Calixto Ramírez

Lateral presents the solo exhibition by Calixto Ramírez, Uso de suelo.

Liminal is a term that lends itself to connecting the work in this exhibition with the tasks that Calixto Ramírez condenses into this particular body of work. The term "task" likewise implies a productive effort on the artist's part—both material and mental—regardless of the final format he has chosen, whether through effects that appear sculptural, performative, or others, such as the wordplay he often uncovers in signs that, in turn, erode in the face of changing weather, neighborly interference, or the conquest of space monopolized by real estate and gentrification.

The exploration of urban space is a common feature in his most recent inquiries, which have taken numerous cities around the world and in Mexico as their subject. Today, Ramírez reports on his findings in a broad quadrant of Mexico City traversed by the artist, encompassing the gallery's surrounding area, the Historic Center, and other adjacent neighborhoods such as Tabacalera and Santa María la Ribera, among others. The approach he offers distances itself from any label relating to migratory conditions or foreignness, since, at this point, who could claim more power over others in terms of territory, at a moment when geopolitical and neighborhood borders are being disrupted at a speed impossible to track due to a series of new phenomena that respect none of the previously established parameters?

Calixto Ramírez makes use of urban detritus, the noise of a jackhammer, the angular shadow of modern buildings on peeling walls, or certain words that allude to a vocabulary which we can now say with certainty is glocal. However, it is in this interstitial space where the viewer must assign a variable value depending on their particular micro-history, since it reflects each current condition as an individual or as a member of society. These artistic actions also respond to a dual and ambivalent condition—of being present and absent at the same time; to geographical journeys in which the body has the opportunity to move, but also those mental ones that occur while daydreaming. It is the condition of the threshold, the thin line between two situations, that Ramírez is interested in inspecting, with one foot on one side and the other foot on the other. Travel is one of the quintessential liminal states, which can also become a rite of passage; a state of openness and ambiguity at once; an anti-structure and anti-hierarchy manifestation that follows from its own immanent condition of freedom. It constitutes the *Falla rápida* (Quick Fault) as a kind of allegory for current life, insofar as it translates into the forms present in how we live within our environment: a sort of infatuation coupled with disappointment in the face of what is seen, experienced, and lived.

—Lateral