Marcello Mercado

Marcello Mercado (b. 1963, Chaco, Argentina) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans abstract painting, drawing, and new media. Holding German citizenship, he divides his time between Chaco and Cologne, Germany. With a background in cinema, he studied at the National University of Córdoba and later at the Academy of Art and Media at the University of Cologne, experiences that shaped his approach to contemporary art.

His artistic process is based on research as practice, engaging with a culture of experimentation. He is primarily associated with Post-Internet Art, Process Art, Virtual Art, and Abstract Painting.

Mercado’s artistic practice explores the intersection of organic and digital processes, creating works that exist between traditional and technological paradigms. His paintings and drawings, often characterized by fluid abstraction and dynamic composition, reflect a fascination with the unpredictable nature of both human gesture and algorithmic structures. His approach embraces materiality while integrating conceptual frameworks drawn from artificial intelligence, generative systems, and biological theories.

He has participated in numerous notable exhibitions, including the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, ZKM Karlsruhe, Museum Ludwig in Cologne, the 51st Venice Biennale, Museo Nacional Reina Sofía, Kunsthaus Dresden, the 11th Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement in Geneva, The Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, and the II Biennial of Mercosul.

Beyond group exhibitions, Mercado has held solo shows at Galerie Bernet Bertram in Berlin, La Ira de Dios in Buenos Aires, Galería Vanguardia in Bilbao, and [galerie.bruehl] in Brühl, Germany, among others. In 2009, the Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires dedicated a retrospective to his work, cementing his influence within the contemporary art scene.

He has been recognized with numerous awards, including an Honorary Mention at Prix Ars Electronica Linz in Interactive Art, First Prize at Videobrasil in 1998 and 2001, and the Grand Prix de La Création Vidéo at Vidéoformes.

His paintings and drawings are deeply informed by his broader engagement with new media and conceptual art. Despite his experimental use of technology in other aspects of his practice, his work on canvas and paper maintains a tactile immediacy, emphasizing the raw power of color, texture, and gestural mark-making. Mercado’s ability to navigate between disciplines allows his paintings and drawings to exist both as autonomous artworks and as part of a larger conceptual dialogue about perception, transformation, and the fusion of human and machine-driven aesthetics.

Mercado’s large-format drawings emerge from a collaboration between himself and small robots that create fine layers, linear figures, and kinetic, electrified registers, which he then redraws and accentuates in a figurative manner. His work exemplifies a commitment to experimentation and demonstrates how the exploration of new media can expand our understanding of technology, culture, and art.

Over the years, Mercado has received numerous awards and fellowships, including grants from the Antorchas Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Lampadia Foundation. His dedication to innovation has also led to research residencies at the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art in Germany and the University of Applied Arts in Vienna.

With an ever-evolving practice that bridges tradition and experimentation, Marcello Mercado continues to push the boundaries of contemporary painting and drawing, offering a vision in which the artist’s hand and the logic of systems coexist in a dynamic and ever-shifting dialogue.

Biography extended version (+)

Filmography (+)

Lebenslauf (German) (+)

Biografía en español (+)

INSTALLATIONS

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, Curves, compost, forecasts and enclosure, metal and wood, 40cm x 60cm, 2020

Marcello Mercado, My social day, radio device, DNA, wood, styrofoam, silicone, 30cm x 80cm, 2008

Marcello Mercado, Capital, radio device, DNA, silicone, 30cm x 50cm, 2005

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