Marco Maggi

Overview

"If we have macro and global problems, we deserve micro and cubic solutions.” – Marco Maggi

Marco Maggi’s intricate drawings demand time – time to make, and time to see. Working with modest materials like graphite, X-acto knives, claybord, Plexiglas, office paper, or aluminum foil, he cuts, draws or etches tiny, abstract lines that incite interpretation but artfully elude it. His works have been compared to microchips, maps, hieroglyphics, or genetic codes. Their diminutive scale requires close-up inspection and time for the eye to adjust to their meticulous details.

Maggi combines his various two and three-dimensional drawings into large-scale installations that one navigates like a treasure hunt. Works are installed at unusual angles, heights, and locations, so that each feels like a discovery. Some pieces, such as those with incisions on paper or Plexiglas, are virtually absent – only visible by the shadows they cast.

Maggi likens his linear lexicon to an indecipherable language or abstract alphabet. While the drawings themselves evade meaning, their witty, punning titles reveal layers of references, from the framing of news coverage to the latest scientific discoveries. Executed on a scale that, to really see, requires time and minimizes distance, Maggi’s work functions as an antidote to the excess of information transmitted through ever more intricate and rapid networks of media and telecommunications.

Born in Montevideo, Uruguay, Marco Maggi lives in New Paltz, New York. His work has been exhibited extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and Latin America since 1998. Recent exhibitions include: Poetics of the Handmade,Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA (2007); Doubtful Strait,TEOR/eTica Foundation, San Jose and Alajuela, Costa Rica (2006); Gyroscope,Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC (2006); Drawing from the Modern 1975-2005, Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Fifth Gwangju Biennial, Korea (2004); The San Juan Triennial, Puerto Rico (2004); VIII Havana Biennial, Cuba (2003); 25th Sao Paulo Biennial, Brazil (2002). His work is included in public and private collections such as: Museum of Modern Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Daros Collection, Zurich, Switzerland; Patricia Phelps De Cisneros Collection, New York; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.