SALON ACME 2023

Featuring Luján Pérez

February 9th - February 12th 2023

We each die three deaths. The first is when the body ceases to function – the heart stops beating, you take your last breath, and the light leaves your eyes. The second is when the body is consigned to the grave, returning from whence it came. The third and final death is the fleeting moment, sometime in the future, when your name is spoken for the very last time.

Swivel Gallery is pleased to present a site-specific solo presentation by Luján Pérez for the tenth edition of Salón ACME in Mexico City. Housed in a historic site, the exhibition is a direct reference to Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ Untitled (Loverboy). The 1989 piece consists of a piece of sheer blue fabric hung in various locations, simultaneously contrasting with and adapting to the place where it is shown. In a similar fashion, Luján Pérez uses the intrinsic qualities of paper to evoke the elusive concept of memory. This presentation, consisting of six large-scale works on paper suspended midair, stands in opposition to nature, dancing with gravity and other forces, to mimic the feeling of retrieving a memory that is slightly out of reach.

Never linear, memories are fugitive amalgams of intertwined moments of significance and uncanny details that we view through the prism of our past and current feelings. Elements blend to create the cohesive intimate language and dream-like architecture that in part will feed our understanding of ourselves. With each recollection of a memory, it becomes less accurate – you are actually recalling the memory of the last time you remembered it, including any inaccuracies that may have been introduced along the way.

A pair of hands. A series of skulls. A house on fire. In her imagery, Pérez plays with the discrepancy between the memory of an object versus the object itself – ceci n'est pas une pipe. The Spanish vessels, which form the bounds of said imagery, are storage containers; their contents can be moved and adapt to different environments. Our minds are the vessels for memories, for love, for pain. And in a way, art-making is a way to leave memories of ourselves. “Above all else, it is about leaving a mark that I existed,” said Gonzalez-Torres. “I was here. I was hungry. I was defeated. I was happy. I was in love. I was afraid. I was hopeful. I had an idea and I had good purpose and that’s why I made works of art.”

A memory, residing inside of our minds, feels like home. By the time a house has become a home, you’ve already been there. You can never go home for the first time. You can only go home again.