↳ Exhibitions

Samuel Guerrero at Lodos

June 4, 2021

Artist: Samuel Guerrero

Exhibition title: Destino vas muy rápido

Venue: Lodos, Mexico City, Mexico

Date: April 27 – June 27, 2021

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Lodos, Mexico City

“It is absolutely necessary to be wandering, to be multiple, on the outside and on the inside. Nomadic…
If you are too familiar with a site, if you are too rooted in one place, you cannot write with the truth about that site. It is mystified.”
Maryse Condé

It seems that we are destined to follow stars …

I was calculating the distance traveled when I was stopped by a bright glow, with a dulled, almost unintelligible view I noticed the artificiality of the light. I wanted to reach its flashes and manage to decipher the message shown, or perhaps I wanted to find the origin of its existence. I could not even distinguish its shape, because every time I approached its presence, an unusual sense of confusion and a discomfort close to deception remained by my side.

Although deep down I sensed that my task was not to continue through that passage full of light and whiteness, stubbornly, with accelerated steps, I walked the luminous path. I stumbled hundreds of times, self-deluded and remaining in a desperate aspiration so fictitious and far from my typical way of survival that doubt and anxiety became the norm of my thoughts.

I arrived at a desolate terrain, in it you could see all kinds of deceptive situations, limits between desire and reality, next to the soft and smooth sand invisible barriers rose, a kind of border that was revealed at every step I took through the space, providing a preview of a world built under the yoke of universal pretensions. “You don’t carry the world, it holds you” read a giant display window that, within seconds disappeared from my sight.

I was trying to focus when I realized the charm of its shape, a mirage of light with a great wave amplitude that covered practically every known corner, obscuring any hint of otherness. I felt a rare luck, an astonishment that with all the intention, was dominating my judgment.

Unexpectedly, between flashes, lights, sparks, the noise of voices of an identifiable but confusing language to the ear, cravings and thirst, I found myself tied to its desire, a vanished star, stagnant but shining, that with few gestures managed to seduce and summon me. And there I was in front of its essence and its knowledge…

-I know you carry substantial information, I said seriously – but why is it so difficult to access it?

-The star will always be a guide, the destination, its synonym. An impulse that manages to disappear fleetingly, diluting the margin of the tangible, sinking you into the desire for the unattainable. Without my presence the world would be a terrible, uncivilized place…

If seeing her like this, torn to pieces midway made me have compassion and empathy for her. The pretense of her words made me nauseous and repulsed.

I could not say anything about myself, my identity seemed misunderstood, cracked, as if an external orientation, which I could not distinguish, managed my actions. My energy was briefly consumed. I stepped back.

Together with the beauty of that imposing light, a fact concluded, an unquestionable truth was transformed into a miniscule knowledge, I understood that continuing to dream of it implied continuing on the path of a current nourished by the impulsiveness of alienating acts, conditioning my freedom, suffocating the understanding of otherness, lamenting the ignorance of multiple realities.

There is no attraction that lasts a lifetime, I thought to console myself and continued my journey …

-Gerardo López, 2021

Samuel Guerrero (1997, Mexico City) Lives and works in Mexico City. Recent exhibitions include Observatorio, Ladrón galería, Mexico City (2021); Pain Things, Yope Projects/Ruina, Oaxaca (2021); Mutopia, La Trinidad, Oaxaca (2020); Flor del valle with Sterling Hedges, Rudimento, Quito (2020); Cuerpos, Lodos, Mexico City (2020); Al menos actúa como un ser humano, Bikini Wax, Mexico City (2020); Samuel Guerrero, Antes de Cristo, Mexico City (2019).