Nate Lowman/Auguste Rodin

The Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires presents works by Nate Lowman in dialogue with sculptures by Auguste Rodin from the permanent collection.

Curated by Eneas Capalbo, an Argentine artist and gallery owner based in New York, this exhibition presents a series of paintings by Lowman alongside emblematic pieces by Rodin, including The Kiss, The Earth and the Moon, and the bust Monumental Head of Balzac.

According to the museum's director, Andrés Duprat, “The century that separates the productions of Rodin and Lowman speaks through the interpellation that the past directs to the present and the light that the present sheds on aspects of the past." Through this exhibition, the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes aims to renew the interpretation of its collection.

For his part, Lowman, born in Las Vegas in 1979, recalls that in his youth he used to visit LACMA with his family, where a version of Rodin’s 1898 monument to Honoré de Balzac was on display in front. “This work became the focus of my interest every time I visited the museum. As an adult, I realized that it was my favorite sculpture,” recalls the artist.

“I then moved to New York, where the Statue of Liberty is located, a French figurative building, a sculpture-building made of copper. In 2016, I started painting flowers and leaves in isolated shapes. On one of them I decided to represent my own version of the Statue of Liberty, as well as the head of Balzac sculpted by Rodin,” explains Lowman about the works she presents at the Bellas Artes.

“When we talk about outdoor sculptures, we are also talking about gardens. I wanted to paint a ‘sculpture garden’, even if it wasn’t real, just as the Balzac monument had turned the front of the Los Angeles museum into a damp, flat, fertile path of gray cement,” the artist adds.

Learn more at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Buenos Aires.