When approaching Edgar Guzmanruiz’s latest exhibition, “Como les guste” (As You Like It), one is greeted by red curtains that flank the entrance to the gallery. The viewer then moves beyond the curtains to encounter the back side of a wall made of wood and cardboard, which forces visitors to circle the perimeter of the gallery. One is thus led to the center of the space to find the front of the expansive wall, where it becomes apparent that the installation is actually modeling the gallery space itself. Guzmanruiz has playfully transformed the gallery into a set––fabricated to nearly three-fourths scale, complete with simulations of the gallery’s load-bearing columns––in which every guest is an actor, and art-world players are part of the act.
Guzmanruiz’s installation implies that the gallery space itself is theatrical, filled with actors and actresses––curators and critics, dealers and collectors––all of whom create the conditions in which to understand a work of art. Any notion that the gallery space is neutral, and thus able to objectively facilitate the relations between viewer and object, is questioned. Yet Guzmanruiz performs these critiques with humor and grace, yielding effects that are far more delightful than ideological. Both conceptually and formally, his installation seems to convey and accept the notion that this “theater” is something to laugh at rather than oppose.
