Marcello Mercado
To paint with Data I
AI-Book, 310 pages
2023
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Marcello Mercado, Can’t you read between the lines?, Object, 2005
Marcello Mercado
Kannst du nicht zwischen den Zeilen lesen? (Can’t you read between the lines?)
Object
2005
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Marcello Mercado – Portfolio
Marcello Mercado was born in Argentina in 1963 and works across numerous mediums. His interests lie in exploring the relationship between technology, cultural biology, and art, with a special focus on the interaction between digital and organic materials. Mercado has been recognized with several fellowships, including The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Lampadia Foundation, and Fundación Antorchas. He was also awarded the Grant for Media Art 2013 from the Foundation of Lower Saxony at the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art.
Mercado has participated in several notable exhibitions, including Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, ZKM Karlsruhe, Museum Ludwig, Cologne; 51st Venice Biennale; Museo Nacional Reina Sofía; Kunsthaus Dresden; 11th Biennale de l ́Image en Mouvement, Genéve; The Taipei Fine Arts Museum; Berkeley Art Museum and II Biennial of Mercosul.
He has also been recognized with numerous prizes, including Honorary Mention Prix Ars Electronica Linz in Interactive Art, First Prize Videobrasil in 1998 and 2001, and Grand Prix de La Création Vidéo.
His artistic process is research as practice, where he engages with a culture of experimentation, and he is mainly associated with Post Internet, Process Art, Virtual Art, and Abstract Painting.
Mercado’s large-format drawings are a collaboration between him and small robots that create fine layers, linear figures, and a kinetic, electrified registrar that Mercado redraws and accentuates in a figurative manner. Marcello Mercado’s work exemplifies his commitment to experimentation and how exploring new mediums can expand our understanding of technology, culture, and art.
Biography extended version (+)
Filmography (+)
Lebenslauf (German) (+)
Marcello Mercado
BRK 6s7gz sghxgcgcw ehwgd
Artist´s book, 280 pages
2012 – 2023
Marcello Mercado
Licht Pentimento
Artist´s book, 98 pages
2004
Marcello Mercado
FHLR
42 pages, artist´s book
2010
Marcello Mercado, Object, wood, sawdust, straw and nails, 2022
Marcello Mercado,NN, collage, 3D printed objects on fabric, tryptich, 2016
Marcello Mercado, Van Gogh´s Variations, dried sunflowers wrapped in rope and tubes with sunflower DNA on copper box, 2014
Marcello Mercado, The next and the stranger, 2022
Marcello Mercado, The next and the stranger, 2022
Marcello Mercado
XIP
Artist´s book
2003, re-edited 2007
Marcello Mercado, Metakartierung, pencil on paper, Artist´s Book, 2012
Marcello Mercado, Van Gogh´s Variations, 7-channel video installation, 2014
Marcello Mercado, Van Gogh´s Variations, Compositions for motors and robots, notations, 2014 (+)
Marcello Mercado, Van Gogh´s Variations, Seven Sunflowers deleted, 2014 (+)
Marcello Mercado, Bestiary for the minds of the 21st Century: Genomic Opera, 2-channel video installation, artist’s book, public audio interaction,sound installation, Angewandte Innovation Laboratory, Vienna, Austria, 2016
Marcello Mercado, pencil on paper, drawing, 2008
Löschen/ DELETE, Borrar, 2012 HD 1-channel videoinstallation, 10min 05sec stereo 16: 9 black / white, Special mention, Interactive art category, Ars electronica, Linz, 2012
Marcello Mercado, Untitled Field, oil on canvas, 283 cm x 162 cm, 111.4 in x 63.7 in, 2016
Marcello Mercado, Homeland light, oil, acrylic and pigment on canvas, 201 cm x 388 cm, 79.1 in x 152.7 in, 2011
Marcello Mercado, transferring, storing, sharing and hybriding: The perfect humus, Hybrid-DNA-Performance-Bio-installation, 16’23, 2010
Marcello Mercado, pencil on paper, Artist´s book, 2020
Marcello Mercado, pencil on paper, Artist´s book, 2020
Marcello Mercado, mixed media on canvas, 2014
Marcello Mercado
The journey with the Beagle
watercolor on paper
Artist´s Book, 24 pages
2010
Marcello Mercado, ink on paper, silicone with DNA and copper with coconut, drawing, 2006
Marcello Mercado, DELETE, installation, 2012
Marcello Mercado, Days of pandemic, origami made with paper printed with the genome of the corona virus, 2020
Marcello Mercado,Vilém Flusser und Marshall McLuhan /Fliegeralphabet, 2010, Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Technologie (ZKM) Karlsruhe, Germany
Marcello Mercado,3D printed plastic sculpture, 2014
Marcello Mercado,pincel on paper, drawing, Artist´s book, 2016
Marcello Mercado, Capital, 2- channel videoinstallation, 15min, stereo 16: 9 black / white and colour, 2015
Marcello Mercado
Doppelt (Double)
Photo book, 30 pages
2013
The photographic book is a visual exploration of the image through two distinct techniques: The use of long shots with bulb and softart.
