ANDREA CANEPA AT CRISIS: MOVEMENT AS MEMORY AND PERMANENCE

The Madrid headquarters of CRISIS presents Salto, giro, cadencia, trance (Leap, Turn, Cadence, Trance), a solo exhibition by Andrea Canepa (Lima, Peru, 1980). Bringing together mobile sculptures, mosaics, and a text authored by the artist herself, the exhibition explores the interrelationship between movement, memory, and permanence. Drawing upon the resonance of the zumbayllu—the spinning top that plays a central role in José María Arguedas’s novel Deep Rivers—the exhibition revolves around the image of the top as a symbol of balance, transformation, and continuity.

The spinning top and its rotational movement become a visual metaphor for resistance to the passage of time. The project may be directly associated with the Taki Onqoy movement, which emerged in the Andes during the sixteenth century and embraced song and dance as forms of cultural resistance. Rather than pursuing a historically accurate reconstruction of these traditions, however, Canepa approaches them from a contemporary perspective, emphasizing the enduring relevance of certain gestures, practices, and forms of knowledge within collective memory.

The mobile sculptures, which occupy much of the exhibition space, are central to generating a perception of controlled instability. Alongside them, mosaics installed on the walls reinforce, through their material presence, the notions of fragmentation and the continual reconfiguration of memory. While maintaining the structural geometry that characterizes the Peruvian artist’s practice, these works further articulate the exhibition’s exploration of continuity through transformation.

Andrea Canepa: Salto, giro, cadencia, trance is on view until 23 July 2026 at CRISIS Gallery, Calle Madera 33, Madrid, Spain.