Presence, absence, permanence is a ritual action composed by Rodolfo Acosta on the occasion of the death of my father, José María Virgili. The action took place on September 8 at 6 pm at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Mar del Plata (MAR) in which I participated along with Rodolfo Acosta, Mario Gemin, Diana León, Mariano Losi, Mariana Pellejero and Melissa Vargas.
Presence, absence, permanence was the first action or concert that occupied me with my deceased father. It was a totally different presentation and the affective power of the project marked me deeply. It was a farewell ceremony, a modest rite of passage perhaps. But it was also the beginning of a new/another personal cycle in which art declined its aesthetic, communicative, formal and social objectives, to plague itself to the great silence of passing time, to the movement of the planets – why not, or to the slow and relentless rhythm of the decomposing humus, then useful for the emergence of life.
It is a project that I want to accompany me in this personal biography.