Marcelo Rizzo was born in La Plata in 1957. It was in this city where he studied. He was interested in Painting, Natural and Social Sciences, he received his first teachings on History of the Arts and Aesthetics through Professor Lido Iacoppeti. Between 1979 and 1983 he attended classes at Raul Moneta’s workshop. He graduated as Cultural Anthropologist at Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Museo de la Universidad Nacional de La Plata in 1982.

Anthropology (longing for knowledge)

 

Painting (longing for freedom)

During fifteen years he was devoted to anthropological investigation. In 1980 he collaborated with archaeological prospecting and  excavation done by Dr. Pedro Krapovikas in Yavi, province of Jujuy, Argentina.
Between 1984 and 1985 he lived and worked in “ Instituto Tilcara”  (U.B.A) Province of Jujuy. He did intensive field study in dispersed assents in river Huasamayo basin, Tilcara and there he was part of a project of regional development directed by Dr. Guillermo B. Madrazo.
Back in La Plata he investigated about “ Social Interest Housing” and “ Housing Politics” (IVBA-FONAVI) focused on projects of “ Urban relocations” and monitoring and assessment of the undertaking  of “ Autoconstruccion Asistida por Esfuerzo propio y Ayuda Mutua”.
Between 1992 and 1997 he was a grant holder at Fundacion Dr. Jose Maria Mainetti for Medicine Development,  dealing with an investigation based on the act of knowing and doctors knowledge within the context of death and the patient, and its ethic and epistemological implications. Moreover, he co-ordinated the Audiovisual Aids Program (he wrote and directed the short “ Cuidar la vida cada dia” (“Taking care of life everyday”) – 1995 – among other works). His studies on  Medicine and Terminal illnesses were concluded with his monograph “ Medicina y terminalidad. Terminalidad de una medicina”  (Medicine and Terminal state. Terminal state of a medicine) (published by Editorial Quiron), which under Dr. Jose Alberto Mainetti’ s direction and Dr. Hector  B. Lahitte ‘ s supervision (Fac. de Cs. Nat. Y Museo de la UNLP) he obtained in 1994 the prize “Dr. Noel Sbarra de Humanidades Medicas”. He presented his essay “ El Lugar de los Cuidados” (The cared ones’ place”) in the 4th Congress of Social Anthropology, as a way of closing his investigation line.

Under the idea that every ethic (and Bioethics) is necessarily preceded by an Aesthetic, he is working nowadays on his own, diagonally between: Biology, Theory of Evolution , Anthropology and Aesthetics. He also works on varied essays which are grouped under the general title of “Bioestetica” (“Bioaesthetics”), basing on the general premise that there exists a redundancy between the creative act of an organism, organisms added; of the subject or subjects added and “ Creation” in its vastest sense. And that Nature designs under Epistemology (with capital letters) or Unique Aesthetic, of which thoughtlessness carries discomfort, ecological disruption and in an extreme range extinction. 

 

 

In 1992 he restarts his work as a painter. In 1995 he inaugurated his individual exhibitonand his first series “Creatura & Pleroma” at Pasaje Dardo Rocha (La Plata).
There was a second show in December 1996 in Urbino (Italy).
Between 1997 and the beginning of 1998 he developed a second series called “ Nueva Abstraccion” (New Abstraction”).
In 1999 he exhibited 35 works at Centro Cultural Islas Malvinas (La Plata). In March 2000 he presented Nueva Abstracción in Buenos Aires.
During april 2004 he exposed in MACLA his third series “Desdomesticados”.
His fourth series, “Trasfondos” (“Backgrounds”), has already been shown in La Plata and in  “Hoy el Arte” (Capital Federal). At present he is working in his second show of “Desdomesticados” and “Trasfondos”.
All along his career he has done “Obras por encargo” (“Made-to-order works”)(portraits, landscapes, etc.) and “ Pintura Digital” (“Digital Painting”). There is a number of works from his formative period up to the present, which could be classified as “ Obra diversa no incluida en series” (“ varied works not included in series”)
Some of his paintings belong to museums and private collections in Argentina, Italy (Urbino and Nocara) and Spain(Gandia – Valencia). Since 2001 he has been teaching in his workshop.
The following textual words by the artist recreate that articulation that is provoked in the artist coming from the meeting of art and science:

“ Maybe because of being rationalist and romantic at the same time, something imprecise and eager for the former and too demanding for the latter, my relationship with Anthropology was tense until accepting that in occasions I needed to paint, just painting. It was in that way that I started a conversation between two worlds which I thought conflicting (because of that unfortunate occidental habit of exaggerating the separation and dualism subjugation that make thought lose its way sometimes) sometimes I think that meanwhile the artist is awake, the anthropologist dreams (all of us have “ an anthropology” – an idea of man – anthropologists or not), and the other way around, in the anthropologist wakefulness, the artist (provisionally, all of us have an internal artist) creates secretly his brushstrokes. Possibly this is my only present conquest: playing a dialogue between both levels.
After a short or long fight, sometimes erotic, some other times “ tanatica” , I finally get to finish a painting; then I say that I have recreated something, something of such a nature that at the  same time it recreates me.
But, the work of art, if that is all about, does not have a coefficient of its own reality. It needs to be perceived, to be reformulated. If the painter reformulates his own reality in a work of art, then the public reformulates the work in their own reality, all this is part of the artistic act.
This web site will be composed by different works, which has made me face a question – Figurative or Abstract? Although, at the beginning it seems a conflict that the external world proposes to us and the supposedly interconnected knowledge, the opposition belongs to the possible readings kingdom, that is to say difference kingdom, “where an idea can be a cause”. The abstract gives place to the concrete and the concrete to the abstract. The distinction is not of one-dimensional rigor any more.
But, on the other hand, painting, to exist, needs to be perceived; which is the artist’s necessity, which is my necessity? What is the artist looking for beyond calling people’s attention, even beyond demanding affection, success, through his curiosity does he transform? I have the  feeling  that there is a desire of opposite sign, something we all carry since the very beginning: a longing for freedom”
M.R