NEW YORK.- Camden Arts Centre presents the work of influential Argentinean artist Victor Grippo (1936 - 2002) for his first ever large-scale exhibition in London. Grippo’s works transform everyday materials through alchemy, uncovering their dormant energy. For example he uses potatoes (the universal food of the poor) to allude to ideas of social and political power and the potential for change.

Originally trained as a chemist, Grippo emerged as a painter and engraver in the politically-charged climate of 1950s Argentina. The exhibition features his works from the early 1970s until his death in 2002 including his most important installations.

‘We’re thrilled to have the opportunity to present this fascinating artist’s work four years after his death, it will shed new light on his work and the impact it has had on three generations of artists. I have no doubt it will be as rewarding to view as it has been to organise. Grippo used everyday materials including potatoes in surprising and inventive ways – touching on many different interests across art forms such as science, political unrest, struggle and propaganda. We are particularly excited that the work Mesas de trabajo y reflexión (1994) recently purchased for Tate collections will be shown in London for the first time.’ Jenni Lomax, Director, Camden Arts Centre.

Fascinated as he was with alchemical properties, natural objects become symbols of latent energy in Grippo’s hands. He made a number of works in which the electrical charge generated by potatoes is measured by electrodes connected to cables. In the large-scale installation Man Naturalization, Nature Humanization (1977), this everyday foodstuff is a symbol of the transformative potential of suppressed peoples.

Grippo’s art was one of analogies: between science and art, and between the artist and the craftsman. He likened sculpture to a trade in which materials change into another state. In the installation Some Trades (1976) the idea of the dignifying power of work is represented by traditional ‘tools of the trade’ as used by a blacksmith, a stonecutter, a mason, a carpenter and a farmer.

The exhibition includes a selection of Grippo’s elegant boxes from the Equilibrium series as well as his last works, the poignant groups of painted plaster forms he called Anonymous.