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January 22, 2020 – Review
Naomi Rincón Gallardo’s “MAY YOUR THUNDER BREAK THE SKY”
Natasha Marie Llorens
Naomi Rincón Gallardo’s solo exhibition at Kunstraum Innsbruck, “MAY YOUR THUNDER BREAK THE SKY,” is a maze of monitor screens and video projections. Rincón Gallardo’s aesthetics are mesmerizing: silver-faced goddesses; crimson electronic nipple extensions that blink playfully; elaborate handmade costumes in red and gold shot against deep-green cabbage fields and murky river water. The exhibition comprises two works: The Formaldehyde Trip (2017), a constellation of three- to five-minute video fragments that occupies the main gallery, and Opossum Resilience (2019), a new video installation, which is shown in an adjacent room. Crafted sculptures dot the spaces in between the moving images. The axolotl—a species of salamander native only to Lake Xochimilco in Mexico City, and the mythological spirit animal of Xolotl, the god of monstrosities—is everywhere in the exhibition.
On a screen in the main room is a digital animation that resembles a computer game. A figure with Donald Trump’s iconic bouffant bounces maniacally about to a marching band, while an automated voice names forms of structural violence under capitalism: “accumulation by dispossession, subhuman territories,” etc. In an abrupt edit, the screen goes black, and a sound recording of woman human rights defender Bety Cariño plays against the dark screen. The …