Known for his virtuoso drawings, Marco Maggi presents a suite of 7 hand-cut paper works that refer to his astonishing project in the Uruguayan pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Minuscule paper sculptures cluster, fold, curl, stack and bend across discrete panels, to mesmerizing effect.
For twenty years, Maggi has considered – then elegantly answered – the question of how to take drawing from two into three dimensions. He has drawn in relief on aluminum foil, carved everyday objects like rulers or apples with his abstracted lexicon, and inscribed plexiglass to create drawings that are only visible when they cast a shadow.
The forms suggest meaning – alphabets of unknown languages, computer circuitry, Google Earth imaging of vaguely familiar cities – but no matter how much you puzzle over them, the shapes are inexplicable.
A philosopher-poet of non-representational drawing, Maggi says of his work, “Focus is not the object or the subject, but the time between the object and the viewer. I am interested in the pace of the viewing process.”
Born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1957, Marco Maggi now divides his time between New Paltz, NY and Montevideo. He was chosen to represent Uruguay in the 2015 Venice Biennale. His work is in numerous museum collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; San Francisco Museum of Art; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, São Paulo; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; as well as in the Cisneros Collection, New York and the Daros Foundation, Zurich. He has been represented by Hosfelt Gallery since 1999.
