Forms of Curiosity: Art Exhibition at the Embassy of Argentina

This Thursday (May 15) from 3.30pm to 6pm, the Embassy of Argentina will host the opening of its new art exhibition “Forms of Curiosity.” Offering an innovative look at contemporary art, this fascinating exhibition brings together some of the most prominent names in the contemporary Argentine art scene alongside three renowned Chinese artists, creating a unique intercultural dialogue and highlighting both the wealth of Argentine artistic production and the creative power of China.

”Forms of Curiosity” serves as a bridge between two creative worlds, exploring curiosity as a driving force of art and human connection. It promises to be an important celebration of the diverse ways artists observe, interpret, and transform the world.

The exhibition has been organized in partnership with Mil Gotas Art Gallery and Artist Residency and is curated by Sofia Roncayoli Lombardi.

Registration and Exhibition Information

If you would like to attend the exhibition opening, please confirm with the embassy via email at echin@mrecic.gov.ar before tomorrow (Tue, May 13). There is no attendance fee.

“Forms of Curiosity” will be showing at the Embassy of Argentina for one month, from May 15 to Jun 15. While the exhibition will not be open to the general public during this time, the embassy will host other events, during which time attendees are welcome to also view the “Forms of Curiosity” exhibition. Follow the Embassy of Argentina on WeChat (ID: ArgentinaenChina) to be informed of embassy events.

Artist Bios

Washington Cucurto

Cucurto, also known as Cucu, did not finish high school and trained as a self-taught writer, going to libraries and buying books. It is said that it was a coworker who, while he was working in a supermarket, sparked his interest in literature. His first book was a collection of poems entitled Zelarayán, which appeared in 1997. This work was a boost to the reckless realism, a style he developed alongside other authors. Zelarayán gained popularity when, in 2001, the anti-popular government of Fernando de la Rúa ordered its removal from public libraries for its content.

Cucurto’s career continued with new novels and books of poems. Several of these works were translated into languages such as English, Portuguese, and German and appeared in various anthologies in Latin America and Europe. In 2002, in the midst of the Argentine crisis, Cucurto founded the publishing house Eloísa Cartonera, which he still runs. This company, organized as a cooperative, has the unique distinction of publishing books with cardboard covers, a material it acquires from impoverished people who make a living by collecting cardboard in the streets. These covers are also hand-colored by the same people.

After spending time in the German city of Stuttgart thanks to a scholarship from the Akademie Schloss Solitude, Cucurto is currently a sports columnist on the ESPN website and continues to work on creating new books.

The UPeC (Union of Cuban Journalists) awarded him the Félix Elmuza distinction.

Cecilia Ivanchevich

Cecilia Ivanchevich is an Argentine artist and curator. She creates drawings, paintings, installations, and site-specific works. In her works, she explores the interrelationship between image, sound, and space.

She trained as a visual artist at the National University of the Arts (UNA) and later as a curator at the National University of Tres de Febrero (UNTREF). In 2010, she created the visual-sound installation A Light in Development with the American musician and mathematician Leon Gruenbaum, which was exhibited as part of the x200más exhibition at the Recoleta Cultural Center in Buenos Aires. That same year, she founded the Interdisciplinary Art Laboratory, a space that combined visual and sound art so that several artists from both disciplines could work collaboratively to create a shared work. 

In 2014, the Argentine Mozarteum awarded her an artist residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris, where she developed the interdisciplinary project The Rhythms of the Triangle: Visual and Sound Dialogues and Variations.

In 2018, she held three solo exhibitions: “Transformations” at the Paco Urondo Cultural Center, “Rhythms and Variations on a Theme” at the OSDE Foundation, and “Polarities” at the Cecilia Caballero Gallery. In 2020, she was invited by Chinese curators Ying Xuan Du and Lin Wang to represent Latin America at the “Local-International” exhibition in Dazhou, Sichuan province. The exhibition was held to inaugurate the 515 Art Creative Village, which converted what had historically been the largest munitions depot in eastern Sichuan into an art space. There, Ivanchevich created Resilience, a site-specific installation in a 65m-long cave that brought Chinese and Argentine history and their respective pictorial traditions into dialogue. This work is currently part of the museum's permanent collection.

Verónica Gómez

Verónica Gómez was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1978. She is a national professor of painting at the National School of Fine Arts Prilidiano Pueyrredón, and holds a degree in visual arts from the National University Institute of Art. She has received scholarships from the Visual Arts Clinic, Rojas Cultural Center (2006), the Intercampos Program, Espacio Fundación Telefónica (2005), and the Creation Grant, National Fund for the Arts (2004 and 2012). 

