Title: From the series When I saw the blue smoke from Ithaca, “Deforestation, Brazil”
Year: 2010
Technique: Photography
Size: 50 x 70 cm
Edition: 2/4 + 1AP
Title: From the series When I saw the blue smoke from Ithaca, “Revelations of an invisible evil, Belchatow”
Year: 2018
Technique: Photography
Size: 50 x 70 cm
Edition: 2/4 + 1AP
Title: From the series When I saw the blue smoke from Ithaca, “Story from the La Moneda, Santiago de Chile”
Year: 2003
Technique: Photography
Size: 50 x 70 cm
Edition: 2/4 + 1AP
Title: From the series When I saw the blue smoke from Ithaca, “Memory turned smoke, Rochester”
Year: 2015
Technique: Photography
Size: 50 x 70 cm
Edition: 2/4 + 1AP
Title: From the series When I saw the blue smoke from Ithaca, “Strategic weapon, Spain”
Year: 2009
Technique: Photography
Size: 50 x 70 cm
Edition: 2/4 + 1AP
Title: From the series When I saw the blue smoke from Ithaca, “Factory”
Year: 2015 recording, 2017 production
Technique: Video
Size: Variable
Duration: 1 min
Original idea and direction: Matilde Marín
Editing: Clara Frías
Sound: Nicolás Diab
Argentina, 1948. She graduated from the National School of Fine Arts of Argentina and studied in Zurich, Switzerland. She has participated in the Havana Biennial, Cuba; BIENALSUR, Argentina; the Geumgang Nature Art Biennale, Korea; the Cuenca and Curitiba Biennials, Ecuador; among others.
Her work has been exhibited in several countries, such as Chile, Spain, Mexico, and Germany. She also won awards at the Puerto Rico Biennial and at the Cuenca Biennial, Ecuador, an award for lifetime achievement together with Jorge Romero Brest from the Argentine Association of Art Critics, and a Konex de Platino award for the twenty most outstanding artists in Argentina.
In Book X of Homer’s epic poem, Odysseus sails to Hades to consult with clairvoyant Tiresias. The Theban prophet predicts an arduous journey back home. The hero, longing his homecoming, prefers to fade away rather than lie immortal beside the nymph Calypso. And in an ardent breath, he sees the ceremonial smoke from his land, the dense smoke of a life with unresolved issues. A timeless smoke, as a metaphor for the life of humanity.
When I see the blue smoke from Ithaca is a project Argentine artist Matilde Marín has been working on since 2003. Showcased at the 13th edition of the Havana Biennial, entitled “The Construction of the Possible”, among other spaces, the series comprises pieces deeply rooted in current social and political issues. It stemmed from thorough research of archived newspaper articles that the artist re-examines to delve into both natural and man-made disasters and ‘reconstruct’ historical events through her unique visual re-interpretation.
The threat of CO2 pollution from the Belchatów power station in Poland; the 1971 nuclear test in the Muroroa Atoll, French Polynesia; the fracture created by the coup d’état that overthrew Allende in 1973 in La Moneda; the devastating wave of fires that ravaged Peloponnese in 2007; the ruthless exploitation of natural resources in the Amazon over the last 20 years; or the clouds of ashes in Europe from the Grimsvötn volcano in Iceland are some of the contemporary scars Matilde Marín depicts in the series.
Along with this compilation of snapshots, the artist presents a video recorded on the morning of July 18, 2015 in Rochester, New York, as a gem of the world of photography fell at Kodak Park. In an irreparable chant, like the horns of an orchestra, the pillars of what was once the 53rd factory of the Eastman Kodak Company lay one by one under a veil of whitish smoke. Piles of rust, concrete and metals turned to dust in an alchemical process of destruction. What once produced the only thing capable of capturing time, became only a memory.
