SIMÓN VEGA AND CYCLICAL TIME IN THE FACE OF POWER

Albarrán Bourdais presents the first exhibition by Simón Vega (San Salvador, El Salvador, 1972) at its Madrid gallery. Titled Tiempos Cíclicos / Futuros Pasados, the exhibition brings together recently produced sculptures and installations that connect the monumental pre-Hispanic remains of Mesoamerica with contemporary forms of propaganda and power.

Drawing on Maya rulers’ stelae and the zoomorphic monuments of Quiriguá, Vega approaches a nonlinear narrative in which past and future, as well as the indigenous and the foreign, converge as its principal points of reference. The works in the Futuros Pasados series revisit the Mesoamerican conception of time as a cyclical phenomenon, in which events recur and offer a means of interpreting the present while anticipating the future.

Vega also recovers the propagandistic function of monuments and their representations of astronomical phenomena, rituals, conquests, and political power. This notion is transposed into metal sculptures and other structures made from found materials, lights, and living plants, in which the logo, as a quintessential expression of Pop and capitalist culture, is ironically incorporated into its material framework. Through this interplay, dynamics of power resurface alongside the trajectories of autocracy and techno-feudalism.

The exhibition also includes a sculpture inspired by the markers used in pitz games and the Mexica monolith known as the Stone of Tizoc, bringing ancient ritual practices into dialogue with contemporary football and boxing as arenas of physical and symbolic force. Two installations constructed primarily from wooden pallets reference globalization while reviving the zoomorphic figure as a hybrid and mediating entity. One addresses funerary traditions and the relationship between archaeology and cultural looting, while a video work further explores the cyclical conception of time.

Simón Vega: Tiempos Cíclicos / Futuros Pasados is on view through October 17 at Albarrán Bourdais, Barquillo 13, Madrid, Spain.