Gastón Lisak

Gastón Lisak (1989, Barcelona) is a visual artist based in Barcelona. In 2011, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Arts from the Winchester School of Arts, University of Southampton. Between 2012 and 2014, he was a fellow at the FABRICA Research Centre Benetton Group Residency in Treviso, Italy, for two years. Drawing from the Italian Arte Povera movement and the work of Pistoletto, his visual research combines a strong interest in Material Anthropology and a truly positive outlook on life: Gastón is one of the founders of Random Happiness, a movement that believes in happiness as a revolutionary tool to make the world a better place for everyone!” He has participated in solo and group exhibitions nationally and internationally. Solo exhibitions: “Making the familiar strange and the strange familiar”, Art residency at Galeria 420 of the Mustakis Foundation, Santiago de Chile (2022), “Sacred Plastics” at Imagin in Fundació La Caixa and at L’Ascensore Gallery curated by Maria Abramenko at Palermo Art Weekend (2021).

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SACRED PLASTICS

Sacred Plastics is the result of the artist's ongoing research, focused on deformation and the exploration of new forms for classical images and models, transforming them into romantic objects of fetishistic character, covered in shiny latex. The performance preceding the exhibition, held at the Accademia, was conceived to bring the artist into close contact with the history of Palermo, offering his valuable intervention and introducing his vision into that space and its mystical energy. During the performance, the artist became completely intertwined with the beauty, solidity, and history of the sculptures. Subsequently, for the exhibition, Gastón combined his sculptures with the documentation of the performance. This resulted in an ideal combination of reflection on his vision in the local context and the incorporation of pieces from his own creation originating from his homeland.

MUNDANE ARCHEOLOGY

Like bas-relief sculptures that narrate past events or like fossils revealing the past existence of extinct species, works such as I never broke a plate (2023) or I thought I was pregnant (2023) immortalize the memories of encounters between objects and people. Enveloped in an aura of meaning halfway between the strange and the familiar, these works seem to speak of the past through future verb tenses. If we believe in the biography of things, we can also assume that objects have memory, and it is precisely from this perspective that Mundane Archeology presents itself as a speculative exercise on the future memories of the objects that surround us and that often survive our brief lives. Text by curator Dr. Mariella Franzoni