LIGA 26. Alejandro Paz

The LIGA exhibition space appears to be empty for the show by Guatemalan architect Alejandro Paz. What fills every corner of the gallery for his exhibition Endogeneities  is the music of a sound piece.

This is the sound recorded during a performance on the day of the exhibition opening, and corresponds to a small orchestra of musicians performing an adaptation of Erik Satie’s famous works for piano, Gymnopédies. Another detail: the musicians are not inside the gallery, but beneath it. From there, they play their instruments in the damp and slightly hostile ambiance of the basement. They are cramped among a series of mysterious artifacts: the adjustable pilings that replaced the original foundations of the building where LIGA is based, and which are periodically corrected by the engineers responsible for making sure the enormous structure remains standing.

The gallery space, normally occupied, is empty. The windows, usually transparent, are occupied by images of these pilings. The gloomy, concealed, underground universe of the foundations sees the light in the form of photographs adhered to the gallery windows. Meanwhile, a few meters below, the lost echo of an unseen orchestra resounds.