Gómez has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Argentina and abroad and received the following awards: 8M Award, 2022; First Prize, 21st Klemm Award for Visual Arts, 2017; Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, 2016; 4th Honorable Mention, Braque Prize, MUNTREF,  2013; First Prize, 64th Rosario National Salon, Juan B. Castagnino Municipal Museum of Fine Arts, 2010; Honorable Mention, Pampean Fine Arts Salon, Provincial Art Museum, La Pampa, 2003; COAP Drawing Award, National Fine Arts Salon, Buenos Aires Museum of Fine Arts, La Plata, 2002.

Lula Mari

Born in Buenos Aires in 1977, Mari studied painting at the National School of Fine Arts Prilidiano Pueyrredón. Since 2010, Mari has been holding painting recitals, where the time and conditions of viewing a painting become the terms of the painting itself. Mari has exhibited at Zavaleta Lab Contemporary Art, Sputnik Gallery, AlphaCentauri, and Modos Gallery. Along with G. Ciotti, Mari painted a 100-meter mural in a subway station. Mari’s work was part of "A History of the Imagination in Argentina" at the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires.

Laura Ortego

Laura Ortego is a photographer who was born in Comodoro Rivadavia, Argentina. Her themes include the construction of identities, particularly those of women and diverse individuals; mixed-race identity; transitions from childhood to adulthood, of sex, and more recently from bodies to digital bodies; migration and Eastern culture. She studied direction of photography at ENERC (INCAA). She participated in the artist program at the T. Di Tella University. She received scholarships from the Metropolitan Arts Fund in 2013 and the National Arts Fund in 2012 and 2020, as well as support from the 2019 city government Patronage Program, and in 2007 won Second Prize at the National Photography Salon. Her work has been exhibited in several countries around the world. 

Ortego has participated in residencies in Beijing and Shanghai in China, Kyoto and Fukuoka in Japan, and Istanbul in Turkey. She published the books Photographic Diary of a Film in India and Beijing Girls and, with Leonel D'Agostino, directed the feature-length documentary Mekong River about a Laotian refugee, a film which participated in the WIP section of the 2016 Mar de Plata Festival. She contributes to the magazine Dang Dai, a cultural exchange between China and Argentina, and produces the digital publication Visita, featuring photo interviews with artists from different places and disciplines about their creative process.

Luciana Schnitman

Luciana M. Schnitman graduated as a fashion designer from the University of Palermo and worked in the fashion world for several years. Today, among other things, she dedicates herself to one of her greatest loves: drawing. She is a freelance illustrator and primarily creates custom, commissioned paintings using a completely artisanal process. She began embroidering in 2020, and her mentors have been Marian Cvik, Marina Cerruti, and Mariana Guagliano.

Schnitman’s work received an honorable mention in both 2022 and 2023 at the Salon of Photography With Textile Image at the Argentine Center for Textile Art.

In 2023, she participated in the NY20+ residency in Chengdu and in 2024 in the Mil Gotas Residency in Beijing. She has exhibited in both China and Argentina and currently hosts the podcast Brote, a sound investigation into creative processes, with Blanc Tawy.

Natheim

Born in Argentina in 1982, Natheim holds a degree in social communication from the University of Buenos Aires, a degree in photography from the Andy Goldstein School of Creative Photography and a certificate in arts management from Matadero Madrid.

Natheim is the founder of FotoCreativaBA and the coordinator and instructor of FotoComBA – International Expanded Photography Program.

She mentors artists in the FotoCreativaBA Artist Residency Program, supported by Res Artis. She is the curator of the Santa Rosa Arts and Healing artist residency in Canada and FotoCreativaBA in Argentina. She has conducted workshops with Alberto Goldenstein, Alfredo Willimburgh, and Daniel Tubío, among others; seminars with Rodrigo Alonso, Maricel Álvarez, and Carmen Baliero, among others; and at various institutions such as EFTI, Workshop Experience, and EuropaCreativa. She was a finalist at FELIFA 2021 and her book Lurraldeak [Territorias] was exhibited at the FIEBRE Photobook Fest (2020-2022). In 2021, she was part of Proyecto PAC at the Gachi Prieto Gallery, and in 2023, she was part of MANGLAR at the Acéfala Gallery, coordinated by Andrés Labaké.

She has held solo and group exhibitions in Argentina, Uruguay, Ecuador, Spain, Italy, and France. Notable exhibitions include: the Museo d'Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Casa América in Madrid, the Prix Mark Grosset de Promenades Photographiques, the Bilbao International Festival of Experimental Film and Video, the Haroldo Conti Museum, the Argentine Photography Biennial, the Gachi Prieto Gallery, the Acéfala Gallery, and the Montevideo City Film Festival. She was selected for the following artist residencies: the cross-border Patrim+ at the Museo Caserío Igartubeiti (Ezkio, 2019), the Castillo de Seix (Couserans, 2020), ELF at Arte x Arte (Buenos Aires, 2021), Proyecto 'ace (Buenos Aires, 2022), Cal Gras (Avinyó, 2022), R.A.R.O. (Madrid, 2022), Isla Invisible (Bahía Blanca, 2023), and NY20+ (Chengdu, 2024).

