Opening performance: Thursday, February 19 – Sunday, February 22

Art Talk: Ines Katzenstein on Diego Bianchi: Saturday, February 22, 2pm

Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) presents a newly commissioned installation by Argentinian artist Diego Bianchi (b. 1969, Buenos Aires, Argentina) that addresses consumption and consumer waste, on view from Thursday, February 19 through Sunday, July 26. The installation will open with a special four-day performance that uses tattoos as a method to consider waste and “disposable” products in relation to material commitments that last a lifetime. Inés Katzenstein, Argentinian contemporary art scholar and curator, will discuss Diego Bianchi’s body of work on Saturday, February 21 at 2pm in the PAMM auditorium. (Space is limited. First come, first seated.)

An immersive installation composed of found objects from around Miami, WasteAfterWaste (2015) is structured around impulsive purchases and the rapid use and disposal of products. The installation removes “trash” from its normal context of invisibility and repositions it as groupings of sculptures in an intentionally crude, tornado-like environment, forcing the viewer to confront its presence. The project involved several research visits by the artist to Miami, followed by six weeks of intense production, both on-site in PAMM’s Project Gallery space and at an off-site warehouse. During this time, Bianchi collected discarded objects found on the streets and in thrift stores, such as broken stereo equipment, chairs, sunglasses, cell phones, beach towels and even drywall from the de-installation of the museum’s recent exhibition, Beatriz Milhazes: Jardim Botânico. 

WasteAfterWaste will commence with an ongoing performance from Thursday, February 19 through Sunday, February 22, 2015, wherein performers will display their tattooed body parts through the museum’s glass walls that surround the installation, alluding to how tattoos transform bodies into objects to be desired and consumed. The performance will take place in the installation space, adjacent to the museum’s entrance. Performances are ongoing (with breaks) during regular museum hours.

“Bianchi’s artistic practice matured during the period in Argentina after 2001, when the country’s currency was devalued, plunging it into a dramatic economic crisis,” said Tobias Ostrander, PAMM’s chief curator. “The growth in the number of cartoneros seen in the street, men collecting cardboard and other trash items to resell, and the greater visibility of these discarded materials had a particularly strong impact on Bianchi, who increasingly pursued an ethic of art-making involving reuse, versus engaging newly manufactured materials.”

Bianchi’s work is directly informed by artists like Catalan master Antoni Tàpies, whose retrospective Tàpies: From Within is concurrently on view at PAMM (on view through May 3). Although they were born nearly 50 years apart, both artists share an interest in discarded objects and the mundane, creating a cross-generational dialogue within the museum about daily life through subject and material choices, such as old used shoes and human hair.

Project Gallery: Diego Bianchi is organized by PAMM Chief Curator Tobias Ostrander

Related Programs:

Patron Sip and Learn with Artist Diego Bianchi

Wednesday, February 18, 6:30-8pm

Museum Circle members are invited to conversation and cocktails with Argentinian artist Diego Bianchi and PAMM Chief Curator Tobias Ostrander, in anticipation of the artist’s new Project Gallery at PAMM. Exclusively for Museum Circle: Patron and above members. To join at the Patron level, contacts [email protected] or visit pamm.org/support.