Mummies, archeology and care 'beyond the grave'

From a certain perspective, contemporary art is a big garbage field. This is where everything that is useless, depreciated and excluded arrives in our consumerist and predatory society of this material world that is ending, but whose past continues to be preserved in venerable institutions, such as the archeology and anthropology museums. This is the artist's work Gala Porras-Kim (Bogotá, Colombia, 1984), aimed at these institutions, ends as expected in contemporary art centers. In yet another twist on the so-called “contextual art”, with a strong tradition since the eighties of the 20th century.

Gala Porras-Kim spent years studying traces of the past or manifestations in the process of disappearing: indigenous languages, ritual objects and even mummified bodies. death and eventually the inevitable corruption of the material is evident throughout his work. With around thirty pieces gathered in this exhibition, we access several projects produced in the last decade, which cover objects from Mesoamerican cultures to ancient Egypt.

The result are pieces of fine delicacy that denote, in addition to respect, pay attention to your spiritual mission, Eternal. Thus, Porras-Kim demands from custodial institutions not only the conservation of the material and its correct classification and historical interpretation. His criticism highlights the still persistent positivism of these “human sciences” – such as archeology or anthropology, which emerged amid looting, in the midst of colonialism – which should be corrected through an aesthetics of care in a kind of attempt to reconciliation with the original, sacred or funerary functions.

Currently there is no sensitivity to reconsider the ideal orientation of sarcophagi, in favor of the eternal sleep of mummified subjects.

The failure of their proposals is evident in the letters to management positions exposed as part of the creative process. Apparently, although denunciations of this contextual art managed to end decades ago with the reified exhibition of human beings of other racesCurrently, there is no sensitivity, for example, to reconsider the optimal orientation of sarcophagi, in favor of the eternal sleep of mummified subjects.

Without a doubt, at CAAC the decision to present this work in the Cartuja facilities, which preserves the marble tombs of the family members of the Dukes of Medinaceli, to whom an annual mass is still dedicated today, was a wise decision. And that old (empty) tombs were opened, insinuated into the pavement after the restoration in 1992, meeting the artist's intention.

[The transformation of a museum through painting]

The other way in which his work is transferred to contemporary art centers is through a series of pieces based on biochemical agents that threaten conservation. In the process of evolution during this exhibition, we find a large cement wall with corrosive saline efflorescences; a piece of paper on which the spores collected in the conservation tanks of the British Museum; or a large painting on the floor, which is painted thanks to the pigment that drips from an upper canvas, diluted by the excess of a dehumidifier, in the room where the dead were once embalmed.

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