03/14 — 06/16/25
Opening: Thursday, March 13, 7:00 p.m.
Gallery 5. Level 2
Malba opens its 2025 calendar with Kuitca 86. De Nadie olvida nada a Siete últimas canciones, a show that offers a comprehensive look into a crucial stage of Guillermo Kuitca’s work—in celebration of the 50th anniversary of his debut exhibition in 1974 at the Lirolay gallery at 13 years old, and to commemorate the 22 years since his work was first exhibited at Malba.
Given the opportunity to recover the experimental dimension of his early work, for the first time ever, the show brings together a set of paintings and iconic series such as Nadie olvida nada —begun in 1982— El mar dulce —begun in 1983—, and Siete últimas canciones —first exhibited in 1986—, as well as a selection of drawings and documents. Through painting, Kuitca developed with these pieces —which feature different formats, supports, and techniques— a spatial and material research that gave rise to a definitive iconographic repertoire. It is a selection of images where he depicted the convergence of atmospheres that allude to the imaginary of the individual and the communal, the domestic and the dramatic.
Simultaneously, the show looks at his projections from 1986, which mark that year as an unparalleled moment in Kuitca’s career, when he quickly consolidated a narrative that led to his abandoning the human figure, allowing us to think of his work from this period in perspective and prospective. In a context that is increasingly rooted in the performative conception of cultural practices, this exhibition also highlights the scenic aspect that characterized his language at an early stage. In this sense, it explores the artist’s dialogues with expanded theater as a source of liminal pictorial and theatrical experiences. Lastly, the show presents Kuitca’s production as an inescapable reference to art from the Global South and delves into the impact that he has had in significant scenes of the discontinued framework that constitutes modern and contemporary Latin American art.
Kuitca 86 will feature 77 works from the Malba Collection and Eduardo F. Costantini Collection, as well as other private and public collections. Most of these pieces can be found in Argentina—having been returned to the country in recent years after being sent abroad for different exhibitions and left in cities across Latin America, Europe, and the United States. Embracing this spirit of recovery, Malba once again presents this artist who has been a key influence to his generation and the ones that followed.
Curators: Sonia Becce y Nancy Rojas.
Guided Tours
Wednesdays and Saturdays, 5 p.m.
Included with museum admission ticket.
Guillermo Kuitca
Buenos Aires, 1961.
Since 1980, Kuitca has had over sixty solo exhibitions at some of the most prestigious museums and galleries of contemporary art in Latin America, Europe, and the United States, including The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) (New York, 1991), Kunsthalle Basel (Basel, 1990), Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (Rotterdam, 1990), Musée d’Art Contemporain (Montreal, 1993), The Douglas Hyde Gallery (Dublin, 1995), Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (Paris, 2000), and The Drawing Center (New York, 2012). He has participated in countless group exhibitions, such as the Bienal de São Paulo (1985, 1989, 1998), Documenta IX (Kassel, 1992), Carnegie International (Pittsburg, 1995), Gwangju Biennale (Korea, 1995), and the 7th Istanbul Biennial (Istanbul, 2001). In 2007 he was selected to represent Argentina at the 52nd Venice Biennale, where he also participated in the exhibition held at the international pavilion.
Some of his most important anthological exhibitions are Burning Beds, a Survey 1982-1994 (Wexner Center for the Arts, 1994; Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1995), Everything. Paintings and Works on Paper, 1980-2008 (Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Walker Art Center, PAM Miami y Hirshhorn Museum, 2010), and recent exhibitions such as Guillermo Kuitca – Dénouement (LaM, Lille, 2021) and Guillermo Kuitca. Desenlace As a curator, he has carried out interdisciplinary work with the Fondation Carter Collection, reflected in three large-scale exhibitions: Les Habitants (Fondation Cartier, Paris, 2014), Les Visitants (CCK, Buenos Aires, 2018), and Les Citoyens (Triennale di Milano, 2022).
His theatrical activity includes making the plays La casa de Bernarda Alba (2002) and Bodas de sangre (2022) performed at the Teatro San Martín in Buenos Aires and Der Fliegende Holländer (2003) at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. In 2007 The Metropolitan Opera in New York presented the exhibition Stage Fright, which showcased his work with plans of opera houses. In 2009 he designed the permanent stage curtain for the Winspear Opera House in Dallas, built by architect Norman Foster. Likewise, he and Julieta Ascar designed the new curtain for the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, first shown in 2010.
In 2004 he was named Honorary Professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and he was named Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Letters in France in 2018. In 2024, at the invitation of the Picasso Museum in Paris, he did a mural intervention in the chapel of the Hotel Salé, the palace where the museum is located. The exhibition Lorca/Kuitca. Vals en las ramas has recently opened in Mexico at the Museo de Arte de Zapopan. Featuring works by both artists, it will be held at the Centro Federico García Lorca in Granada in 2025.
