neugerriemschneider is pleased to present A Virtually-Never-Physically-Seen Body of Work, Mario García Torres’ fourth solo exhibition with the gallery. Born out of analog materials, the body of work shown was conceived of and completed in an institution – the Museo Jumex – yet it was accessible only to virtual visitors, due to Mexico’s first lockdown. Hung in the physical spaces of neugerriemschneider, and digitally presented for the inaugural FIAC Online Viewing Rooms (March 2 – 7), it was uncertain whether it would ever be seen in-person, due to Germany’s second lockdown. neugerriemschneider is therefore especially delighted to have reopened by appointment with A Virtually-Never-Physically-Seen Body of Work, which describes the interface between creation and spectatorship, and our physical and virtual experiences in the era of pandemic.

For the months of June and July 2020, García Torres was invited by Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo in Mexico City to occupy Museo Jumex’s first-floor exhibition space, vacant following the museum’s temporary closure due to COVID-19. García Torres transformed the venue, repurposing it as an artist’s studio and exploring the relationship between the institution and artmaking. His process led him through an arc of research, examining attitudes toward artistic production described by the likes of Michael Asher, Marcel Duchamp, Fischli/Weiss, Robert Irwin, Yves Klein and Bruce Nauman, amongst others. This research, creation and final presentation of Mario García Torres: Solo at Museo Jumex could be seen by visitors as part of a digital livestream for the duration of the project. The culminative result – a suite of toner-on-canvas paintings and an ambient sound piece – are featured at neugerriemschneider for A Virtually-Never-Physically-Seen Body of Work.

To create the paintings, García Torres worked with materials that are readily available, employing printer toner and methodically pouring the jet-black powder onto each canvas in succession, on formats both intimate and monumental in scale. The dust fell in clouds to form vertical, tapered streaks along the primed canvas surface. This expands upon his previous work with particulate matter applied to canvas, notably his Botanic Impression (n.d.) series in which negative imprints of plant life are formed with oxidized metal dust.

These new black-on-white compositions, shown either as wall-mounted works or as shades for lamp-like constructions that constitute three-dimensional paintings, are displayed in the order of their creation. With this arrangement, García Torres reveals his process of replicating each previous work from this series with the pursuant painting, only departing from this task for the final work in the grouping. Taken together, the paintings further the artist’s conceptual investigation of serendipity and accident, highlighting the entropy and textures inherent in the toner particles to build upon experiments with poured paint conducted by the likes of Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, and more recently John Armleder.

With titles based on conversations with peers, songs or other texts that García Torres came across during the paintings’ making, the works mirror the conditions of their own creation. Each piece is dated, an atypical practice for García Torres who otherwise leaves his works undated, highlighting their temporal context. Accompanying the canvases is a soundtrack composed by the artist in collaboration with Sol Oosel, the only in-person visitor to Mario García Torres: Solo at Museo Jumex in 2020. The five tracks that they created together draw upon samples taken from the museum’s space to form a comprehensive group of minimal electronic pieces. Played back at neugerriemschneider, the soundtrack creates an ambience that immersively recalls the context of the works’ production.

Furthering the examination of analog and digital experience, A Virtually-Never-Physically-Seen Body of Work was shown on the occasion of the inaugural FIAC Online Viewing Rooms (March 2 – 7, 2021). The presentation integrated interventions by the artist and recontextualized the work on a globally accessible platform as it continued to elide physical encounter.

With its tangible and immaterial forms, A Virtually-Never-Physically-Seen Body of Work, chronicles artistic production in seclusion and offers a record of a singular, global happening that has come to define how we collectively interact – with space, with each other and with ourselves.