Alejandra Seeber and the Freedom of Listening to the Creative Process

Alejandra Seeber, Le Corbusier Tropical, 2008. Oil on canvas, 36 5 ⁄ 8 × 44 3 ⁄ 8 inches (93.5 × 113 cm). Photo by Marcelo Setton. Courtesy of the artist.

Alejandra Seeber’s work revolves around ambiguity and the undefined. “I don’t settle on [the] figurative, or abstract, or whatever,” says the Argentinian artist while sitting in one of the very regal rooms of an early twentieth-century Park Avenue mansion, where the Americas Society has its headquarters. As part of the presentation of her solo exhibition, Interior with Landscapes, together with artists Annette Wehrhahn and Fabienne Lasserre, Seeber is discussing how New York’s art scene looked when they first moved to the city in the late ’90s and early 2000s—“when Williamsburg was still affordable,” they say while laughing. 

As she makes the statement about not settling for a particular artistic movement, there’s a carousel with images of her vibrant, colorful work sliding behind her. We can see her “Black Grass” series, which represents her approach to Abstract Expressionism in painting; her figurative representation of the architectural composition of a bedroom in Le Corbusier Tropical (2008); a direct written message on canvas: “cuidado con la pintura” (careful with the painting) in Cuidado con la pintura a.k.a la (mi) Peralta Ramos (2011) from her “Words” series; and then back to abstract landscapes mixed with a clear-cut depiction of home decor elements in various images of her “Rorschach” series. 

She is, indeed, not stuck in a particular movement.

Alejandra Seeber, Misiones / Urquiza (lapacho y algodon / bambu y cubo mágico) with Rorschachs element, 2004. Oil on canvas, 48 × 64.125 inches (121.9 × 162.8 cm). Courtesy of the artist and the Institute for Studies on Latin American Art (ISLAA), New York.

Even though she never really planned it, New York is the city where she ended up putting down roots in 1999, both personally and artistically.

Going back, as a young artist in Buenos Aires, Seeber used to spend time working as an assistant for other artists until her ticket toward an international career came in the form of the Kuitca Fellowship in 1995. “It was a program aimed for young artists,” Seeber explains, “people would come to my studio in Buenos Aires, and I started getting all these business cards: ‘Come see me in Spain, come see me in France,’ but I still didn’t have the money to travel.”

Alejandra Seeber, InExterior (Chandelier), 2014. Oil on canvas, 55.125 × 65.75 inches (140 × 167 cm). Photo by Wolfgang Stahl. Courtesy of the artist and Häusler Contemporary.

She tells how the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) was off-limits for new and up-and-coming artists, so she started exhibiting in smaller cultural spaces like the Rojas Centre, the Instituto de Cooperación Iberoamericana (now called Instituto de Cultura Hispánica), or the Alliance Française where she sold her first paintings. With this money, she started her tour around Europe and New York, mainly visiting friends, but also networking and forming new connections. “I never planned to migrate completely. I would go to Argentina for a show and then get accepted for a residency back in New York. I felt free.”

It was not until 9/11 that Seeber felt she should establish herself in New York: “I felt the world was not in a state where I should keep traveling around,” she says. However, besides the crisis and the volatile political situation in Argentina, Seeber will always see her country as a place to go back to: “Everything has changed over there too, but I always try to keep my connection (by teaching at the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, for example).”

Alejandra Seeber, Black Grass Yellow Wave, 2022. Oil on canvas, 12 × 16 inches (30.4 × 40.6 cm). Photo by Arturo Sanchez. Courtesy of the artist.

But settling in one place also meant structuring her profile around the artistic establishment of that place. “When I got here, it was all about the artist statement,” she remembers. “I wrote thousands of artist statements, that was always the way to present yourself.” Defining her work is something that Seeber says she struggles with and almost doesn’t see the point of doing: “It seems to me that an artist’s work is too great to be contained in one statement.” She says: “I also think about the role that time plays, and the different readings each player can give to an artwork and how it changes its definition. I just could never find enough words to describe it,” she continues. “Artists are not the best people to talk about our work.” That’s when curators come into the scene.

