Bettina Costa was born in Rosario (Argentina) in 1965. Her talent shows the legacy of his father Aldo Costa (illustrator and painter). After a 2-year painting training by Stella Maris Marinich (plastic artist – Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina), she comes 2001 to Switzerland.
Her journey as plastic artist began in Argentina with a realistic style, strongly marked by the conflict between what she believed she should paint and what she wanted to paint.
The abstract world called her, and the understanding that a painting does not necessarily need to be exactly like the reality it represents, gave her wings to fly into the world of the abstraction.
Rough terrain, sinuous and complex; the multiple layers covering her abstract works (paper, plaster, acrylic) invite the observer to discover and perceive a world full of shapes, colours, lights and shadows.
The nostalgia for her homeland makes her appeal to a new theme «Tango»; connecting thread of her current works «Tango de Papel», «Tangollage» and her latest series «Pasos de Tango».
With a personal technique, using collage and acrylic, the artist manages to bring together movement, passion and music; she overlaps suggestive images, harmonic and contrasting colours, which act with even intensity on the surface of the paper and on the feelings of the observer.
Bettina’s works invite us to travel to Argentina, to feel the magic of tango; sensual and popular dance, human figures, anonymous persons moving to the beat, tight embraced bodies, thoughts drifting into the distance, squinted eyes, legs that caress and entwine.
Music that penetrates the soul and leaves the body as movement.
Her works invite us to dance.
Original text (Spanish) by María Milagros Labrador / July 2015
Art critic
Universidad Nacional de Rosario – Argentina
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MY RELATIONSHIP TO TANGO
I was born in Argentina; the cradle of tango. However I never paid much attention to this part of my culture. I considered tango as something «for old people». I never thought I’d ever be interested in tango… until I emigrated.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Argentina was full of immigrants seeking their fortune in that country and hoping to return to Europe or bring their families across the ocean. The tango lyrics reflect the deep feeling of loss of these immigrants and the nostalgia for the people and places they left behind. Tango helped them to forget their worries. I am also an immigrant; I came to Switzerland for a quite different reason. I was never homesick, but perhaps unconsciously I was looking for something not to lose my roots. With tango I found it.
No, I cannot dance tango; at least not in the traditional way.
MY WORKS
The last few years I have intensively dealt with the subject tango. Besides painting, I began to work with collages and stencils, the latter influenced by street art.
2016 I decided to implement my tango variations much more conceptually and went for the first time away from the walls with the project «Vereda del Tango» (Tango sidewalk). That is a «teach yourself tango» dance sidewalk showing the eight basic steps of this dance. The first «Vereda del Tango» in Switzerland is located by the Kurbrunnenanlage in Rheinfelden.
Then, followed carpet installations: shoe-shapes cut on carpet and arranged showing the tango steps, placed on the floor or on a wall.
During the Art Basel week 2017 I presented my project «Cancha de Tango»: a rectangular rolling-grass area on the gravel showing the tango steps. The steps were marked with whiting spray like in any playing field or «cancha» (Spanish for playing field).
However, it is not just everything only about tango… At the same time I work more and more with paper and digital collages representing bizarre, whimsical scenes of everyday life. An example of this is the project «Rheinfelden Surreal», a series of 29 works, which was presented at «kunst lokal rheinfelden 2018» (adjudicated and curated exhibition). Two works of this series were selected as Rheinfelden’s wedding pictures 2019 – the wedding pictures are works from local artists which the city of Rheinfelden gives each year as present on occasion of a marriage.
Bettina Costa / 2018
EXHIBITIONS
| 2023 | Galerie im Gwölb – Baden – CH |
| 2023 | Open studios Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2023 | magidunum museumsgalerie – Magden – CH |
| 2023 | Project «Vereda del Tango – Km 10465» – Barcelona – ES |
| 2022 | Galerie Katapult – Basel – CH |
| 2022 | frontofbicycle – BREAK FREE – Basel – CH |
| 2022 | CENTREPOINT – Basel – CH – Solo Exhibition |
| 2021 – 2022 | Pop up art Gallery Salmenpark – Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2021 | 47 KÜNSTLER:INNEN – 47 WERKE – Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2020 – 2021 | Regionale 21 FABRIKculture – Hégenheim – FR |
| 2020 | Kunsttage Basel – CH |
| 2020 | KunstKiosk Baar – CH – Solo Exhibition |
| 2020 | frontofbicycle – TALKING WALLS – Basel – CH |
| 2020 | FAF 2020 – Gais – CH |
| 2019 | Open studios Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2019 | Project «Vereda del Tango – Km 10939» – Budapest – HU |
| 2019 | Project «Vereda del Tango – Km 10468» – Barcelona – ES |
| 2018 | kunst lokal rheinfelden (adjudicated) – CH |
| 2018 | ART MARKET BUDAPEST – HU |
| 2018 | Basler Kunstmarkt – CH |
| 2018 | HYBRID art fair – Madrid – ES |
| 2017 | Open studios Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2017 | «Puertas al Mar» – Installation of Santiago Vélez’s artwork (CO) – Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2017 | chemicalmoonBABY – Zürich – CH |
| 2017 | YIA Art Fair #10 – Basel – CH |
| 2017 | CAMPBASELrevisited – Basel – CH |
| 2017 | Kunst verbindet 2017 – Rheinfelden – Baden – DE |
| 2017 | SETUP CONTEMPORARY ARTFAIR – Bologna – IT |
| 2016 | kunst lokal rheinfelden (adjudicated) – CH |
| 2016 | SWAB – International Art Fair – Barcelona – ES |
| 2016 | Art Passage – Hotel Euler Basel – CH – Solo exhibition curated by Dr. Nadja Borer |
| 2016 | LISTE TOTAL – Art Fair Basel – CH |
| 2016 | Kunst trifft Musik – Rheinfelden – CH – Solo exhibition curated by Michelle Geser |
| 2016 | ROOM ART FAIR #5 – International Art Fair – Madrid – ES |
| 2015 | Kunst im Gewerbehaus Q37 – Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2015 | SWAB – International Art Fair – Barcelona – ES |
| 2015 | Open studios Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2014 | Kulturnacht Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2013 | Open studios Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2013 | ONEsize din A3 artshow – Basel – CH |
| 2011 | Kunst im Gewerbehaus Q37 – Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2011 | Open studios Rheinfelden – CH |
| 2009 | Open studios Rheinfelden – CH |
| 1999 – 2000 | Various group exhibitions – AR |
UPCOMING
| 2024 | Kunst in der Werkstatt – Möhlin – CH |
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