Magui's Country

The hard peasant life in the Middle Ages gave birth to fantasies of other lives, more comfortable and pleasurable. One of them was the Country of Jauja, an imaginary place where food abounded and was readily available to people. Pieter Bruegel the Elder materialized this desire in the work "In the Land of Jauja" (also called "The Land of Milk and Honey," 1567): in it, we see three men resting contentedly in an environment full of food that grows from trees, falls from the sky, or is simply — as in the case of the egg with legs and spoon inside — generously offered for their enjoyment.

The living conditions in today's cities likely do not resemble those of the Middle Ages. Food and comfort are offered everywhere, although many people still go hungry. However, urban overabundance seems to have distanced us from vitalism and serenity.

What imaginary places would we like to go?

In her most recent series of works, much like Brueghel, Magui Trucco paints a desire, conjuring it onto the canvas to see how it would look. It is her desire, but it could just as easily be that of many others. In these works, a girl appears, perhaps herself, peacefully napping on the grass in a bucolic setting. She is not alone, as various animals accompany her, also curled up and sleeping, unconcerned with whether they are prey or predators to one another. In the moment that the painting captures, they rest from being. They are there.

If in previous series Magui painted distant corals and underwater landscapes to bring them closer, here she focuses on the native fauna of the Argentine coastline. Much closer, yet still distant.

The confinement forced upon us by the pandemic revealed how sterile and gray life is in the succession of interior spaces that make up the city. In this sense, the works are a desperate cry to be closer to nature, even if it presents itself as mute, under the guise of a forced harmony.

The viewer questions the fantasy the artwork sets up, asking: How could that scene be possible? To which the painting retorts: Look around you, how is the life you lead possible?

Why does human life aspire to urbanity as its ultimate goal?

If Magui's paintings bring distant desires closer, perhaps we should take note that this time she is trying to bring us something that is so near to us.

Cities, founded to hate.
Cities, so tall, for what?
Cities, corpses standing.
Cities, to dust they shall return.

If here the star is never seen,
From here, the earth, the being, and the sun will leave,
And total loneliness will reign,
For the final destruction was written.

Ferrer, Piazzolla, The Cities

Valentín Demarco, 2021