QUIMERAS, The ’74 Biennial as a social laboratory of the present,
Curated by Eugenio Viola, MAC museum of contemporaray art Santiago del Chile
Quimeras is a site-specific work by Eugenio Tibaldi, whose compositional architecture is marked by the number seven, a number whose symbolism embraces diverse cultures, religions, and systems of thought.
The artist defunctionalizes seven everyday objects, popular in the 1970s: a pair of boots, a record player, a pressure cooker, a television, a writing desk, a Panama hat, and a radio. From each of them sprout seven plants (Chinese Loropetal, Gladiolus, Siemprevivas, Syringa, Lotus, Iris, Chamomile), each
illuminated by household lamps. Each plant is chosen as a symbol of a specific virtue: faith, hope, charity, prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance; all essential for civil and ethical behavior.
A precarious architecture unites and supports them, raising them over a body of water, a subtle reference to the lagoon city. In the first room, a series of watercolors reinterprets these objects in a fantastical way as they fly against the backdrop of Andean sunsets, each paired with the title of a "timeless" song recorded between 1973 and 1974.
In the constant tension between utopia and dystopia, Quimeras recreates a space of social interference that addresses the contradictions of the present, transforming the work into a nostalgic visual and emotional palimpsest.