Whose army? CDMX, 2016.

 

The sculptor Rivelino will be in charge of closing this first edition of Obra en Obra with his intervention entitled ¿El ejército de quién?, made with 10,000 gold-colored soldiers who establish symbolic relations between the figures that are formed with them and the situations in which they were placed, around other objects also symbolic. The artist has drawn a series of long lines that relate to each other and to these figures, establishing a kind of connection with the activities performed by the armies in the world. With this, Rivelino seeks to lead the viewer to question the current function of the armies and what is defended by them that seems to be loaded with great ambiguity. Thus, the intervention is an exploration to open the question about the future of society in the face of the trend of an increasingly militarized planet. Is it possible that one day an army of 10,000 soldiers will invade my house?

 

By delineating complex geographical boundaries such as those of Ukraine and Russia, those of the Middle East, the Strait of Gibraltar or the two Koreas, including the Mexican coast, Rivelino evidences the growing global military trend. In some spaces of the construction, warlike relationships appear that involve large numbers of people, while in others there is talk of more particular cases such as those of Guerrero and Oaxaca, drawn on walls, and their current situation with armies, drug trafficking and the consequences of this binomial. The use of golden borders and gold colored soldiers is a reference to the apparent security that gold offers, but also to the fear it may cause.

Jimena Hogrebe.