Aimé Iglesias Lukin, curator at the Americas Society, had been working on a series focused on understudied or underrepresented women and women-identifying artists from the Americas. It began in 2022 with the exhibition of Mexican sculptor Geles Cabrera and continued in 2023 with an exhibit on Chilean interdisciplinary artist Sylvia Palacios Whitman. It was now time to honor the twenty-five-year career of Alejandra Seeber.

The survey Interior with Landscapes at the Americas Society acts as an attempt to establish an organic approach to telling the story of Seeber’s career—so far. It encapsulates the tension between abstraction and representation, all under one roof, focusing on how the theme of interiors can be a vehicle for Seeber’s artistic exploration. 

Alejandra Seeber at her exhibition, Interior with Landscapes, at the Americas Society. Photo by Michael Palma Mir. Courtesy of the artist and the Americas Society.

Painting, textiles in the form of rugs, and ceramics are the elements that construct the exhibition environment. Seeber says: “I like how playing with each one of the techniques helps me progress within the technique itself. It’s like a dialogue.”

Painting acts as the axis and the central landscape that serves to merge the interior with the exterior. This tendency is seen in pieces like La Bourgeoisie (2010), which depicts a typical upper-middle-class living room; Black Grass Yellow Wave (2022), an abstract composition of leaves and flowers in an exterior setting; or InExterior (Chandelier) (2014), which blends the interior and exterior through a tropical landscape seen through what seems to be a big window or a porch.

Alejandra Seeber, La Bourgeoisie, 2010. Oil on canvas, 63 × 78 inches (160× 198.1 cm). Joshua Wood and Lucio Castro Collection. Photo: Arturo Sanchez. Courtesy of the artist.

Seeber translates “survey” as recorrido, and the Spanish word becomes much more powerful than its English version in the context of actually experimenting with and moving around the exhibition. Recorrido means “route,” “path,” or “journey.” We are taking a figurative journey through Seeber’s career, but also following a physical, tangible route across the gallery space guided by a game of mini golf.

To design the experience, Seeber did not want to include the characteristic synthetic grass of most mini golf courses: “I care about the environment, and I don’t like that shade of green,” she said. Therefore, she created different rugs to act as separate little islands for the game—an extra layer to the viewing experience. Seeber observes: “Rugs are also a very domestic, interior element, but we are using it as an exterior landscape.” 

Installation view of Alejandra Seeber: Interior with Landscapes at the Americas Society. Photo by Arturo Sanchez. Courtesy of the artist and the Americas Society.

Ceramics also add a fun touch and act as obstacles in the recorrido. The artist says: “I had a lot of fun making ceramics. I used to go to the studio of this Puerto Rican lady next to my house … She had millions of figurines: Pedro Picapiedra (Frederick 'Fred' Flintstone), shoes, little birds … and I would paint them.” When Seeber makes ceramics herself, she interacts with the material by forming “a humble relationship” with it: “I play between what I want the piece to be and what it turns out being. There’s always a negotiation between the two.”

Alejandra Seeber, Mini golf installation with Palette Rug (2024) and Waves on Skate Base (2020). Photo by Arturo Sanchez. Courtesy of the artist and the Americas Society.

The entire exhibition proposes a new angle from which one could look at the artworks—one that is not so confrontational. “I like to work kind of absent-mindedly, following what’s happening in the painting from the side, in unexpected ways.” According to Iglesias Lukin, by inviting visitors to play alongside her works, Seeber presents her pieces through a journey that is both guided and open to interpretation—once again, in Seeber’s style, ambiguous.

In his catalogue essay, “Chaos and Care,” curator Dean Daderko, who has known Seeber for over two decades now, explains how the artist operates under the pleasure of freedom and the unknown: “I imagine Seeber laughing as she throws traditional genres like landscape, portraiture, still life, and abstraction into her artistic blender: what emerges are refreshing remixes; making discoveries at the edges of painterly legibility.” 

When trying to read or understand Seeber’s work, one has to look for the empty space that lives between an initial concept and the final piece. It is there where Seeber looks for—in her own words—“the fun” and “the miracle,” which happens through the experience of producing a work of art. “It’s not about the project. It’s about the process,” she says. “I always think there’s an immense journey between the head and the hand, the idea and the execution. And that is something one must listen to.”

Alejandra Seeber: Interior with Landscapes is on view at the Americas Society (AS/COA) in New York from June 5 to July 27, 2024.

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