Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa. Espectros luminosos

The exhibition Light Spectra,

which we are inaugurating today

at the Museo Reina Sofía,

is a ten-year review of

Naufus’s work,

from 2015 to the present.

All of Naufus’s work

stems from the biographical

— that is, it is shaped

by the history of Guatemala,

specifically its recent history,

a civil war that lasted

nearly four decades

until peace agreements

were signed in 1996,

and which directly

affected his family.

So he starts from that personal

memory, that family experience.

But he does so not to confine

himself to such a specific context,

but rather to address

themes that are much broader,

— I would even say universal,

transcontinental, and even timeless.

I grew up, I think, during the supposedly

worst years of the

civil war in my country.

I went into exile

— first to Mexico, then to Canada —

and I met people who were also

fleeing their own civil wars,

from Nicaragua or Vietnam,

and later Rwanda.

Also, through friendships

with older women

who had lived through World War II,

I saw that this is something

that happens all over the world,

but that it’s not normal,

it’s a kind of violence

that seeps into people.

What’s interesting is

Naufus’s great skill

in working with different materials.

He starts from his research,

but then he looks for the channel,

the artistic medium

that is most effective

in telling the story

he has imagined,

dreamed of, and developed.

This installation is a sort of

reflection on a nursery,

and it relates a bit to my experience

of being displaced during

the civil war in my country.

I grew up with many people

who had been displaced

from many places.

So I was also thinking

a bit about that kind of

childhood in transition,

which is a very relevant

topic internationally

today because of ongoing conflicts.

The major contribution here

consists of two new pieces,

both produced in

collaboration with TBA21.

One is an installation titled

Cradle and Lullaby,

a large-scale work that Naufus

has been developing for several years.

The other is a performance

that will be presented

as the closing event

of the exhibition in September,

titled From Spiral to Spiral.

Like all of Naufus’s work,

it is also grounded in research

— a sustained investigation over time —

and it will be presented here

in September for the first time.