Gabriel Chaile: Where are the Heirs of These Forms?

Curator: Heidi Ballet.

Gabriel Chaile uses simple and symbolic materials for his sculptural works, such as his large-scale anthropomorphic clay ovens, which imbue them with a strong spiritual aura. Chaile explains, “In addition to academic education, I was influenced by religious education, and the idea of the “miraculous,” to demand much more from materials than they can offer. My work is also related to the resistance and Peronist history of my family, their struggle, the magical aspect of the miraculous and the environment of poverty. That is why I return to the primitive forms of indigenous morphology.”

Born in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, with Afro, Arab and indigenous ancestry, Chaile  developed a practice influenced by the pre-Columbian archaeological ceramics of his region which he connects to images of global art history. From a perspective that is both critical and poetic, Chaile takes inspiration from the life of people in poor urban communities in South America burdened by a vacuum of information about their indigenous cultural background and conducts an investigation into what he calls the “genealogy of form,” a historical approach to forms that have survived to the present day and are symbolic for resistance, such as clay pots and ovens. Another leitmotif in Chaile’s practice is what he calls “the engineering of necessity,” the idea of creating objects that emerge in borderline situations, to help improve conditions and raise awareness, regardless of aesthetic finishing.

In Where are the Heirs of These Forms? Gabriel Chaile tells the story of hair, inspired by hairstyles that communities adopt over time as a form of identity. His Afro-Arab and indigenous ancestry allows him to observe in his own hair the results of the process of miscegenation that occurred after the Spanish colonization of America.

At the center of the exhibition is a new sculptural self-portrait, with Chaile’s hair in the front part, while the back is inspired by the shapes of indigenous ceramics in North-West Argentina. The hair is sculpted in a similar manner to the Venus of Willendorf, an Austrian figurine from 25.000 before Christ, and one of the earliest known sculptures in art history. The sculpture faces a hanging plow that looks like a comb or a mosquito that wants to enter the earthen sculpture. A new series of drawings are the artist’s interpretation of historical depictions of hair in different cultures. Like a code or a musical score they surround the central sculpture.

Gabriel Chaile (b. 1985) lives in Buenos Aires and Lisbon. In 2022, Gabriel Chaile participated in the 59th Venice Biennale. His work has also been exhibited at the Gherdëina Biennial; Bienal de Arte Contemporânea de Coimbra, Coimbra; 5th New Museum Triennial, New York; Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires (MAMBA); Art Basel Cities: Buenos Aires; Centro Cultural San Pablo T, Tucumán; Centro Cultural Recoleta, Buenos Aires; National Fund of Arts, Buenos Aires; Centro Cultural Borges, Buenos Aires.