Sergio Avello

Mar del Plata, Argentina, 1964 - Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2010

            Sergio Avello's artistic trajectory covers three decades of Argentine art. From different formats and techniques, his poetics always managed to be in tune with the trends of his time. Trained as a painter, his first radius of action was the Buenos Aires scene of the eighties, where he arrived very young from Mar del Plata, with the return of democracy. His first works, anticipating the ornamental passion that will drag his contemporaries a decade later, consist of small and meticulous paintings, which will give rise to later experimentations with light and sound. As a hairdresser, makeup artist, editor, artistic advisor, DJ, performer and drag artist, he built a network of relationships that led him to become not only a visual artist, but also a key figure in the underground circuit during the nineties.

            Thus, this stage of his work can be read from the coexistence between an expanded sociability, concerned with the need to build community and create meeting spaces where there were none, and a plastic and formal ductility focused on color as an object of pictorial study within the traditions of abstract modern art. His approach to light and sound as plastic materials, but at the same time as devices that create environments, are a symptom of this combination of aesthetics and relationality, building a poetics of friendship through art. With the turn of the century, Avello's work took note of the economic and social crisis in Argentina, transforming the playful and contained lines of his works into interventions around symbols of strong public impact. He resorted to the flag as a format and, through irony, added a new layer of politicization to his production. 

            In 2003, following this line, in the midst of the invasion of Afghanistan, he used the flag of the United States for a series of works: first, as a mournful banner of the time in Oro Negro; then, as an unusual symbol of neo-communism, in 2003 and 2004; later, in its pink version, as a testimony of the HIV epidemic; and, finally, to denounce local dependence, when he fused its design with the colors of the Argentine flag, in Argentina, hay quien te ama y hay quien te USA (2008). This irreverence marked a new direction in his work, increasingly focused on subverting any official iconography. Willing to pose an alternative utopia to the gray contemporary modes of existence, the possibility of living in the pleasure of color stands out in his production.