Mutant History

History has become mutant and mutable. And this is the approach taken by curator César Gabler in an exhibition of works by artists Felipe Muhr, Javier Rodríguez, Rodrigo Vergara and, in a controversial decision, by the curator himself. Events that have recently occurred in Chile are subjected to games and revisions through drawings by the four creators. Javier Rodríguez, relies on a comic's approach to create a satire of Pinochet's dictatorial government, drawing parallels between the figure of the dictator and Freddy Krueger, imitating a filmmaking language and aesthetically placing his vignettes in 1984 (the year in which the film Nightmare on Elm Street opened, and when the emergence of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front was announced).

César Gabler highlights readings between the lines of little known events, like the strange relationships between the visits to Chile by painter James Whistler and Walt Disney, and their hidden political agendas. Felipe Muhr proposed Mickey contra el Ratón Pérez (Después de Christie) Mickey vs the Ratón Pérez (After Christie), and Álbum Mickey (1937-1938) Mickey Album (1937-1938), vindicating the figure of Chilean cartoon drawer Jorge Christie Mouat through the fictional vengeance of the Ratón Pérez, used as a villain against the very popular Mickey Mouse. Mutation here does not exclusively pertain to content but also to form.

In Mi Nombre es Lara (My Name is Lara), Rodrigo Vergara expands drawing to modeling, watercolor and video to metaphorically narrate the 1987 jailbreak of four members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front. The title of the piece references the Chilean soap opera titled Mi Nombre es Lara that was airing at the time of the scape.

The exhibition offers four ways to understand or reinterpret Chilean history through satirical, parodic, allegorical, and ironical gazes. There is, in some instances, the revisions on the internal history of Chile, its secrets, shameful events, as well as tributes to the unknown hero.