These works have the coherence of dreams and are reminiscent of the tapestries, with intricate geometric designs, that the Shipibo indigenous tribe of the Peruvian jungle would embroider to represent the visions they had with ayahuasca. In this case, it is as if the merged spirits of Piet Mondrian, Roy Lichtenstein, and Bugs Bunny had participated in one of these ceremonies and then created a tapestry of their visions. Hybridization is absolute: in these visual representations of Galecio’s memory Joaquín Torres García’s Latin American constructivism cohabitates with pop art; pre-Columbian textiles with cartoons; suprematism with videogames. However, despite the radical hybridization, each of these works has an internal coherence; nothing in them is there by chance; each element is governed by mysterious relationships that, every time we stop to observe them, reveal to us an unlimited possibility of readings.

In the series “The American Imperialism is…” we see tigers —another symbol of power that is, in turn, a predatory animal— built with small pieces of colored paper, like a children’s collage. It is the plastic representation of a concept that Mao Tse Tung used to describe North American imperialism. According to Mao, the reactionary forces of that empire seem terrifying but are like a “paper tiger” because they lack real power when they are not together with their people. Seven decades later, Mao’s sentence sounds childishly naive.

With his urinal, Duchamp introduced to the museums a mass-produced industrial product, however, no one remembers the brand of that urinal. Warhol, with Campbell’s soups, brought a brand to the museum, framed consumption as a work of art. However, perhaps it is the pack of Marlboro of Saavedra that best synthesizes the capitalism of our days, the addiction to a consumption that consumes and that, nevertheless, continues to be desirable.
A few years ago, concept artist Jenny Holzer posted the phrase protect me from what I want on a billboard in Times Square. With his work, Saavedra rejects that protection, as if he were telling us that desire is the only thing we have left and, with a hint of cynicism, he responds: give me what I want, even if it destroys me. Or, as the text in Russian that crosses the Swiss forests of his homonymous quadrupt says in a more poetic way: “My flames will also reach your paradise. Your happiness will turn to ashes in your mouth.

The main difference between Achenbach and Wang Hui is, without a doubt, that the latter never played drums in a punk music band. Achenbach, yes. And he played jazz and experimental rock. Perhaps that is why, for him, combining colors is not very different from putting together the notes that create a chord. Furthermore, Achenbach not only explores the parallels between musical and pictorial creation but also, in his words, “I try to make my paintings sound. It’s something intuitive. I listen to the colors.” This ability – to hear colors or see the color of a musical note – is called chromasthesia and is also part of the tradition of art. Vasili Kandinsky, for whom colors were the sound of the soul, wanted to create a painting as if it were a symphony that, when looked at, not only stimulated the eye, but also the ear. The mountains, trees and rivers in Achenbach’s paintings vibrate and undulate like sound frequencies; The effect is reminiscent of the visuals of a trip with psychedelics and increases when, along with the vibration of geography, Achenbach installs Vasarely’s optical games. In the video Terra Incógnita, Achenbach musicalizes the lines and shapes of his works, in an act of deference so that, like him, we can hear the colors.

Sol de fuego thistles I, II and III come from those abandoned sites. They were like a wall that prevented Lagata from moving forward, a natural fence that awakened his desire to go further. A symbol of the territory of his childhood, as if Lagata were capable of opening a vortex in his memory to extract objects that he displays in front of us. Here the metallic thistles transform into a couple or a family lying in a bed, into fossils of the transience of life, into the memory of a hug frozen in time. Resting on a weightless metal bed, the thistles condense the opposites present in Lagata’s work. A cold warmth, a cutting tenderness.

Urzúa obtains the leaves from the plantations and, to use them, she must select them, wash them, boil them, dye them or let them dry, then she must iron them, fold them and sew them. The result achieved, those small rectangles of tied and dyed corn leaves, embodied the brushstrokes of her oil paintings and with them she began to assemble her works. Urzúa warned that corn was not only anchored in the history of Latin America but, in addition, its grains that nourish and its leaves that are discarded were a metaphor for the marginalization of women and, especially, their invisible dedication. For this reason, she decided to include the participation of more than seventy women in her work. As if she were looking for the same thing as the Ghanaian sculptor El Anatsui – another of her references – who, to make her formidable fabrics made with bottle caps (another waste), works with numerous assistants, because she hopes that the presence of many hands. Always thinking about how to make the hidden visible, Urzúa considered that part of those hands must have belonged to imprisoned women. Inside the prison, she sat next to them at a table and they folded and sewed corn husks. Urzúa asked them for a type of closure, she suggested colors, but they improvised, leaving their record, seeking to manifest themselves through the page. What is not productive for society – the corn leaves, the imprisoned women – gain notoriety in the works in this exhibition, they are rescued from abandonment by transforming the creative process into a collective experience. Once Urzúa has gathered all her small sewn rectangles, she arranges them by color and with the fabric on the ground he composes a collage, bending down, replicating the movement of those who plant corn, sowing her work, which she only knows when it acquires verticality.

On a symbolic level, water, in Tijoux’s work, brings together two Freudian drives. The body that floats weightlessly represents Eros, the drive towards life; however, the absence of solidity, the possibility of sinking, tempts our drive to reach the silence of death. This is what Tijoux experienced when a boat she was on capsized at sea. Falling into the water, Tijoux froze and began to sink. She looked up and saw the light moving away. She felt a strange serenity, as if she were a spectator of her own sinking, in silence, marveling at the fading light, until she finally reacted, swam to the surface, and felt terror at the proximity of death. How could the same event trigger such dissimilar experiences?