Infortunio de un rencor 1997

Francis Naranjo’s sculpture presents us with a pale platform made of stacked bricks, upon which a simple cubic box rests. The immediate association may be with the architecture of antiquity; this form has echoes of the ziggurats of Mesopotamia, each layer a step closer to the heavens. Yet, while those ancient structures were centers of power and communication with the divine, Naranjo’s construction is muted and strangely inert. The blank cube at the top is closed, sealed off, evoking a sense of finality akin to a mausoleum. Consider, too, the psychological weight of this ‘sorrowful accident,’ as the title translates. Is it a symbolic tomb for past grievances? Perhaps these memories, like the architectural forms, are palimpsests, layered and weighty as they accumulate over time. This piece engages our subconscious, inviting us to confront the emotional baggage that, like the image of the cube, resurfaces repeatedly in the human experience.