Fernanda Laguna at Malba: a retrospective celebrating three decades of art, feminism and community
From March 13 to May 25, the Malba presents “Mi corazón es un imán, 1992–2025”, the most comprehensive retrospective to date dedicated to the work of Fernanda Laguna, one of the most influential figures in contemporary Argentine art.
Curated by Miguel A. López, the exhibition brings together more than 200 works spanning over three decades of artistic production. Paintings, drawings, collages, embroideries, sculptures, installations and videos are presented alongside notebooks, poetry and fiction books, and photographs from the artist’s personal archive.
The exhibition offers a wide overview of a bold and unconventional body of work that challenged patriarchal structures within the art world since the 1990s. Laguna has developed a unique language where art, literature, activism, friendship and community converge, dissolving the boundaries between everyday life and artistic creation.
A key figure in Argentine contemporary art
Born in Buenos Aires in 1972, Fernanda Laguna is a visual artist, writer, curator and teacher. Her practice often focuses on everyday life, blending humor, fragility, emotion and experimentation.
In 1999, she founded the independent art space and publishing project Belleza y Felicidad together with Cecilia Pavón, a project that deeply influenced Buenos Aires’ independent cultural scene. She is also part of the feminist collective Ni Una Menos and collaborates with Cecilia Palmeiro on the living archive Mareadas en la marea.
Her work is held in international collections including the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Seven sections exploring her work
The retrospective is organized into seven sections exploring her individual and collective work between 1992 and 2025. Throughout the exhibition, moments of charm, pain, strangeness and wonder challenge the solemnity of contemporary art and reclaim it as a testimony to everyday life.
It also highlights the genealogies of contemporary feminist activism, showing how many of today’s global movements emerged from everyday practices of collaboration, friendship, play and beauty in the independent art scene of the 1990s.
Two exhibition spaces
The exhibition unfolds across two levels of the museum:
- Level 1: until May 25
- Level -1: until June 22
The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.
Exhibition catalogue
A catalogue will be published in co-edition between Malba and the Reina Sofía Museum. It reproduces more than two hundred works and documents from the artist’s personal archive.
Designed in an aesthetic aligned with Laguna’s playful style, the publication gathers essays by Miguel A. López, Jorge Gumier Maier, Cecilia Palmeiro, Inés Katzenstein and Eduarda Rocha, along with a biography written by Dalia Rosetti, the artist’s literary alter ego.
A must-see exhibition
“Mi corazón es un imán” offers not only a retrospective look at the career of a major Argentine artist, but also reveals how art can emerge from everyday gestures, relationships and shared creativity that transform culture.
