Fabián Bercic

Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1969 

            Trained in the workshop of Héctor Medici and Betina Sor, Bercic questions the language of sculpture: what is the sculptural? What properties does it share with other morphologies and techniques? In 2003-2005, Bercic was part of the Kuitca Grant, where he began to experiment with a series of materials. Resorting only rarely to the conventional means of the sculptor's craft –such as wood, clay, plaster, or bronze,– but using instead industrial inputs –such as resin, fiberglass, iron, concrete–, Bercic emphatically shows the discipline, concentration, and formal skills guiding his practice. However, as a result, his multi-awarded sculptural assemblages are arranged under the rule of an ethic of play, summoning the imaginaries of teenage consumption, playful devices, or witty fantasy scenarios.

            Although his trajectory can be seen as the continuity of a historical tradition, his references to popular culture or the applied arts allow us to challenge the hierarchies inherent to visual forms and the values with which they are associated. In La Montaña Concreta, the project that won him the Azcuy Prize, this duality is evident. The artist transformed a 40-meter-high wall of a building in the Caballito neighborhood into a climbing wall, on which every polyhedral step are quotes from works of the concrete art and Madí movements. The piece, a playful metaphor for the history of local art, pays homage to that school that was crucial for the existence of modern art in Argentina. Simultaneously, it literalizes the concrete heritage by using it as a structure that prevents it from falling.

            Bercic also works by taking the language of sculpture to the limit of volume, generating two-dimensional pieces and recovering his craft as a graphic designer. Whether producing a series of patterns inspired by architectural styles, through a heraldic set that turns to science fiction worlds or designs that seek to shape organic and natural figures, the artist always aims to unsettle the viewer, to create tension between motif and form, to distort the viewer's gaze. His works, ranging from pieces of monumental scale to small objects, have the powerful ability to produce a sensation at once playful and solemn.