Carlos Garaicoa: All Utopias Go Through the Belly

A large installation of suspended weights and pulleys welcomes visitors into the exhibition, “Carlos Garaicoa: All Utopias Go Through the Belly”. The dynamic, linear installation (Contrapeso (Ciudad plomada) [Counterweight (Plumb Line City)], 2022 has small metal weights, some found, others made, anchored to the ground, that resemble tiny buildings, with gleaming brass counter-weights in various shapes and symbols suspended above. There is a tension in the visually alluring installation, the crossing diagonals and play of forms; the weights on the floor appear like model buildings with puppet strings, which, if pulled slightly, might alter the arrangement. It’s a reminder of cause and effect, that if you adjust something one way, consequences will ensue, be it in urban planning, preservation, politics or nature.

For thirty years, Carlos Garaicoa has explored themes of architecture, mainly urban architecture, often in varying states of decay. Through photographs, videos and installations, the artist reveals the fragility and organic nature of our urban surroundings. During the pandemic, he turned his focus towards nature – as many did during those days of confinement, particularly those living in a city. How nature slowly started to repopulate now empty city centres or the lack of natural spaces for people to enjoy. Another installation features typical planter boxes found on city streets for trees. Here the trees are cut, leaving only stumps, with trash stuffed into the grills: cigarette butts, papers… As you approach the one lone surviving tree, you see it is bronze, with sparkly meteorite dust at its base, a frozen moment in time, a poetic remnant of the natural world. David Barro, Director of the Es Baluard Museum, refers to Garaicoa as “one of the finest landscape artists of contemporary art because his works explore how landscape operates in the city, combining beauty and critical query.” He captures both an urban architecture as landscape but also, particularly in his new works since 2020, the relationship between nature and the urban landscape.

The title of this in-depth exhibition, “All Utopias Go Through the Belly” is inspired by a large installation in which vintage glass jars have been stacked like small buildings onto a table. Inside the jars, sealed off from the elements, Garaicoa has placed a variety of things, often chosen for the installation’s current location. In this case, traditional Mallorcan crackers fill one jar, another pickles, another olives, rice or fruits, interspersed with jars covering beautifully crafted architectural models. At first you see a connection, food fueling growth, commerce, but there is a disconnect between the pristine wooden models and the vulnerability of the food, which slowly decomposes overtime, revealing its organic process like digestion or processing. There is an underlying feeling of isolation between the jars, separate and on their own, as we were during lockdown, fearful of coming out into the open. The curator of the exhibition, Lillebit Fadraga, writes: “The mandarins are in there alone, but alongside, in an identical jar, is a model of a Modernist building, which mimics and simplifies what we assume we understand by contemporaneity, community life and society in its simplest expression. After a few weeks, as these mandarins start to decompose and become covered in mould and even bugs, but the model will remain unblemished.”

Through photographs, collages, paintings or highly detailed drawings, Carlos Garaicoa reveals the many different layers and lives of architecture; fading glory, failed ideas, poetic beauty, all can be found within our everyday urban life. As David Barro writes, “rather than inviting us to look at his work, the artist insistently invites us to look at life through it: a reflection on reality to create a reality that arises from this reflection.”

“Carlos Garaicoa: All Utopias Go Through the Belly” was organised in collaboration with CAAM – Centro Atalantico de Arte Moderno. It is on view at Es Baluard Museum through January 5th, 2025.

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