Recently, Taccetti has begun applying these ideas to canvas-based works. Not quite paintings, not quite sculptures, these newer pieces nonetheless convey the tactile quality of his previous works – one he maintains came from relinquishing control to the material.
Untitled, 2013. Sugar, glucose syrup, starch, gelatin, citric acid, malic acid, fruit and plant concentrates, flavoring, coating agent: carnauba wax; colors: copper-containing complexes of chlorophyllin, fruit sweetness of carob fruit, invert sugar syrup. Enamel on granite. Dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist.
Taken from Sleek 44 – What Women Want
Interview von Alicia Reuter
Read more interviews and find out more about Sleek 44