Visiones
Martha Zuik
An exhibition catalogue from Martha Zuik’s solo show, Visiones, at the Museo Metropolitano in 2004. Including an introduction by Daniel McGroarty:
“At the time I was asked to write this introduction, a great event shook the world of science. The renowned physicist Steven Hawking announced that he had made a mistake; his theory on black holes, he said, was flawed in some fundamental way. While no one living would likely have discovered Hawking’s error, and only a handful have any chance of coming to understand it fully, the essence of his correction can be stated simply: Black holes do not adsorb all matter, but appear to release what Hawking calls “information” – energy – back into our universe.
Because a black hole takes its name from the fact that they absorb all wavelengths of light, refracting none, then whatever “information” escapes its pull cannot manifest itself to the eye of science unless it wears a coat of colour.
What have the self-corrections of a great scientist to do with the universe of art?
Hawking’s revelation reminds us that the human mind has different ways of looking at the world, partial or provisional answers to our external puzzlement. Art, too, had its way of looking. Where science analyses, art creates: Enter Martha Zuik – each work a world of canvas, paper and pigment – line and colour, limned by the artist/creator’s hand.
Look around you at Zuik’s worlds: what do we make of the “information,” the energy, Zuik’s creations send out to us?
Here, colours congeal into apparently familiar forms, a women’s shape, a stand of trees – inviting us to imply a narrative, seek a storyline. There, however, colours rank themselves into a rebuff to representationalism of any sort, refracting our own efforts to organise colour into context. The intellect offers little to guide us; as Zuik herself says: “I paint with my intuition and never realise how the work will end up. The intellect is not invited.”
Science has had its say; now let art take its turn. Zuik’s works, little worlds, speak for themselves, in a language all their own. Hear them with your own eyes.”
Martha Zuik, Visiones, Museo Metropolitano, Buenos Aires, 2004
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