黑料不打烊

The Missing Circle is a three-year series curated by Magal铆 Arriola, KADIST collection Regional Curator for Latin America, departing from the shared experience of death and extinction in Latin America from colonial times to the present. Consisting of a series of seminars, artist commissions, and exhibitions, The Missing Circle explores the various manifestations of death in the region from the figure of the 鈥榰ndead,鈥� as incarnated by early capitalist slave economies and forced labor to the haunting bodies of those fallen, to drug wars that certain countries have waged on their own citizens. Like a fable providing an allegorical approach to the Latin American social and political scenery, The Missing Circle revisits particular episodes and events in the region鈥檚 history to explore the role that counted corpses and unaccounted souls play in the world of the living鈥攏ot only as casualties of institutionalized violence and bare life but also as emancipating agents at the heart of new political formations. 

By convening historical individuals, fictional characters, tangible facts, and mythical stories, the project draws a space in which temporary markers acquire a different morphology and reveal the connective pathways. For the anthropologist Michael Taussig, the inscription of Latin American political history into social landscapes has frequently outlined a 鈥榮pace of death鈥� that 鈥溾��has a long and rich culture. It is where the social imagination has populated its metamorphosing images of evil and the underworld.鈥� As a consequence of imperial politics and colonial exploitation, the space of death is a heterotopian expanse where terrestrial beings and supernatural creatures live, die and are reborn. It is also where, as suggested by Julio Cort谩zar, a 鈥榤issing circle鈥� in Dante鈥檚 infernos prevails, one that was created by our ruling classes. 

Initiated by KADIST collection, The Missing Circle develops through partnerships with institutions across Latin America, starting with a three-day seminar in Tecoh, Yucatan, entitled 鈥淔ables of the Undead鈥揂n Allegorical Story of Latin America.鈥� Co-produced with Transformaci贸n Arte y Educaci贸n (TAE Foundation) and the support of Patronato Arte Contempor谩neo (PAC), participant-led lectures, performances, and discussions focused on the figure of the zombi in Haitian and Brazilian cultures, as well as the instrumental role it played in the first slave revolts. 

Following the Tecoh Seminar, a new work by Carla Zaccagnini was co-commissioned and co-presented with Museo Experimental El Eco in Mexico City. Titled 鈥淓l presente, ma帽ana鈥� the work explored the relationship between modern Brazil and its colonial past. The second commission,  鈥淓l guardi谩n del bosque鈥� and 鈥淓l mensajero del bosque sumergido鈥� by Naufus Ram铆rez Figueroa was presented as a two-part exhibition in collaboration with Proyectos Ultravioleta in Guatemala City and Centro de Formaci贸n de la Cooperaci贸n Espa帽ola in Antigua鈥攆eaturing a new body of work  based on the artist鈥檚 research into the historical memory of the ruins of Kawinal in Guatemala, and its relationship to the country鈥檚 political reality and armed conflict. 

In the second year of The Missing Circle a four-day seminar 鈥淒eath Without Bodies, Bodies Without Life鈥� was organized in the Atacama Desert and Tarapac谩 Region of Chile. Co-produced with Universidad de Tarapac谩 and scholar Jorge Pavez Ojeda with support from Aimee Labarrere de Servitje and PAC, multiple site visits, walking tours, and presentations taking place throughout the desert focused on certain social and political events in Chile that have been inscribed into the landscape and preserved by the territory鈥檚 geography. Dialogue elucidated the numbers of bodies without life and deaths without a body, and how inert, mutilated, missing or mummified bodies can play a role recuperating agency and speech. 

The Tarapac谩 Seminar also served as a foundation for a new work by artist duo Rometti Costales entitled 鈥淐anci贸n para un f贸sil canoro (Song for a Chanting Fossil)鈥� co-commissioned and co-presented with Museo de la Solidaridad Salvador Allende (MSSA) in Santiago. Concluding the series of new commissions for The Missing Circle, the artists developed an installation intervening and departing from the history of the building that houses MSSA and associating it with layers of Chile鈥檚 history and processes of fossilization that have taken place in areas of the Atacama Desert, the territory that has been the stage for several episodes in the country鈥檚 economic and political past.