Wang Yiqiong

Wang Yiqiong is one of the most renowned contemporary Chinese artists. He graduated in 1990 from the Printmaking Department of CAFA (The Central Academy of Fine Arts of China) and is a national first-class artist and teacher.

He is the creator of the Spitting installation and founder of the “Ten Inks” system: “If there is a pen, there is ink; if there is no pen, there is no ink; if there is no pen, there is no ink.”

Wang studied calligraphy, woodblock print, oil painting, and contemporary Chinese ink. His style combines elements of printmaking, integrating traditional painting materials and techniques, and color analysis in oil painting. He is known as the “Chinese Hokusai.” His ink works feature a unique style, from the indulgence of “Shi Tao,” such as the loneliness of Daba and the beauty of Jianjiang, and possess a romantic and post-impressionist style. This style is reflected not only in his works but also in his thinking and lifestyle.

His works have won awards in national and international exhibitions and are part of several national and private collections. He is currently illustrating Mil Gotas, the book by César Aira, for publication in 2025.

Lin Mo

Born in 1962 in Harbin, Lin Mo lives and works between Beijing and Paris. He graduated from the Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang in 1984. In 1990, he continued his studies at the University of Barcelona and has since settled in Spain. In 2011, he published the book Traveling to Find Myself, which recounts the last two decades of his travels to all corners of Europe, ultimately exploring his inner artistic source. He has held solo and group exhibitions in China, Spain, France, Italy, the United States, and more locations.

Lin uses color and painting to express the traditional Chinese philosophy of Taoism – magnificence yet with little exposed, appearing and hiding, approaching while receding. In his works, you can read everything: the mountains and rivers, the flowers and grasses, the wind and clouds, but nothing at all... At the same time, you can feel the inner breath of life. The figures are scattered and hazy, from which the inner soul rises, sometimes from fear, sometimes from surprise, and sometimes from sweet desire, but all converge on the canvas by an unspoken power – where exactly one finds Chinese esoteric art "scattered in form, but united in essence.” In his works, the bright and light Western colors, the free and graceful Eastern ink, the perfect combination of East and West, work as well as the reflection of the two different cultures on the artist himself. Ignoring all norms, breaking all rules, he detects, with the gentlest feeling, the uncopied beauty of art belonging exclusively to himself.

Chen Hong

Artist Chen Hong graduated from the Department of Oil Painting at Anhui Normal University. Her works have been featured in several national and international exhibitions and have been collected by several galleries and private collectors.

The “Dinner” series was created by Chen between 2015 and 2017. These works do not aim to recreate a typical dinner. Through powerful brushstrokes and an exquisite palette, Chen engages in a dialogue with these objects, and the canvas becomes a space for holding certain hidden emotions of loneliness and nostalgia.

“Dinner is only a metaphor, a monologue that interweaves past and future, memory and desire, reality and fiction.”

Sofia Roncayoli Lombardi (Sepia) – Curator and Artist

Born in Buenos Aires, Sofia Lombardi is an Argentine artist who has been living in China since 2013. She studied visual arts at the National University of the Arts. She worked at the Chinese Embassy in Argentina and at the Confucius Institute at the University of Buenos Aires, collaborating with the organization of events and exhibitions. In 2012, she was shortlisted for the Prilidiano Pueyrredón National Award.

Her interest in eastern art and literature led her to study traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy at the Jilin University of Fine Arts and language and literature at Jilin University.

She has participated in numerous exhibitions and biennials in China, Japan, Argentina and the United States. Her work has been featured in the Beijing Biennale, Dafen (Shenzhen), Hong Kong, and the Silk Road exhibitions in Xi'an. Her work focuses on Latin American legends, short stories, and social realism.

She currently collaborates with the Mil Gotas Latin American Art Gallery and Artist Residency, organizing exhibitions and cultural activities.

Guillermo Bravo – Founder of Mil Gotas

Guillermo Bravo was born in Argentina and studied Literature at the National University of Córdoba, continuing his studies in Paris. A resident of China for over a decade, he is the founder of Mil Gotas, a project that includes a publishing house, bookstore and art gallery, and which is dedicated to cultural exchange between China and Spanish-speaking countries. His literary and cultural work has established him as a bridge between both cultures.

The opening of “Forms of Curiosity” will be taking place on May 15 from 3.30pm-6pm, at the Embassy of Argentina, the event is free to attend but you need to register via email at echin@mrecic.gov.ar before tomorrow (Tue, May 13). 

Embassy of the Republic of Argentina in China
11 Sanlitun Dongwu Jie, Chaoyang District
朝阳区三里屯东五街11号
Hours: Mon-Fri 9am-5pm
Tel: 010 6532 1406

READ: May Art Roundup: 55 Exhibitions Ending This Month in 798

Images: Mil Gotas, the Embassy of the Republic of Argentina in China