Chapter Seven
I have nothing to reveal
For Javier Toro Blum (Santiago, 1983) the interest for art and its practice comes from somewhere else. The artist was born in Santiago de Chile in 1983 and was close to linguistics, psychology and poetry since he was very young. More specifically, with the world of concrete poetry, prevailing abstract conceptualization beyond a symbolic and biased representation. So, from his first years in psychology, he decided to move to art studies, strongly influenced by the figures of Robert Simthson, North American artist that changed abstract painting for sculpture and recognized as one of the most influential artists of Land Art or, like he proposed, “Earthworks”; and by Carl Andre, North American as well, sculptor and poet and one of the main exponents of minimalism.
Toro Blum is able to show in his work a contemporary visuality that revolves around the studies of contrast, perceptions and sensations and of how from affection in the senses, installing an artistic practice linked to the organic in life is possible, thus putting art in front of the experience to create an interpellation that is no longer only about a semiotic experience, but also a formal and spatial one.
The series “Fotometrías”(Photometries) consists of a series of works that operate according to changes in the light of spaces, as well as inside of them, and their relation with the space and perception of the spectator, exposing Toro Blum’s interest in the scientific relation between art and the human being.
Toro Blum is able to show in his work a contemporary visuality that revolves around the studies of contrast, perceptions and sensations
“Varela”, a bronze sculpture in egg shape, has inscribed on it the chapter about colour in Francisco Varela’s book “The phenomenon of life”, thus joining science, writing and volume in only one piece. Another of the main influences and sources of creation for the artist is filmmaking, being the figure of Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergmann, fundamental and the film “The Seventh Seal” the inspiration for the work “Ingmar”, a piece made in metal plates that brings to mind the screen of a movie theatre and is put with its back on the user, who is invited to take a tour that ends at a paradoxical response in neon.
Experimentation has gone beyond in the artist’s practice, so he developed, together with other artists, “Laboratorio Eigengrau” (Eigengrau Laboratory), a space for research of phenomena and topics that have worried and kept him occupied since long before he started devoting himself to visual arts.
Another of the main influences and sources of creation for the artist is filmmaking
Images courtesy of the artist