Gabriel Valansi Work 1999_2012 Catalog Raisonne Contemporary Art Monograph

FROM WIKIPEDIA:

Gabriel Valansi was born in Buenos Aires in 1959. 

He studied Physics and History of Art in the UBA. Interested in light as a phenomenon, drift in photography. Go to the camera as a possible expressive tool that allows you to investigate the phenomenon of light, but from another place. 

It begins to produce without any previous training in the area. During his career, he only participates in a workshop, led by Juan Travnik. 

In 1978 he began to work as a photographer and professional columnist for national and foreign publications. Since 1983, when he is co-founder of the GUF, a group of photographers, he begins to participate in collective exhibitions. 

At the end of the 90, he made the series "Fatherland", which presented in 1998 in the Photo Gallery of the General San Martín Theater. This is a group of works after the nocturnal photographic records that he took from the street while everyone celebrated Christmas or New Year. For the artist, "Fatherland" is a representation of what he calls "hidden holocausts". They are those "holocausts that are not mediatic and do not have spectacular results, with death and desolation. They have a more subtle ornament, and (in quotation marks) are accepted by the free world, but in the end they are still holocausts. " 

Through this series, Valansi shows his conviction that, from a photograph, certain atrocities can be discovered. "Fatherland" is the first part of a trilogy that continues in ZeitGeist, the number of which is part of the work that integrates the contemporary art collection of Rosario. Zeitgeist is a German voice meaning "the spirit of the times". Following this concept, in this series, works from television images archives allusive to the war, which then digitizes and copies in platinum on paper. Each one of these photos reconstructs the war spirit that the author takes up of his personal experiences, the memories, what he has heard around the survivors, or of the cinema. However, "the images of Valansi do not show the scenes that usually simulate the terror: neither bodies shattered, nor the despair in children faces. The spirit of war is before and after the so-called realism. What causes terror is the paralysis of time that sets and highlights contempt for life .... ". 

In this sense, Valansi is based on a documentary aesthetic, based on preserving the spirit of a time, ZeitGeist. "The spirit of an era marked by wars in which, more and more, human beings were importing less." 

He obtained the following distinctions: Second prize of the competition Nikon International (Tokyo, Japan, 1984); Grand prize of honor "Parisiennes en las Artes" on illustration of texts by Jorge Luis Borges (Buenos Aires, 1985); Mention 2º Visual Arts Hall, Banco Nación (Buenos Aires, 2001); Award "Chandon", Art BA (Buenos Aires, 2002); "Artist of the Year", Award of the Argentine Association of Art Critics (2002); Prize "Leonardo" to the Visual Arts, National Museum of Fine Arts (2002). 

He has had individual samples since 1982, in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Asuncion of Paraguay and Jerusalem. He participated in several collective exhibitions in the country and abroad. 

In addition to his work in the field of photography, in 1987 he worked as a critic in Fotomundo magazine and on page 12. He worked as a teacher at various levels, he was a jury of awards, salons and biennials, he gave seminars, and he Samples: "The new look III", CCCBA (1989), and "Young Argentine Photography", Chopo Museum, Mexico City. (1989). 

In 1987, he co-directed the Photoespacio of the CCCBA permanent exhibition room of photography. He currently directs the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires. His works are part of different state collections of the country and abroad. 
Lives and works in Buenos Aires.