21 x 25 x 23 cm, 35 x 25 x 27 cm, 28 x 54.5 x 46 cm
For the project Aguas calientes Gabriel Chaile exchanged silverware from three popular soup kitchens (mutual aid organizations to provide food for people in need) in Buenos Aires to brand new cooking utensils to shape his project. Chaile then reworks the used goods, welding and engraving the names of their sites of provenance and imagery from local indigenous community’s visual repertoire; faces from vessels and iconography present in Cultura Tafí, Condorhuasi, Alamito, Santa María, Candelaria, and Ciénaga. Through this operation, he translates the idea of the “communal pot” into a meeting point for mutual cooperation and political resistance. In this project, Chaile reveals how everyday objects are imbibed in social and political relations, and their use and context mark their surfaces. The pans and pots used in the project are from the late 90s, having fed hordes of people during Argentina’s most challenging economic crisis. By devising new uses for items that once had a clear purpose, Chaile reprograms its fate and somehow retrieves, through those specifically used utensils, magical properties of pre-Columbian vessels. Simultaneously, the artist calls into question an entire system of power relations established by the “official” narratives and its classist progression, against which the pot and its form stand. The project was first shown in 2019’s edition of Art Basel, where the artist was present offering cups of mate cocido infusion (a popular Argentinian drink) every day at 5pm, in a subtle irony to English tea-time.
Gabriel Chaile’s work draws on references ranging from Pre-Columbian cultures to Conceptualism in often-usable sculptures involving bricks, adobe structures, and other found objects. He employs a critical-poetical approach to the sacred and its rituals, the political and indigenous communities of South America and his often-humorous works are invariably underscored by rather pointed social engagement. Chaile’s anthropological and visual research revolves around two key concepts: “the engineering of need,” consisting of creating objects and structures that collaborate in improving the conditions and raising awareness to extreme scenarios; and the “genealogy of shape,” which approaches the history of forms that have survived time and denote resistance, such as the clay oven and the common pot. Calling attention to class disparities and genealogy, Chaile invokes his indigenous roots to claim the reconstruction of pre-colonial identity and continue the lineage of these cultures through his own interpretation, propelling an inventive reparation journey.
This untitled ink and pencil drawing by James “Yaya” Hough is made on what the artist calls “institutional paper”, or the state-issued forms that monitor the daily activities of prisoners, of which, each detainee is generally required to fill out in triplicate...
Coué 1 is an animated sculpture that hypnotically highlights the self-motivating leitmotiv of the ‘Coué Method’: “Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.”This is the mantra that is repeated by different male and female voices in the soundtrack – first in an incomprehensible painfully slow slur, becoming clear and speeding up into a drilling hilarious sounding high pitching spin, as if helium had been inhaled...
Supreme court ruling concludes lengthy battle over Franz West estate Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Artist estates news Supreme court ruling concludes lengthy battle over Franz West estate The Austrian sculptor's art will go to his private foundation, represented by Gagosian, overturning previous decision granting ownership to West's widow and children Anny Shaw 18 December 2023 Share Franz West in his studio, 2009 © roessle A long-running inheritance row over the estate of Franz West, reportedly worth more than $50m, has finally been resolved after the Austrian supreme court last month concluded that all of the Austrian sculptor’s art should be donated to the Franz West Private Foundation, which is represented by Gagosian...
Maria Taniguchi works across several media but is principally known for her long-running series of quasi-abstract paintings featuring a stylized brick wall device...
Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Time-Traveling Lens Skip to content Hiroshi Sugimoto, "Lake Superior, Cascade River" (1995), gelatin silver print (all photos AX Mina/Hyperallergic) LONDON — The first image at the Hayward Gallery’s show of work by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto is a pair of upright apes walking through a volcanic landscape...
Particularly shaped by his own youth in the 1990s, his recent works have incorporated things like a marijuana leaf, a dragon-emblazoned chain wallet, metal grommets, and the ubiquitous (in the 90s) Stussy symbol...
As the caption purposely admits, these drawings were made by friends of Ondák’s at home in Slovakia asked to interpret places he has journeyed to...
Since 2005, Charles Avery has devoted his practice to the perpetual description of a fictional island...
‘The more art I see, the broader my perspective gets’: a visual artist’s week with the National Art Pass | Me and my National Art Pass | The Guardian Skip to main content Skip to navigation Skip to navigation Paid content About Paid content is paid for and controlled by an advertiser and produced by the Guardian Labs team...
Met Museum to Return 16 Looted Khmer Artifacts Skip to content Unknown artist, "Head of Buddha" (7th century), sandstone, 24 x 13 x 12 3/4 inches (all photos courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art) An ancient larger-than-life sandstone Buddha head, a bronze sculpture of a seated Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, and a 10th-century goddess statuette from a remote temple complex are among 16 looted Khmer works currently in the process of repatriation back to Cambodia and Thailand, according to announcements by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) released today, December 15...
Ukraine is under tension due to the politics of President lanoukovitch since 2010...
Dora Garcia’s work is a result of institutional critique and more generally that of language, following the conceptual artists of the 1960s like Weiner and Kosuth and Fraser from the 1980s and 1990s...
Although best known as a provocateur and portraitist, Opie also photographs landscapes, cityscapes, and architecture...
The photographic series Wrapped Future II by Lim Sokchanlina brings fences used on construction sites to enclose the surrounding areas, to different locations, lakes, valleys and forests; and places them at the center of works to obscure the beautiful Cambodian landscape...
Rowland’s minimal installations require a focus not on the objects themselves, but on the conditions of their creation, use, and distribution...