N.A.S.A.L. is pleased to present El Obscur Lugar del Deseo de Chavis Marmol.
"(…) In El Obscur Lugar del Deseo, Chavis Mármol proposes, through visual allegories, a return to the nucleus of his identity. The memory of his two homosexual uncles, cartoons, and the discovery of pleasure form a journey that begins at home with the repression of sexual impulse, followed by an image that opens the possibility of being something different. It culminates in experience: the manifest will to exist outside the life plans imposed at birth. In this dark space of vaporous silhouettes, Chavis reveals the strategies he used to assert himself before the world, like someone trying to stand up in a basement with the lights off, groping on his knees, touching first timidly and then firmly the undefined bodies around him, until finally sensing a way out.
The works on display articulate present and past, memory and craft. With an intensity that goes beyond narrative, they invite us to take an active role in the construction of the subject. Their materials, expressions, and imprecise organs are all part of a sustained process of production: an affirmation of constant evolution that approaches art as a space for self-transformation. From this space emerges the strength to rebuild oneself, using the same forces with which one sculpts marble or welds a grille for a window. Recurring symbols appear throughout the exhibition: hands that shape matter, agents of curious and erotic touch; teeth, associated with forensic identification, confronting inherited and constructed identity; and shackles, restrictive elements that gesture both toward fetishism and the possibility of liberation. (…) "
Exhibition text by Luis Enrique Zela-Koort