VISIONS OF GOLD AS A SYMBOL OF POWER AT BLANCA BERLÍN
The group exhibition features the participation of Cecilia Paredes and Luis González Palma, offering a necessary perspective from Latin America on the golden as a sign of wealth and temporal transcendence.
Áurea. Nada áureo puede permanecer (Áurea. Nothing Golden Can Last) is a collective exhibition at Blanca Berlín that brings together the work of five artists who propose a conversation from different angles on gold as a symbol of power, strength, and transcendence. Across their productions, created using various techniques and materials, one can perceive a reflection on the fragility of material things, alongside an analysis—both aesthetic and highly critical—of society’s fascination with gold and its social and political impact throughout history.
Luis González Palma (Guatemala City, Guatemala, 1957) explores the conception of gold as a material imbued with high symbolic value, capable of illuminating the interior and the spiritual. In his series the artist suggests, through a vision that encompasses space, Pre-Columbian traditions and Guatemalan Baroque, a sacred element through which he establishes a relationship between memory, identity, and transcendence.
In Cecilia Paredes’s (Lima, Peru, 1950) work, gold evokes its material and gestural capacity for restoration. Drawing on a language aesthetically linked to textiles the metal is incorporated into antique silk embroideries as both an instrumental and conceptually charged element: it is not only a tool for repair but also dignifies objects that time has worn or forgotten. In this way, nostalgia overlays a desire to preserve memory that resists fragility.
Meanwhile, Castro Prieto (Madrid, Spain, 1958), Isabel Muñoz (Barcelona, Spain, 1951), and Bohnchang Koo (Seoul, South Korea, 1953) approach gold as a symbol of supremacy and control while highlighting a perceptible sense of impermanence. By photographing materials such as glass, metal, and even organic matter, these artists reflect on the fragility of material things and the volatility of life, alluding to those who, in their pursuit and relationship with gold, have vanished, even as the metal persists in its symbolic power.
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ÁUREA. Bohnchang Koo. KR 52, Gold, 2023. Blanca Berlín
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ÁUREA. Bohnchang Koo. PE 013, Inca Gold, 2016. Blanca Berlín
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ÁUREA. Castro Prieto. Atlas con insectos y frutas, 2017
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ÁUREA. Castro Prieto. Naturaleza muerta con hortensias y granadas, 2019
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ÁUREA. Cecilia Paredes. ST, 2025
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ÁUREA. Isabel Muñoz. Japón, 2019
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ÁUREA. Isabel Muñoz. Los españoles, 2020
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ÁUREA. Luis González Palma. Como un secreto se seduce a si mismo, 2014
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ÁUREA. Luis González Palma. Murmuran los recuerdos, 2018
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Áurea. Nada áureo puede permanecer
Áurea. Nada áureo puede permanecer is on view until March 7 at Galería Blanca Berlín, Limón 28, Madrid, Spain.
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