In contemporary societies, order and neatness are privileged, as an appearance, over chaos and dirt. An incontrovertible fact is ignored: in reality, these tensions coexist on a daily basis in a network of deep relationships. As a pretext for reaching that world to which power –state, economic, religious– aspires, a series of archetypes have been idealized to justify domination and control over other bodies. The same State, in situations that are considered extraordinary, transgresses its own laws to declare a state of exception that endorses its use of force. Faced with the possibility of disobedience and lack of control, he responds with repression.

 

In this panorama, fear acts as a device in the exercise of that oppressive power, whose pretext is security. However, this feeling is inherent in living beings. It manifests itself in the psyche and runs through the dermis on different scales, even becoming paralyzing. His imprint is poured into temporary or permanent traumas. Although some of the causes of fear can be enumerated without much effort -such as the immensity of the universe, knowing that one is finitx, the unknown that becomes sinister because it is sometimes inexplicable-, currently, this is linked to political instability , social, cultural, economic or climatic. This feeling of constant threat fosters a feeling of frantic anxiety.

 

In this sense, the exhibition Miedo siempre, miedo en todos partes by Raúl Rebolledo, is at the same time a memory of the fear propagated through certain symbols of power, as the opportunity to deactivate its main use and demonstrate its absurdity.

 

Lux Iducit Chaos are constellations that reflect their brilliance to the naked eye on a clear night. When looking carefully, it is revealed that this celestial immensity is made up of shell casings. Firearms, created in ancient China in the 9th century, spread to European countries two centuries later and were used to expand their domain by instilling fear in the territories they sought to colonize. In the absence of an immediate uprising, they justified their violence by subjugating entire populations and imposing their rules and ideologies. With the expansion of weapons technology, weapons were refined to make them more precise. In these constellations we find two types of bullets with widespread use among the military, police and even civilians: .9 mm. Armed violence, at least in Mexico, and arms trafficking on its northern border, intensify the panorama of this facility, placing us in a reality that records more than five hundred years of history and that reaches our daily lives.

 

Further ahead, we find ourselves in front of a mirror with a gold border. Again, in Máquina para reverencias, Rebolledo plays with trompe l'oeil to dilute or contain fear, by facing our own reflection on the edge of a guillotine. This disturbed image of the scope of violence as a state apparatus takes us back to the past. Although the guillotine is associated with the French Revolution, this was an improvement on similar machines used in other countries to try to democratize the death penalty for all social classes that have committed crimes. Although the guillotine was last used in 1981, capital punishment is still in the law of fifty-five countries. This failed justice system currently operates through other methods despite the efforts of international organizations to prohibit their use.

 

The work Último presente is made up of a golden hand that resembles the fragment of a fallen monument, reaffirming its power through the gesture of making a fist and raising or emphatically pointing the index finger. Below it, a cluster of leaves serve as a pedestal. The texture of the plinth becomes cloudy as we approach and perceive the folds of a mortuary bag. Another symbol of fear linked to the vulnerability of life and necropolitical violence.

 

By emphasizing fear, Raúl Rebolledo confronts us with our human vulnerability, while pointing out the ineffectiveness of a system that accredits the deployment of violence in favor of caring for the social body. Miedo siempre, miedo en todos partes is a trigger that shows the vigilant sprinkling of fear, as well as its counterpart, which triggers the collective response to it without ceasing to feel it.

 

Fernanda Ramos