Occupying as he does the fertile space between the digital and physical spheres, it is hard to think of an artist that defines the present like Andrés Reisinger. His practice is almost undefinable, the Reisinger Studio he set up, being by its own definition, ‘unclassifiable’. Yet his work is amongst the most sought after digital art of this century. With recent NTFs fetching rarely seen-before figures, including, in 2021, The Shipping collection and the collaboration entitled Arcadia at an auction by Christie’s, Reisinger is now drawing interest from multi-million-dollar collectors. In 2018 Reisinger created Hortensia, a beautifully rendered digital piece that then became a staggering physical object. Hortensia, like an ethereal icon of a complicated present, is at once digital and physical. In this way Reisinger’s work acts as a bridge between realms, always using a meticulously precise palette that offers a mesmerizingly clear vision, one that is above all, full of emotion.
“I was more interested in creating my own worlds than playing by the rules created by someone else”
Although he eschews any sort of art establishment, Andrés Reisinger, who was born in Buenos Aires in 1990, is nonetheless a figurehead in the world of digital art. He is now acknowledged as setting the tone and visual language of a complex, and rapidly developing scene. So how did this genre-defining, and genre-defying artist get to where he is? We need to go back to the late 90s, when as an eight year old, he was given his first computer. “Of course I wanted to play games,” recalls Reisinger vividly; “but I was more interested in creating my own worlds than playing by the rules created by someone else.” A deep relationship with technology had begun, but turning to another passion, that of music and the study of the classical guitar at the local public conservatory, gave the young Reisinger a set of tools that would inform his adult career. It was the discipline of that music education that stayed with him; “I wanted to break my own limitations” he recalls; “I spent hours watching the metronome.”
“I began to explore the visual part of composing”
The technical precision that would partly define the artist was no doubt already there by the time Reisinger went to the University of Buenos Aires, where he studied graphic design. Still looking back to his younger self, with parents (both chemists) that were “a strike through and start again, structured kind of people”, Reisinger sees an almost robotic mind that yearned for a freedom to create. His rigorous approach to the theoretical mechanics of music and that underlying propensity for information technology fused with the visualising tools needed to imagine new worlds. As Reisinger puts it, he was “beginning to explore the visual part of composing”. This innate multidimensional quality, this sense of plurality became an essential component of Reisinger’s work.
Jump forward a decade and Reisinger’s most well known works include The Shipping, a collection of digitally-born furniture that has recently sold for $450,00 at auction. In November 2021 his collaboration entitled Arcadia (also an NFT) realised $525,000 at the prestigious Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale. Hortensia was a rendering that Reisinger made and shared on social media in 2018. In 2019 it gained so much interest that a limited edition of fifteen chairs were made after enlisting the help of textile designer Julia Esqué, before quickly selling out. 2021 saw the Hortensia family of objects being produced by Dutch brand Moooi. Also that year, Reisinger presented The Smell of Pink, a multisensory, site-specific installation at Miami Art Week. In January 2022, Reisinger introduced Winter House (2022), a residential project for the metaverse inspired by the frosty season; designed in collaboration with architect Alba de la Fuente. Also in 2022, Reisinger launched Pollen (2022), a pioneering NFT project that expands the possibilities of digital art and reflects on the concept of an artwork’s evolution ; inspired by the natural processes of pollination. With the introduction of a new artwork called POLLEN, Reisinger invites his Hortensia Open Edition collectors to exchange one of their pieces for an unknown new one that evolves through a process, resulting in what is defined as recombinant art.
Resigner Studio was opened in Barcelona’s post-industrial Poblenou by Andrès Riesinger as a vehicle to further expand his work and artistic practice. Collaborating with Apple, Bally, Instagram, Meta, Microsoft and Samsung to name but a few, the founder and a tight-knit team engage in projects that are aligned with the core values of the studio. The conceptual, collaborative approach of the studio is not centred on commercial aspects, says Reisinger; he prefers instead to talk of a brand elevation that comes from these intense creative partnerships.
“It’s an exciting time to be alive for culture right now” wrote the artist in 2021 as he introduced the Arcadia project. In it, he engages with a present that has become increasingly fragmented. For Reisinger there cannot be a linear storyline in a multilayered world in which different events occur concurrently across different media. Fragmented and yet intertwined, this cultural condition requires innovation to survive.
“People really started to be confused, they asked if it was real or not”
Reisinger’s unique position, no doubt stems from a deeply innovative approach. One that inhabits a world, a metaverse even, he himself has gone about creating.
‘I wonder what the chair and fabric are made of,’ reads one comment, of the Hortensia chair that had already gone viral in 2019. Reisinger’s visual language is so very nearly tangible, it is so visceral that is hardly a surprise that it might lead the mind to wonder. “People really started to be confused” says Reisinger of the time when he began to refine his now-inimitable renderings; “they asked if it was real or not”. Reisinger embraces this ambiguity on the part of the viewer, “I like to disorient people” he says with a smile, “I envision that in the future nobody will ask that [real or not] question.” A future where reality itself is something very different, “No-one will ask that, because everything will be real, because this is real for me. At that moment, that is my reality.”
Andrés Reisinger lives and works in Barcelona. Some of his exhibitions include Too Much, Too Soon! at Nilufar Gallery (2022 – Milan, IT), Let’s Get Digital! at Palazzo Strozzi (2022 – Florence, IT), Somewhere Ethereal at Fotografiska (2022 – Stockholm, SE), The Smell of Pink at Faena Project Room for Aorist at Miami Art Week (2021 – Miami, US), Moco Museum (2021 – Barcelona, ES), Odyssey at Nilufar (2021 – Milan, IT), The Shipping at Nifty Gateway (2021 – US), Job Interview at Last Resort Gallery (2019 – Copenhagen, DK), Montoya Gallery (2019 – Barcelona, ES), Maze at 1stdibs Gallery (2019 – New York City, US), QTS Curated by Chamber NYC (2018 – Buenos Aires, AR), 1000 Vases at Espace Commines (2018 – París, FR) and Hortensia Chair at Design Museum Gent (2018 – Ghent, BE).