Written by Pilar Altilio
He is one of the Argentine artists whose international career has been expanding over the last two decades. Unique in his proposals, emerging from a project that draws on the diverse forms of communication, not only between people but also between heaven and earth, Martín Bonadeo (Buenos Aires, 1975) also explored olfactory communication and earned his doctorate in the field, adding a post-doctorate in the links between art, science, and technology from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 2004. He currently resides in Barcelona, where for the second time he was appointed visiting professor by Pompeu Fabra University. Last year he published two books: ALBA MAGICA MMX and GRATIA MÍSITICA MMX, which bring together texts and interventions with contributions from his projects, especially those that change the scale.
Passing through Buenos Aires to present his exhibition Huaca Huichaira (Rising Sacred Place) at the Praxis gallery, a massive landscape intervention he created in Jujuy in 2024, which uses stones to replicate the dark constellations that ancient Andean peoples saw within the Milky Way. On the campus of the Universidad Austral in Pilar, Buenos Aires province, he called for the planting of 144 ombú trees in groups of 36 to form four forests: an iconic tree of the Pampas region, a landmark in the country, whose lifespan can extend to 400 years.
“I come from a family of doctors: a surgeon on my father’s side, and traumatologists on my side. I’m surprised by the idea of looking at the body in parts, since, for me, the physical body is one, but there are other bodies that medicine doesn’t usually see, which are more ethereal,” he defines in conversation with Ñ. “Any artist after the 60s—and especially after conceptualism—goes far beyond simply generating an image. It’s also curious that we’re called visual artists when the works can not only be seen, but there are many possibilities of approaching them,” he adds.
