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Juan Heiblum

Sep 12, 2024

THE POLITICAL HORIZONS IN MAGALI ÁVILA'S BLUE

"I Have Not Died. I Have Not Been Born" is a statement through which Magali Ávila conjures a "politically committed" body of work. As Julia Antivilo mentions in the exhibition text, the artist places a deconstruction within her own production. This encourages the viewer to search for a visual line born from contradiction, from a force that opposes but which the artist is constantly attempting to break.

This exhibition – the artist’s most recent – is displayed at the "Casa Abierta al Tiempo" of UAM. It is constructed in such a way that the viewer is left with no other choice but to unearth a secret. Magali Ávila interrupts an abstract process with various elements that provide a visual anchor, from which any viewer is compelled to respond to certain questions. Small painted animals, glued in a collage-like manner, different letters that, rather than narrate, accompany the work, bones that appear buried, demanding justice from the place where each viewer positions themselves in front of the piece.

"I Have Not Died. I Have Not Been Born" not only addresses the issue of the disappeared in a country like Mexico, but it is constructed as a palimpsest of meaning in which the work grows through sutures. Through a wide range of techniques, Magali Ávila manages to develop a proposal that transcends painting in its two-dimensionality. The works drag across the floor, the edges fold, the branches of a tree fall from the sky to meet the canvas.

I can say that I am standing before the work of a truly contemporary artist, one who has not abandoned her peculiarities as an abstract painter to experiment with a language that transcends the limits of color and form: letters, figurative representations, collage, polyptychs, painting that becomes sculpture. Her entire language is enveloped by a peculiar hypnosis from which one can almost hear the background scream with which the artist proclaims: "I Have Not Died. I Have Not Been Born."

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