Country Offside is a research and exhibition project that reviews the foundational myths of the gaucho and the farmer, essential to the collective imagination of Argentina and Switzerland. The exhibition featuring works by artists Nina Kunan, Oz Oderbolz, and Valentín Demarco, reinterprets these archetypal figures from a queer and postcolonial perspective, highlighting the performative and sensual qualities of associated objects. Challenges traditional patriotic symbols, habits, and traditions, prompting a profound reconsideration of binary national identity.

Valentin Demarco mixes 16th century European artists and paintings with elements of Argentine gaucho poetry to create a new video installation. In one of them, freely inspired by Benvenuto Cellini, a goldsmith working in his atelier has made a piece whose original function has been superseded by its peculiar appearance.  He turns the coffee spoon and says goodbye to the goldsmith to become a brilliant and solitary artist. The other video, inspired by a painting by Pieter Brueghel, stages a Jauja Criolla country, where three people rest idle and satisfied around a collective mate.

Nina Kunan presents “Industria Nacional”, a series of works/jewelry/clothing based on iconographies of the national imaginary and associates them with her project Arrepentida, an online shop of harnesses and erotic accessories. There are harnesses presented as jewelry, with belt buckles with the National Shield or with the prefabricated legend of Malvinas Argentinas (Falkland Islands) that are sold in any leather goods store. 

Oz’s series of sculptures are suspended between fiction and reality. After a process of formal abstraction and material alterations, the function of the objects has been re-signified. In Hell Rider the tin comes from Catholic church chalices and in Juicy the seat is decorated with Swarovski rhinestones, a reference to the iconic velvet tracksuit in the 2000s. These Boots Are Made for Walkin’ suggesting a performative farmer’s stride in space. 

Gabriela Cabezón Cámara contributes an evocative poem that fits within the gaucho genre, a form of narrative poetry that tells the stories of itinerant horsemen in the Argentine pampas of the 19th century. Her work highlights contemporary socio-environmental issues affecting the Argentine countryside, weaving a connection between historical and current concerns.

The exhibition invites us to imagine utopian narratives, explore the potential for a new folklore, and critically reassess celebrated fictions and opens a dialogue about identity, tradition, translation and the future of cultural narratives.

Willkommen to Museo Internacional Gauchx

Violeta Mansilla.