GABRIEL CHAILE

Gabriel Chaile is an artist from the North East of Argentina whose work over several years has researched and reflected the aesthetics of the region, and their shared and complex indigenous cultures. In his works, there is a critical-poetical intersection between anthropology, the sacred and its rituals, the political, and pre-Columbian communities of South America, interpreted with eccentricity and a sense of humor. Chaile engages in anthropological and visual research based on two key concepts that are inherent throughout his oeuvre. These are the engineering of need,  art and objects that contribute to improving precarious societal situations; and the genealogy of shape, which acknowledges that every historical object has a story to tell, that is recuperated and reinterpreted in new context.

The work on view in the exhibition “ A veces me olvido de mi” ​​ continues his research revisiting images and objects from the pre Columbian indigenous cultures of Northeastern Argentina. While he has said that he approached the study of their forms, color and aesthetics as a researcher or anthropologist, he almost immediately found “...a familiarity to these pieces—an intuition that allowed me to realize that these forms were speaking to me and that I unknowingly had been carrying them within me all this time.”Chaile’s work insists that we encounter ourselves and our histories within these images that  remind us of the past – that speak to our ancestors. encountered this principle of familiarity between the pieces of the past... that speak of my community’s ancestors. The interplay between the past and the present, between contemporary aesthetics and archetypal symbols is a key component of the work. Chaile also notes that it may in fact be a facet of the condition of poverty which is ultimately responsible for maintaining the genealogy of certain forms over generations, for resisting erasure. The mud or earth oven or vessel is a functional medium to solve the very real and very practical question of how to cook and nourish a neighborhood with very few resources. These vessels trace a forgotten past and act as a hearth for congregating in community.  Chaile insists on celebrating Argentina’s  indigenous cultures which have very seldomly been celebrated, and in the most egregious case have been erased from official histories. “In looking at these cultures again and redrawing them, I find a new way of seeing things that were actually always there, that we overlooked.”

Chaile most recently participated in the Venice Biennale (2022), New Museum Triennial (2021) Museo de Art Moderno Buenos Aires, and art  fairs such as Art Basel (Basel), The Armory Show (New York) arteBA (Buenos Aires) and Art Basel Miami Beach (Miami). He has been part of many collective exhibitions in Tucumán, Lima, Montevideo, Paris, Cuenca and Buenos Aires and in 2019 he participated in Bienal de Arte Joven (2019), BienalSur (2019) and “The Last Supper” Faena Festival (Miami Beach). Gabriel Chaile was born in 1985 in Tucumán, Argentina. He lives and works in Buenos Aires and Portugal.