In 2016, Javier Villa curated an exhibition featuring three projects by Axel Straschnoy from the period 2003-2006.

It is a period which roughly begins with his invitation to take part in the exhibition Ex-Argentina and ends with his move to Helsinki and the closing down of his studio.

“In a time when curators and art historians are beginning to write the history of the early 2000s in Buenos Aires, The Great Morning / Winds of long ago / Blow through the pine-trees places Straschnoy’s work in context. The exhibition highlights the way in which Straschnoy´s projects proposed new forms of dialogue between the forces in struggle in the arts and in the political arena on those years. Taking a cue from the projects on display, the exhibition merges two ways of dealing with objects  from the past, most of which were never meant to be exhibited but which are now the only leftovers from the projects they belong to: it is a retrospective from a curatorial viewpoint, as well as an artistic project on how to present pieces that were never realised. It is old and new work at the same time. It deals with the ideas of revisionism, rewriting, reconstruction and conservation: it is an exhibition about time and its dialogues.”

Javier Villa, Senior Curator at the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art

“The three projects were conceived in a peculiar socio-political and cultural context. At the beginning of the 2000s—just after the major crisis of 2001—two ideological ways of approaching art were in confrontation: on the one hand, project artists dealing with socio-political issues mostly in the public space; on the other, the artists of the Centro Cultural Rojas defending the ornamental object produced inside the studio . Straschnoy emerged in the context of a new generation that pushed forward the new premise that the categories of political projects and the production of studio-based objects should be ignored or merged. In either way, the antagonism that marked Argentine art since the early avant-gardes was rendered inoperative.”

Javier Villa, Senior Curator at the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art