SANTIAGO ESTELLANO

Geometries and patterns were the guiding principles that Santiago Estellano established in the works presented at MORAR. Through the collage technique, he constructs images that challenge our perception. With meticulousness and discernment, the artist chooses the lines that define the boundary between what we see and what we believe we see. Such is the case with those works whose composition includes the Penrose triangle. Known as impossibility in its purest form, this object was created by the Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvärd[1] and rediscovered by the physicist Roger Penrose[2], who gave it its popular description. At the center of the room, high above the ground, one can observe a pyramid with a triangular base whose sides are composed of the Penrose triangle. This seemingly impossible image has been made possible through a 3D composition. The decision to have its sides covered by mirrors forces us to recognize ourselves as part of something far more complex than we can describe in words. Because as we turn our bodies in space, perspective alters our mode of perception: we see and don't see a single, closed form; we see and don't see the angles that constitute it as an object. What, then, can we see with certainty? We have always wanted to classify and categorize everything around us. This gives us the peace of mind necessary to survive. If we can name it, then it exists in that form and context in which words contain it. When faced with contemporary works of art, this need arises and keeps us in a constant state of tension. Perhaps the fact of seeing images that, like Estellano's analog collages, are themselves constructed from other images, increases the nervousness of minds and souls that need to intellectualize what they see. And even more curious, it is curious that, given that it deals with geometry—and geometry being a branch of mathematics that studies the properties and magnitudes of figures in the plane or in space—it can be so enigmatic as a work of art. Perhaps the idea of ​​the archaeology of the work of art, which Giorgio Agamben takes up more recently from Michel Foucault's earlier proposal, can help us: “the inquiry into the past is nothing but the shadow cast by a question directed at the present.”[3] Are the images manipulated through collage, then, a sign of that question? On the library table, several unframed works attest to Estellano's rich output. To one side of this more tranquil space, the intimate atmosphere of the forest transforms into a faithful image of Thoreau's Walden. Each fragment of the work amplifies the sense of the experience lived by the American writer, poet, and philosopher, who lived for two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built himself. Let us consider the possibility that the works exhibited in the museum today are portals. They can be magical, energetic, or, as technology defines them, easily accessible ways to a series of resources related to a theme, aimed at resolving specific information needs in a particular way.[4] We could also think of them as those gateways to cities or temples at a time when monumental architecture was located at great distances from each other. The Triumphal Arch created by Dürer at the request of Maximilian I is the central image of the work located before entering the library. This commission, which the famous German artist received after painting the Holy Roman Emperor, is a dense image dedicated to glory and power, laden with genealogical and historical information, its objective being to depict the achievements of the Habsburg lineage. Estellano's decision to take this image and create many more from it could be interpreted as a well-deserved tribute to one of the most famous artists of the German Renaissance, while also highlighting the narrative value assigned to the detailed symbols used by the artist. Ishtar, one of the eight gates of the Temple of Marduk in Babylon—fifteen meters high and twenty-five meters wide—undoubtedly must have moved those who beheld it. Built five centuries before Christ by Nebuchadnezzar II, this mud-brick wall covered in glazed ceramic tiles stood out for the blue color of the lapis lazuli, which made it unique and unmistakable among the reddish tones of the surrounding walls. It is impossible for me, and perhaps also for anyone else who has had the opportunity to stand before the Gate of Babylon, to express in words the sensations that this human construction evokes. If it is striking today, what must the inhabitants of Babylon have felt so many centuries ago? The Portals of Santiago Estellano propose to take us to that place, to the realm of the great questions that humanity repeatedly faces and that, fortunately, art invites us to explore and helps us navigate. Cecilia Medina [1] Oscar Reutersvärd, pioneering artist of impossible objects, Sweden 1915-2002. [2] Roger Penrose, British mathematical physicist, born in the United Kingdom in 1935. [3] Creation and Anarchy: The Work in the Age of Capitalist Religion. Giorgio Agamben. Adriana Hidalgo Editora, 2009. [4] Definition from the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, August 2024.