Teatro de los objetos: la casa de las moscas, mi reino por un burro

Twentieth-century architecture understood that it is impossible to separate body awareness from the perception of space. Invisible traces of the passage of our use are imprinted in the order of our homes, in the way in which utensils are placed and the position in which we arrange furniture. In department stores and art galleries, things usually occupy a pristine and immaculate position, abstracted from everyday life, but once acquired by their new owners, they enter the personal universe of the home, they interact, altering its identity: paintings, sculptures, sofas, rugs and ladles bring their nature closer, they form a team that delimits the meaning of what we consider our own.

William Contreras, curator

TEATRO DE LOS OBJETOS: la casa de las moscas, mi reino por un burro

THEATER OF OBJECTS: The House of Flies, My Kingdom for a Donkey

Twentieth-century architecture understood that it is impossible to separate body awareness from the perception of space. Invisible traces of the passage of our use are imprinted in the order of our homes, in the way in which utensils are placed and the position in which we arrange furniture. In department stores and art galleries, things usually occupy a pristine and immaculate position, abstracted from everyday life, but once acquired by their new owners, they enter the personal universe of the home, they interact, altering its identity: paintings, sculptures, sofas, rugs and ladles bring their nature closer, they form a team that delimits the meaning of what we consider our own.

Architects like Robert Moore insisted on understanding design and architecture as exercises that went far beyond mere artifacts. From the twentieth century onwards, construction as an artistic concept turned its attention to generating an experience that alters behavior, the unfolding of the body thanks to the company of objects and places. The main axis of beauty in this new design would be the modification of life, the idea being a proposal for new rituals that inaugurate ways of doing hitherto distant to the imagination and common sense.

Rooms seem to be made of walls, floors and ceilings. Yet they are made of space, which is a concept that harbors the possibility of use and transformation. Space as a vital good, space to develop and express oneself, space that opens up for something new, a commodity more valuable than any of the boundaries that make it up.

To organize is to make the surrounding world one's own, hence the verb is close to the word “organism” as a conjugation of elements that operate together and create a whole, a small shared universe. To organize is then to generate a new figure of dialogue, which is why the still life, the art exhibition, St. Alejo's room, the pile of dirty clothes in the corner of the room, the shopping list, all are also organisms through which our everyday life passes, configuring the way in which we propose the uses of our place and our time.

We can imagine an organization that does not discard chaos, that fertile ground where the future germinates and amazement in the face of the unknown is hidden. Renouncing the idea of fitting everything into a predefined harmony, in a fixed space and in an unalterable state of identity, gives us the possibility of opening a refuge for mystery, a middle ground between the person we are today and the one we are yet to build. Paradoxical though it may seem, embracing disorder can pave the way to a sincere stability, making peace with what surpasses us and is not yet fully revealed.

William Contreras

Texto en español