A Vulture on a Crane at Master Piss Galeria

Artists: Marinés Agurto, Javier Bravo de Rueda, Ánima Correa, Aaron Lopez, Wylly Medrano Zumaeta, Veronica Roca

Exhibition title: A Vulture on a Crane (ABLI Pre-Edition 2016)

Curated by: Hemilio Vargas

Venue: Master Piss Galeria, Lima, Peru

Date: April 8 – 15, 2016

Photography: Rafael Nolte, all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Master Piss Galeria, Lima

ABLI PreEdition 2016

In anticipation of our second edition, ABLI PreEdition 2016 aims to give a preview of our scheduled programming for September of this year. As part of our exhibition calendar serving as a platform for young artists and creators, we have chosen four artists who work in the city of Lima to realize site specific projects on the rooftop of the Ronald Building in El Callao. This exhibition will run alongside others in the immediate vicinity.

Project Director: Hemilio Vargas
Producer: Luciana Reynoso

A Vulture on a Crane

Their nest is almost finished. It’s been nearly 200 years since they started it, adding to it little by little. As the years pass, they grow wearier with every mutable detail. The vulture was once a white bird. They came too close to the sun, trying to become it. From this lesson they’ve learned to look down. They’ve watched over time as the graves below turned into soil, into dust, until they are forgotten. One day, a truck parks near the cemetery and two men get out, point their fingers, and shake hands. The vulture picks its scabs.

Soon more men come and dig, dig, build. They designate lines and squares, cages, with netting and rocks. Glass and steel. Palms get choked, turned to ash. Seeds fall on the concrete. At night, they collect what falls to the bottom of the pit, scratch the soil, caress their ancestors below, and whisper, “every living thing dies alone, every smart object lives together.”

They start to molt now. The air has grown hotter. They watch as their inscriptions and secrets fade under the heavy new soil. The glass cages fill up with people who stare at themselves as they pass each other in the hallways, imitating each other’s gestures. They play with cables, speak in binary, enjoy games of charades. One day, they look into their glass and realize they can’t see their own reflections anymore.

The vulture finishes the last detail of their nest, a small metal wire molded in their own image. Like a prism, they catch a glimpse of the sun from the inside of the glass, and set themselves ablaze.

–Ánima Correa, 2016