The exhibition explores the relationship between work and temporality as a constant negotiation: between productive tasks and our finite existence, between fleeting efforts and intermittence, and between actions we deem inconsequential and the concept of "non-time." Fiction inevitably infiltrates work to invigorate and undermine it; likewise, recognizing this movement as both pendular and paradoxical, work itself finds a way into fiction. How much of our labor is overtaken by fiction? To what extent does the fiction we live become absorbed by work? What happens at that rupture where the roles reverse—where fiction becomes work, and work becomes fiction? The power of artistic practice emerges here, reconfiguring categories and opening up new ways to understand the bond that ties us to the various forms of labor shaping and constraining how we occupy our time.
A plastic bag from the now-defunct Norte supermarket chain flutters helplessly in the gust of a standing fan. Unable to break free, it waves and intermittently drops. This peculiar contraption by Nicolás Bacal juxtaposes a household appliance—ubiquitous in working-class homes in Argentina—with an empty supermarket bag, a relic of a bygone era laden with now-obsolete idealizations. Together, they serve as “norths” that this makeshift compass fails to stabilize. Bacal complements this piece with another work: a parquet floor fragment precisely cut to form the blank digits of a digital clock, uncovering a hidden temporality within the domestic setting—one that holds all possibilities and none at once.
Bruno Gruppalli's contemporary surrealism lays bare the involuntary self-exploitation of our own image, exposing the grotesque distortions caused by modern professional socialization. His piece features a sculpture enthroned on a massive concrete pedestal: an anthropomorphic portrait that externalizes the unconscious absurdities of self-promotion, enacting a theater of the absurd in the stage of human relationships.
Eugenia Calvo presents a bed that seems to have reconfigured itself in rebellion, reshaping its form to reflect the human body for which it was made. In this fiction, the household furniture comes alive as an act of resistance against the encroachment on its domain—already eroded by the dynamics that blur the boundaries between leisure and labor spaces.
Aimé Pastorino draws inspiration from the tools in her grandfather’s workshop, symbolic of a generation devoted to lifelong trades. She meticulously crafts life-size wooden replicas of these tools, inverting their roles in a tautological twist. In these sculptures, the tools and the material they once worked on merge, embodying a cessation of labor—whether voluntary or forced.
Mario Scorzelli, an artist and art critic, also works in an office where he spends most of his days. In response to the monotony of office life, he creates peculiar drawings depicting a dystopian geek universe: an alternate present filled with android humans, monsters, aliens, and tormented youth grappling with the unsolvable dilemmas of their post-capitalist, post-apocalyptic age. Scorzelli’s combative imagination is not immune to the oppressive economic fluctuations of his time; his Deflated drawings series reflects a reality where not only currencies but all human creations are subject to relentless devaluation.
The installation by La Copia—Alejandro Montaldo and Nicolás Pontón—features a rudimentary wooden shack raised above the ground, resembling a construction site missing the wall it once parasitized. Inside, objects commonly found in homes that are sometimes presented in configurations purposely adapted to support photographic reproductions (a keychain, a calendar, a T-shirt, etc.) are populated not by the usual family photograph´s but instead by a fictional character: a chroma key green figure devoid of identity. The universe of self-portraits we construct daily reflects back an image hollowed out by the constant bombardment of stimuli and demands, forcing us first to surrender our spaces, and ultimately our time.
