2020 Itogina

ITOGINA 2020

A single drop of water can tell us about a whole disaster.

A leak. A wounded roof in a lost battle against wind and water. A leak is a cold puddle that invades our home; it is an urgent search for solutions.

In the exhibition “Itogina” the tiles represent people. Each one with its curvature, its shape, its cracks. The roof symbolizes the village. The shingles support the roof, and the roof in turn supports each of the shingles. Tension and balance. Individuals and totality.

None of them are the same. The location of each tile will define its characteristics: some will be worn by the sun, others will be covered by a layer of moss. Sometimes they have to be held in place with stones, in case the wind blows.

But this time the waters cover the roof. What options do we have? Some tiles have chosen to flee, to fly away. Others have learned to float; some try to adapt to life underwater.

For this exhibition, Arriaga has designed wooden tiles. He wanted to give them that strong point: to be unsinkable.

Methacrylate: folding rigidity

Arriaga created canvas roofs during the confinement. Now everything has changed, it has not been easy to go out and get used to observing life through protective screens. Protection has ceased to be something cozy and has become something cold; now protection means moving away. Methacrylate walls interfere with our hugs. We do what we can.

The exhibition “Itogina” consists of eight paintings, eight photographs of tiles printed on methacrylate. Arriaga wanted to question the hardness of methacrylate, heating and bending it with his hands; warmth defying coldness. The molded methacrylate represents the inner struggle of the individual against rigidity, the battle against inexorability and the complex forms of this collective unease.

Itogina. Leak.

Nobody thinks about roofs until they leak.