These Presents

06/07 – 21/07

Objects migrate, as people do. Their lives are attached to the affects with which we cover them, as an embrace that hides a memory, a desire, or a promise. The objects we carry are the remnants of the places we have visited, the people we have encountered, and also the sum of all the things we have also left behind or lost. Objects are not just merchandise or a collection. They participate in a contemporary world where the machinery of capitalism seems to have agglutinated everything and yet objects still carry our love.

In the midst of museums, collections, and objects, Chilean artist Felipe Pineda (b. 1995) configures a world of meaning with which we all can relate: souvenirs and all their itineraries. Souvenirs are not hollow representations of museum shops, but stories that have yet to be told when they arrive at their destination as gifts. The artist, while visiting tens of shops, discovered multiple objects which he safeguarded as uninteresting monuments that speak to his family and loved ones, to his life and memories. A pen for his father, a wristband for his nephew, a magnet for his grandparents, and some earrings for his mother. Objects coated with absurd cultural references, both innocent and complex at the same time.

These artefacts, which have now travelled, are presented as sculptures, creating a new dislocation for them. From being cultural references, to merchandise, they are now newly brought back to display like in museums, as the “original objects” also accompany the daily routines of the artist’s family as utilitarian materials. In this subtle and poetic encounter of oxymorons, the artist moves beyond the fever of collections and decolonisation projects, institutional critique, or even representational matters. These sculptures are carriers of meaning, now living in other cities and on other continents. Stories of affection, memory, and even longing, that nevertheless do not succumb to propaganda or the deactivation of a revaluation of the politics around their existence.

In here, we are faced with a question that Pineda uncovers: how have we structured the world around things, their movements, and their narratives; then in ancient and living cultures, and today with industrialised, mass-produced objects.

Santiago Valencia Parra