INFO

• Pérez-Ratton, Virginia: “Le Partenaire” (2008)

Pérez-Ratton, Virginia: “Le Partenaire” (2008)

“Le Partenaire” is the first video by Argentine artista Hernan Marina. It was presented by Mirta Demare Gallery in the Project Rooms of the ARCO art fair last February in Madrid. This video, which stood out hmong the selection of audiovisual Works is a fiction built upon archival material of the first presentation of Maria Callas in the Opera de Paris mixed with some personal history related to his family legacy. The event was teh Gala of the Legión d’Honneur in December 1958. Through the intervention o fan unexpected situation, the artista not Orly has altered the reality of the document. He incluyes the spectator in that fiction, in wich he participates and enjoys, but at the same time becomes aware of the present posibilitéis of manipulation of documentary or archival material, of the changes that Could arise in the interpretation of simple account of recent history, ando f the implications that this can carry on the political level.

But or the time being, what Hernan Marina is presenting offers the pleasure of listening to the Divina, who passed away 30 years ago. Magnetized by her penetrationg, agressive eyes, we perceive the tensions on scene, and in complcity with Hernan Marina, we participate in this recreation of a gala evening, imagined from what it really was. Or was it?

Virginia Pérez-Ratton
September 2007