Gabriel Chaile
Where are the Heirs of these Forms?
Argentinian artist Gabriel Chaile, one of the most important discoveries at the current Venice Biennale, has his first solo exhibition in Belgium as part of DE SINGEL's sculpture trail ON SCULPTURE.
In Where are the Heirs of these Forms? Gabriel Chaile tells the story of hair, inspired by hairstyles that communities adopt over time as a form of identity. Chaile was born in San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina, with Afro, Arab and indigenous ancestry and developed a practice influenced by the pre-Columbian archaeological ceramics of his region and images of global art history. Due to his mixed ancestry, he observes in his own hair the results of the miscegenation that occurred after the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
At the center of the exhibition is a sculptural self-portrait, representing Chaile with his Afro-textured hair on the front, and a pre-Columbian shaped back. His hair is sculpted similarly to the Venus of Willendorf, a figurine found in Austria that dates back to 25.000 before Christ and is one of the earliest known sculptures in art history. The sculpture faces a hanging plow that looks like a comb or a mosquito that pretends to enter the earthen sculpture. A series of drawings, hung at children’s eye level, are the artist’s interpretation of historical depictions of hair in different cultures. Like a code or music score they surround the central figure.