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Waissman’s paintings personify an agonizing speech, a narrative with plenty of conflictive situations that at the same time are tales of efforts and commitment. He assumes a concrete perspective related to the world he depicts. His paintings are not mere chronicles of fictitious events, but a real positioning before the contemporary world, expressed in the language of plastic images. Amid the growth of the cities and the violent transformation of the urban experience, rather than a disappearing universe, Waissman represents an appearing world; situations increasingly present and unavoidable, demanding reflection and an accurate look. His painting is neither indulgent nor evasive. On the contrary, it is urgent.
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Estadios, Dios está?, Collective Cartographies
…In "The cultural logic of late capitalism" Frederic Jameson expounds on the need for what he calls “cognitive maps”, elements that can offer guidance in the violently re-configured landscape of postindustrial cities. These maps are not just a tool to locate a particular geographical site but, fundamentally, a guide to subjectively find one’s place within the complexity of the current urban scene. It is a map of one’s own, made up with familiar sites, places of one’s memory, spaces marked by personal experience. A cartography that adjusts the dimension of the territories according to the individuals that reside in them; charts that transform “non-places” into places, formed by localities steeped in memories and recollections. In these works, as in most of the works in this series of the Collective Cartographies, it is the multitudes that brand the space with their presence; it is they that transform an occasionally anodyne landscape into a territory laden with significance…
ALONSO, RODRIGO: Waissman, Buenos Aires, 2006
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It is highly significant that the artist has begun to work with multitudes some years before the concept of multitude became one of the most vital and rich in the political contemporary theory. Opposite to the idea of mass, which describes undifferentiated beings, characterized by their generality and anonymity, the concept of multitude refers to a human group that keep differences and particularities of the members composing it. The multitude does not deny individuals. It articulates the capacity of action in a very particular way, promoting joint activity in spite of individual differences. This concept has acquired a fundamental importance within present political theories, because it allows the possibility of political action and radical social transformations, without the demand of a unified political subject, sharing just one ideology.
This perspective reinforces the arguments against indifference and anonymity in Waissman’s multitudes. Their permanent wish to move and change, confers them an active role in their environment. It is also important to stress that before the conflicts in the present world, Waissman offers a collective, communitarian response, recovering a political instance frequently evaded on the postmodernism speeches.
Genealogías, Collective Cartographies, 2005
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