TRADITION, IDENTITY AND CONTEMPORARY LANGUAGE IN ÉDGAR CALEL
The concern about how the surrounding affects not only the individual but also artistic production connects with the principle by which Édgar Calel (San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala, 1987) has developed a unique project from scratch at La Oficina gallery. Sueños guardados en granos de maíz brings us to a specific moment of materialization, but it expands toward all the vertices with which the artist works, delving above all into the importance of ancestry, identity, and the spirituality that is related to space.
The exhibition is the result of the actions that the Guatemalan artist has been developing for a month in different parts of Madrid. Invited by the gallery to create the exhibition, Calel preferred to build from scratch, carrying out an active practice and a registration practice to shape it. Rooted in the ancestral focus of the Mayan-Kaqchikel tradition, several of the works presented reflect on the impact of anthropological visual historiography on rituals and their instruments.
The conceptual game that unfolds here dusts off a more intimate reality, far from perfect artifacts, and falls back on that deep social connection. The remains of the actions carried out at specific points in the region, along with the performative acts in the exhibition space, make up a record of them with a clear and direct language. The results of these actions remain on display, directly linking with the visual codes of contemporary art and museography without distorting their origins.
Calel does not miss the opportunity to share the space directly with that ancestry, placing at the entrance a piece that also seems to stand watch over it. A rock sits on a swing, which, while masquerading as a contemporary artwork, conceals a direct relationship with its past and culture. From this first contact, a thread emerges in which the relationship between language and meaning becomes relevant—a binomial that structures the proposal he develops.
Beyond the records of actions—sometimes aesthetically striking as a consequence—other testimonies of striking spatial contrast flow naturally. His visit to the nearby Cerro Almodóvar, the famous cerro testigo symbol of the Vallecas School, or to the Reina Sofía Museum, is captured in photographs with a stark contrast. These places, visited while wearing protective jaguar skins, seem entirely out of context and yet retain all the spiritual charge that articulates his work.
Colonialism, transcribed in its most symbolic version into the conception of the artwork, also highlights power relations—questions of control over what and how things are represented—while serving as a symbol of subjugation. The use of sugar, salt, and charcoal, and their representation, embodies a conceptual approach that explores cultural roots from a contemporary perspective, seemingly adapted to facilitate interpretation.
Rendered in embroidery, the world of dreams and its symbolism permeate that tradition, which also survives through oral transmission and the importance of family structures as a safeguard. Everything is amplified by the ironic vision of that metalanguage with which the Western world aspires to understand other universes, yet in its attempt, it often remains superficial. That is where everything lies: what we see in Calel’s work is nothing more than the material, the result, or the transcription of the irony and critique of everything surrounding his daily universe.
Sueños guardados en granos de maíz can be seen until April 26th at La Oficina, Morenés Arteaga, 9, Madrid (Spain).
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