Alejandro Almanza Pereda
Sticks & Stones No. 3
Revolver Gallery, Lima, Peru [link]
Addressing the nuances of contemporary life with the aesthetics of creative solutions Sticks and Stone no. 3 retains a child-like playfulness while achieving solemnity through the diagrammatic connections between totems of cliché and kitsch. The tension created by the stress of the precarious construct draws, in part, from the way Almanza forces the Chinese plaster statue and chainsaw-carved cactus to carry a burden beyond their physical weight and conceptual capacity, hinting at the notion of the fabricated and tenuous nature of present-day problems. All the while, the concrete meteor looms over to ensure destruction if, or when, the system collapses.