Portrait of Gabriel Chaile at Meridiano, Puerto Escondido, 2023. Photo by Alex Krotov. Courtesy of Gabriel Chaile, Lisbon and ChertLüdde, Berlin
Gabriel Chaile
PROJECT
Gabriel Chaile’s works are rooted in the material practices of the Indigenous communities of north-eastern Argentina. This adobe wall relief depicts the Argentine tapir, a mammal similar in shape to a pig and almost extinct in Argentina today, and draws on a mythical tale in which two baby tapirs descend from the sky and slowly transform into humans. Reanimating the stories of Chaile’s ancestors and community in this way, the work uses mythological narratives to question the destruction of Indigenous ways of life since colonisation, while foregrounding the urgent and interconnected questions of ecological and cultural preservation.
Commissioned by the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Gift of the artist
ABOUT
Acting as both anthropologist and storyteller, Gabriel Chaile at once memorialises and revitalises the traditions and practices of his ancestors and his community. Chaile has exhibited extensively around the world. His work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions at institutions including the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; Kunsthalle Lissabon, Lisbon; the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Argentina; Fondation Thalie, Brussels; Centro de Creación Contemporánea de Andalucía; Espacio de Arte Contemporáneo, Montevideo; and Museo de Arte Moderno de Cuenca, Ecuador. His large-scale, public work The Wind Blows Where it Wishes was presented on the High Line in New York in 2023. Chaile’s work was included in the Venice Biennale and the Coimbra Biennial of Contemporary Art in 2022 and the New Museum Triennial in 2021. Chaile’s work is included in collections of the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Fundación Costantini, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Madrid, Spain; and Kadist Foundation, Paris, France.