[PCdV], August 22 – September 26, 2026 (Valparaíso, Chile)
Exhibition IRA_ESPERANZA_FRUSTRACIÓN
Curated by Christian Castro

3D-printed PLA / Black aluminum profile
Edition 1/3

Four black 3D-printed pedestals, finished with a black aluminum profile, hold up four mannequin heads at average human height. Each head wears a baseball cap whose brim displays the name of one of the Party's ministries from 1984: MINILUV (Ministry of Love), MINIPLENTY (Ministry of Plenty), MINITRUE (Ministry of Truth), and MINIPAX (Ministry of Peace). The four heads look downward, toward the center of the circle they form.

The caps are not an arbitrary detail: they cite directly the visual imaginary of the contemporary U.S. far right, where the cap functions as an informal uniform, a simulacrum of closeness even as control is exercised. That repertoire does not stay contained within its place of origin: it permeates local right-wing movements, which replicate it in impoverished versions of an aesthetic that was already poor to begin with—a Latin American translation, trashy and secondhand, of the political iconography of the U.S.'s pseudo-democracy. The heads themselves are formally diverse: some of hard, angular geometry, others of organic, irregular forms. That diversity is not random but rather evidence that the grotesque takes multiple shapes without ceasing to converge on a single ideology. The whole becomes unanimously grotesque precisely because no formal difference is enough to bend that shared fate.

The four heads, read in sequence, reconstruct the phrase with which the Party tortures the protagonist of 1984: "2+2=5." The title is not a sum; it is the declaration that power can impose as truth what is in fact a lie, and that it can do so with baseball caps, with ministries bearing friendly names, and with pedestals that look like trophies.

Photography courtesy of: Carlos Silva & Cristian Maturana
All pieces printed by: Studio Maipa

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