In the limitless, indefinable body of work of Italian-Argentine artist Marcello Mercado, alphanumerical sequences, embryos, DNA, software, and painting walk hand in hand. Biological theories, mathematical principles, and technology are founding elements in the work by the artist, who straddles the boundaries between video art, performance, Web art, music, and painting.
In these works, developed in Argentina and, in the last ten years, in Germany, the line, the dot, the human body, and society are approached as living beings, which illustrate commentaries on the contemporary experience. In vertiginous collages, cellular multiplications and other organic processes, which obey solely their own laws, appear side by side with the seemingly messy amalgam of nuances from a world ruled by confusion and data overload.
Awarded in the 12th, 13th and 16th editions of the International Electronic Art Festival SESC_Videobrasil, in 1998, 2001 and 2007, Mercado has shown at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, in Madrid, at the Miami Basel fair, and at the New York Film Festival held at the Lincoln Center.
“Mercado’s oeuvre bears witness to certain extremes in discourse and expression that video has been able to arrive at,” write researchers Jorge La Ferla and Anabel Márquez in the Essay. “It is in this function of art that one forces the audiovisual device into doing that which is not part of its program or representation system, i.e., an action that conquers new spaces of creative independence, a value that has lost its worth in contemporary audiovisual.”
Further info on this artist available at the collection
