(LETTO) THEREAFTER
a project by Juan Pablo Macías

thereafter is a work that follows letto (bed)

In the end of 2016, Juan Pablo Macías found an improvised bed inside an abandoned warehouse
he documented the site with 35mm film and later took this object to an exhibition as some sort of ready-made or archeological finding

he thought of it as the giving-in-return of a product of the capitalistic system to the same system as an art merchandise

this site is the same place where Salvator Rosa is hosted today, and for his first project in the gallery he is giving back the bed…

…he is also placing a found cot inside the cube
as he neatly folds
the rest of blankets
quilts
and bed sheets
found on the same site
giving these an order
and he writes a poem entitled thereafter…

The work Juan Pablo Macías (Mexico, 1974) is the result of a research on anarchism and libertarian thought that takes many forms. Editorial projects, poetry, video, installations, serve as support to document diverse situations produced by the encounter between power-knowledge and insurrectional-knowledge, or in other words, between systems of representation and affectivity.
He is editor in chief of TIEMPO MUERTO journal (2012-ongoing) and WORD+MOIST PRESS (2014-ongoing), two editorial projects on anarchism and libertarian thought. He also conceived BAS - Banca Autonoma di Sementi Liberi da Usura (2014) in Abruzzo, a seed bank free of usury that brings together libertarian words and seeds as the two main foundations of human life, nonetheless both subject to exclusivity and monopolistic practices.
His work has been shown in Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Casino Luxembourg, Maison Rouge Paris, Confort Moderne Poitiers, Villa Romana Florence, tranzitdisplay in Prague, National Center for Contemporary Art in Moscow. In Mexico City at Museo Universitario de Arte Contemporáneo (MUAC), Museo de Arte Moderno (MAM), MUCA, Museo Carrillo Gil, Museo Ex Teresa Arte Actual, Sala de Arte Publico Siqueiros (SAPS), Museo Amparo in Puebla, He was part of Istanbul, Jakarta and Second Yinchuan Biennials and was a resident of Fondazione Ratti in Como, Database in Carrara, Guilmi Art Project in Abruzzo, La Stanza della Seta in Sicily and Thread from the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Senegal. His work is part of the collections of Museo Amparo (MEX), Collezione la Gaia (IT), Nomas Foundation (IT) and Colección Adrastus (ES), between others.

THEREAFTER

(September 18, 2018)

numbers will perish with men
and the infinite will blossom
thereafter
nothing will count
thereafter
death won’t be
thereafter
a blooming there
thereafter
a joyful happiness
thereafter
with no spirit
no idea
no function
no vocation
only joyful breaths
thereafter
a new species
thereafter
in infinite affluence
thereafter
—
no longer a man
a new species
feathers and syrinx
no longer
small thoughts
—
numbers were a bad idea
a pretentious idea
a disastrous idea
a small idea
but plants regrow
and syrinx remain
—
each sequence is succeeding overlapping one another
many eyes masks along blowing syrinxes
dilute the selflessness that weeds my body off
only syrinxes
overlapping
making me forget
the small ideas
thereafter