MILLUNI, From Bolivia 2018

Francis Naranjo made this work, titled MILLUNI, from Bolivia. The syringe-like object on the left and the small rocks lined up on the right exist as a kind of still life. The objects feel both found and arranged, carrying the weight of the real. Like those Giorgio Morandi paintings of bottles and jars, this work is a quiet and studied contemplation on the stuff of the world, and I wonder what Naranjo was thinking while arranging them in this way. Maybe the artist was thinking about what it means to collect, display, and value fragments of our world. Artists help us see that everyday things—sedimentary rocks and syringes, for instance—are full of surprise. Like a painting, these common materials are transformed and arranged in front of us, shifting our understanding of how we relate to them, and to each other. We are all artists, in a way, assembling our lives piece by piece.