Gallery

On Friday, April 5th, we will inaugurate "Ghost Town", Yuyo Gardiol's solo exhibition on the ground floor, main hall of CRUDO Contemporary Art, located at Italia 1044, in Rosario.

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Walking through a ghost town is the opportunity to rediscover it.

A ghost town, in its forgotten state, allows itself to be rediscovered. It holds fragments of secrets that require a special contemplative state to reveal. A forgotten town is never truly dead; where society abandons and postpones, nature progresses. The lack of human spatial action and discipline leads to a succession of constant architectural alterations. A ghost town is entirely alive but in its own temporality. Time is the key to understanding every ghost town.

In Yuyo Gardiol's work, I observe how she uses the conditions and effects of time as artistic operations. The non-static quality of time, where even what we perceive as stillness is in constant motion, can be observed, for example, in the tension generated by the fragility of crystals (a solid fluid) supporting rigid objects like branches. A balance that harbors immense potential energy.

Temporal accident and chance are also used as elements of artistic construction. An example is the hanging branch that continuously and tirelessly draws on the sand, generating new patterns. A meditative state, an uncertain yet constant flow. The patterns are never the same.

Elements like branches, leaves, and flowers are also utilized for their ability to clearly show the passage of time, mutating with the passing days, whether drying out, subtly changing color, or even being inhabited by fungi. The passage from life to death and back to life again. This ensures that a Yuyo Gardiol exhibition is never exactly the same; it modifies, flows, it is alive.

Sand on the floor, or leaves and earth (as used in previous exhibitions), are also ways to alter how our bodies relate to time. The body and mind organize themselves in recognized ways when navigating an art gallery. There are pre-established structures in our minds on how to behave in particular situations. A simple gesture like modifying the ground alters our tactile, acoustic, and sensory relationship, disorienting our familiar structures and generating a different way to connect and navigate space—a different temporality.

"Ghost Town" is a reminder that apparent stillness also contains movement, that silence also holds sound, and that forgotten places also retain memory. These works remind us that within each ghost town lies a mystery waiting to be revealed. It is an invitation to listen.

Fepi Farina