Against aggression and uncertainty, Fernanda Laguna proposes thinking about tenderness

A call by Fernanda Laguna , an internationally renowned artist and curator, will be inhabiting El Local, a window overlooking Juan B. Justo Avenue in La Paternal, until mid-June. Susana Laguna, Silvina Sícoli , and Emmanuel Franco were invited to reflect on their personal belongings. The exhibition Grupo estudio sobre la tenderura (Study Group on Tenderness ), the resulting reflection, poetically explores each situation.

Fernanda explains in her text: "Tenderness is a relationship between the object and me, a fish eating from a spoon, the big toe, markers, pencils, ghosts, branches with children's faces, honey that builds a family nest. Tenderness is a sideways glance , it is the transformation of oneself into something tender and soft."

The plan required exchanges and conversations to materialize. The artists (including María Luisa San Miguel, guest artist) explain the process in the exhibition hall, invited by Ñ . "There is a pedagogy of tenderness," Laguna begins, and elaborates on how each participant found a way to transfer their perspective to a drawing, an object, or an installation that reveals a bias.

Part of this poetic metaphor rests on the curator's text, which sends signals that something tender is something soft , a signal that awakens the desire to be protected, like when we find an object laden with almost forgotten stories in a drawer. There is also the ugliness of certain monsters that don't frighten, or the sense of a certain lack that kitsch has, which, as an Argentine theorist once suggested, is based on a pretense that shines in its modesty . "Tenderness is a foolish triangle that protects from adversity," says the curatorial text, and it is a support that we all rely on while the world reveals itself in its opposites: violence and aggression .

For this reason, many of the works in this exhibition have the ability to awaken the touch, like Silvina Sícoli's Q & U flag, made with synthetic fur, tacks, a branch, and a moharra flagpole, which hangs like a banner on either side of the window in two versions.

Emmanuel Franco's drawings, made on paper found while moving, unfold the idea of ​​"a strong stroke on such weak paper," making the color of his works vibrate, while one of his inspirations is a picture frame with the image of Trapito , a character by the Argentine comic book artist Manuel García Ferré who is a living scarecrow who remained immersed in sadness due to his lack of illusions.

A character related to another story from the 1939 Wizard of Oz film, based on a children's story by New York writer Lyman Frank Baum, in which the girl Dorothy befriends the Scarecrow, who wants a brain, the Tin Man, who wants a heart, and the Cowardly Lion, who wants courage. The puppets are created by Silvina Sicoli, a biologist by profession, who feels she was a draftsman even before becoming an artist. They are characters made from scraps that are fitted together to give meaning to a puppet head that is endearing due to its handcrafted craftsmanship and awakens in the beholder the desire to piece together where these fragments, laden with history, come from.

Some of the objects that gave rise to this study group are displayed as part of the year-long process of thinking about the theme. Linking the creative act to a situation of exchanging ideas that emerged: a wooden pencil case and Anteojito dictionary and boxes of crayons from the 1970s, dollhouse furniture, miniature cakes, and the teddy bear we all treasured in childhood.

Seeking agreements based on this construction defined by dialogues among the four participants, finding a type of relationship between objects and people , revaluing the links, but leaving aside the intellectual resonance that rests on the system of a study group.

While Silvina shares that one of her goals was "how to expand tenderness into something that doesn't seem tender," Susana points out "generating empathy with others," and Emmanuel affirms that he associates "tenderness with small things, like when a child discovers an intense flavor." Laguna defines these less complex feelings that are evident as a sideways glance since: "we are tender: the nocturnal, the tiresome, the nostalgic, the scrap collectors, the emotional orphans, those who look the other way, and those who hide."

A subtle universe that does not tear or produce exalted emotions , but rather leads to entering a system of objects, works and words that accompany an efficient exit from the threatening world full of uncertainties that is so widely communicated on networks, screens and widely circulated news.

The Study Group of Tenderness exhibition can be visited until June 15 at the El Local gallery, Juan B. Justo 4328.