90s. Carlos Capelán : En Route

The sofa at Capelán’s does not wait for anybody to sit down, as in a stage setting. It could rather be said that the dramatis personae have long since retired and left the furnishings in a kind of afterwards, retained by a memory that attempts to glean their significance beyond their explicit practical functions, The structure of the private sphere is here balanced in juxtaposition to the official arrangement of things in the museum space. If the living room structures the world on a tactile and unconscious level, the arrangements, displays, series and classifications of the museum have the status of a totally objective order of the world. In the museum we are initiated into the Western gnostic ideal of look-but-don’t-touch. The gaze is the sense par excellence of modern science, the rationality of this knowledge operates almost exclusively with the gaze as its discriminatory factor — whereas the tactile knowledge of the world remains disqualified. Capelán dissolves and questions the logic of this classification scheme, placing the most unexpected objects in the museum cabinets and showcases. Many objects in the cabinets have an extremely intimate and personal character and, above all, the arrangements are exceedingly enigmatic. They constitute a species of tiny subjective cosmos and resemble very delicate constellations. Nothing seems too small or insignificant to take part in these collections. <a href="https://medium.com/@PehrMartens/carlos-capel%C3%A1n-en-route-9de679567248">Learn More</a>