Marcello Mercado, acrylic on canvas, 60cm x 80cm, 2022
Marcello Mercado, TOR, 3- channel videoinstallation, 8min, silent 16: 9 black / white, 2016
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Marcello Mercado, Mutter (Mother), Artist´s book, genetic cartoon, 2000
Marcello Mercado
Mutter (Mother)
genetic cartoon
Artist´s book
2000
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Marcello Mercado, HyperSammlung, Artist´s book, 22 pages, 2012
Marcello Mercado
HyperSammlung
Artist´s book, 22 pages
2012
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Marcello Mercado, Fallen, Submerged, Devoured, Artist´s book, 152 pages, 2017
Marcello Mercado
Fallen, Submerged, Devoured
Artist´s book, 152 pages
2017 -
Marcello Mercado, BRK 6s7gz sghxgcgcw ehwgd, Artist´s book, 280 pages, 2012 – 2023
Marcello Mercado
BRK 6s7gz sghxgcgcw ehwgd
Artist´s book, 280 pages
2012 – 2023
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Marcello Mercado, /%77%ed75&xz, 40 pages, Artist´s book, 2016
Marcello Mercado
/%77%ed75&xz
40 pages, Artist´s book
2016
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Marcello Mercado, Fallen, Submerged, Devoured, Artist´s book, 150 pages, 2017
Marcello Mercado
Fallen, Submerged, Devoured
Artist´s book, 150 pages
2017 -
Marcello Mercado, Licht Pentimento, 98 pages, Artist´s book, 2004
Marcello Mercado
Licht Pentimento
Artist´s book, 98 pages
2004
Licht Pentimento (2004) occupies a foundational position within Marcello Mercado’s practice. Conceived as an artist’s book situated at the intersection of photography, softart, and early digital experimentation, the project does not approach glitch as a visual effect, but rather as a critical method and a mode of inscription within the image.
Across its pages, light ceases to function as a vehicle of revelation and instead becomes residue, interference, and trace. The notion of pentimento—traditionally associated with painting and the persistence of concealed layers—is displaced here into the technical domain of digital imagery, where chromatic shifts, misalignments, and data disturbances operate as active memories of process. The image is not presented as a stable outcome, but as a site of negotiation between support, device, and accident.
In dialogue with Mercado’s earlier works in performance, photography, and material manipulation of the archive, Licht Pentimento anticipates a trajectory that will remain central to his later practice: the image understood as a vulnerable system, exposed to erosion, translation, and controlled corruption. By deliberately engaging technical failure and unstable supports, the work suspends any notion of total authorial control and positions technology as a co-producing agent.
Rather than celebrating error as spectacle, the book constructs a restrained visual economy in which repetition, seriality, and information loss function as structural operations. Seen in retrospect, Licht Pentimento can be read as an early archaeology of digital visuality, where each image bears the evidence of its own obsolescence and material contingency.
Licht Pentimento (2004) ocupa un lugar fundacional dentro de la práctica de Marcello Mercado. Concebido como un libro de artista en el umbral entre fotografía, softart y experimentación digital temprana, el proyecto no se limita a explorar el glitch como efecto visual, sino que lo instala como método crítico y como forma de escritura de la imagen.
En estas páginas, la luz deja de operar como principio de revelación para convertirse en residuo, interferencia y huella. El término pentimento —tradicionalmente asociado a la pintura y a la persistencia de capas ocultas— es desplazado aquí hacia el dominio técnico de la imagen digital, donde cada error, desplazamiento cromático o desalineación del archivo funciona como memoria activa del proceso. La imagen no aparece como resultado estable, sino como campo de negociación entre soporte, dispositivo y accidente.
En relación con trabajos anteriores vinculados a la performance, la fotografía y la manipulación material del archivo, Licht Pentimento anticipa una línea de investigación que atravesará de manera consistente la obra posterior de Mercado: la imagen entendida como sistema vulnerable, sometido a procesos de desgaste, traducción y corrupción controlada. El uso deliberado de fallas técnicas y soportes inestables desplaza cualquier noción de control autoral total y sitúa a la tecnología como agente co-productor de sentido.
Lejos de una estética del error celebratoria, el libro construye una economía visual austera y rigurosa, donde la repetición, la serialidad y la pérdida de información funcionan como operaciones estructurales. En este sentido, Licht Pentimento no documenta imágenes fallidas, sino que ensaya una arqueología temprana de la visualidad digital, en la que cada imagen porta la evidencia de su propia obsolescencia.
Visto en perspectiva, el proyecto se inscribe como un antecedente clave de las investigaciones posteriores del artista sobre archivo, latencia, materialidad algorítmica y memoria técnica, consolidando una práctica que entiende el error no como desviación, sino como forma legítima de conocimiento visual.
