José Maldonado
Galería Helga De Alvear
The focus of this exhibition, “Desifinado” (Slightly out of tune), was a life-size photograph of the artist, foreshorteneda reminder of Holbein’s The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb. Maldonado isn’t dead, but he pretends to be; meanwhile, he listens to music through a pair of headphones. Maldonado has been playing for some time with this idea of a private, secretive act of listening that occurs “inside the picture” yet remains absent because, in the realm of visual representation, music “appears” only in absence.
It is as if the artist is depicting some ultimate asylum for the world of