The rapture

2016 - National Museum of Fine Arts - Santiago, Chile.

Upper structure: Dimensions 10x6x2mts. Mixed technique and LED lighting / Floor structure: Resin, fiberglass and bronze, polychromed with oil paint / Wall structures: 20 aluminum gargoyles.

Photographic record

© Norton Maza &  © Juan Carlos Gutierrez

In ancient Egypt, the myth of Shu, a god who held the celestial dome, was believed in. If civilization rebelled, this god could let the dome fall and let in all the evil gods who sought the destruction of this world in permanent fear. In The Abduction, Maza manages to update this story, recreating in this location a dome anchored to the wall and reflecting the fragility of this situation by suspending a ship that at any minute can succumb and fall on the people it is trying to abduct.

The installation makes use of certain emblems that, to some extent, illustrate chaos from all its aspects. Consumption, war and religion are present in this scene frozen in time whose interpretative layers reach the ceiling.

In biblical eschatology, the rapture is the faith that Christians have that Jesus Christ will descend to snatch away those who were good believers and take them with him to the kingdom of heaven. In this case, heaven is at war and the one who is raptured is a good believer, but in designer clothes, sequins and butterfly tattoos.

In this play everything is unstable: the sky, gravity and the role of the audience. The figure of the person who criticizes the political, economic and social powers, represented by the hooded woman, is called into question. Ropes, tied to gargoyles, anchor the vault to the museum hall. The visitor can, if he wishes, untie them and release the unidentified flying object. The question to ask yourself is whether you think the hooded woman deserves to be abducted or acquitted. If he identifies with the role of the avenger or with that allegorical figure that fights against omnipotent capitalism dressed in Gucci.

Text: Juan José Santos

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