NAAB
NAAB     Research project, 2022—ongoing



Como la flor con tanto amor
Me diste tú, se marchitó
Me marcho hoy, yo sé perder
Pero, ah-ah-ay,
¡cómo me duele! Ah-ah ay
[Selena, Como la flor]

Xochitl toconcuetlahui in tlatticpac
[Nezahualcóyotl, “Ah in tepilhuan”]

Giorgio Vasari arrived too late in history. Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori published in 1550, marked an emphasis on showing a History of Art to which we were not "invited". In Art, phrases like "We are late again" are examples to affirm that we were hidden. Now, dear reader, I would like to speak to you in a more intimate way: that is, to speak of the pain of "losing" a flower. Yes, we will sing and wear flowers on this occasion to be able to talk about History... of another history that will take us back to other worlds to make them continue to exist and be recognized since they were not pronounced and for this Selena's song will accompany us. Now, welcome to my petal of my research; in Mesoamerica between the Late Classic period (600-900 A.D.). We are almost 600 years after the Colonization of America and with it the deception of European Modernity about the history of the artist's authorship and biography. However, before "The Conquest", flowers germinated that were important in painting. 

For example, there was a school of Mayan painters who signed with flowers: the naab, a ritual symbol between two worlds: the terrestrial and the aquatic. Flowers that floated were captured to last in history without being visible, without coming to light. The flower was an attribute of decoration in the headdress of the painter, of the artist, ah naab, when it was represented in a fresco or vessel. 

In the same way there was a God for the artists, the monkey God. Unfortunately, if these flowers remain unseen, they will wither as Nezahualcoyotl predicted in his poetry. Subsequently, during the colonial and present times, other populations developed craft techniques linked to the flower as a gesture of representations of death. Candles filled with flowers to remember and mourn the loved ones, the souls that will never leave us. With this project I would like to question the official History and make visible how Modernity continues to generate consequences in Contemporaneity. My proposal is a dialogue in History as a new form of archeology of the future... and now LET'S SING! 

But, ah-ah-ah, how it hurts me! Ah-ah ay, how it hurts me!..

Miroir—Naab
[05.04—31.05.2024]
radicar raði’kar, POUSH, Aubervilliers


Group Show: Kenia Almaraz Murillo, Marcos Ávila Forero, Marlon de Azambuja, Cecilia Bengolea, Almendra Benavente, Valentina Canseco, Omar Castillo Alfaro, Luis Chenche, Juan Gugger, María, Ibáñez Lago, Juan Ignacio López, Martín Kaulen, André Komatsu, Lívia Melzi, Jack Rothert Garcia, Sofía Salazar Rosales, Carlota Sandoval Lizarralde, Suricata
¶Margaux Knight


Omar Castillo Alfaro, Naab, Installation, 2024. Rebar (steel), paraffin, soil,red pigment, laser printing on stainless metal plate and red filters.  Variable dimensions. Exhibition view of radicar raði’kar, 2024, Poush, Aubervilliers, (FR). © Romain Darnaud.
radicar raði’kar is interested in the figure of the diasporic or migrant artist, polyglot or traveler, as translator.

These artists circulate in the international art world and its institutions, places marked by acts of intercultural discourse, where the translatability of their work is the condition of its exhibition. These artists do not speak with amonolingual voice. They are fundamental critical decoders who question these circulations in their work, hijackingsystems, appropriating or inventing languages. It is in this friction, sometimes this discomfort, that the possibility of a dissident epistemology and a reconfigured reality emerges, amplified by the experience and existence of otherness.

Naab taanaj
[27.01—24.02.2024]
Guadalajara90210 Gallery 
Mexico City, Mexico

¶Annabela Tournon Zubieta ^{[read here]}

Omar Castillo Alfaro, Naab Taanaj (Detail), 2024: Installation, Rebar (steel), paraffin, soil, marble, soapstone, cinnabar, red filters, obsidian stone, tezontle stone, chili powder
and UV printing on stainless metal plate, variable dimensions, 2024. Exhibition view of Naab Taanaj at Guadalajara90210 Gallery, Mexico City, (MX). © Rubén Garay, Courtesy of the artist.  

Remèdes et poissons
Acte II
[08.03—24.05 2025]
Omar Castillo Alfaro, Haonan He, Henri Tauliaut & Elize Charcosset

Acte I
[21.01—08.03 2024]
Nicolas Derné, Omar Castillo Alfaro, Gwladys Gambie, Annabel Guérédrat & Elsa Prudent

¶Marion Vasseur Raluy ^{[read here]}
Cura à Tropiques Atrium program 
at Scène National

Remèdes et poissons
Acte I 
[21.01—08.03 2024]
Nicolas Derné, Omar Castillo Alfaro, Gwladys Gambie, Annabel Guérédrat & Elsa Prudent

Acte II
[08.03—24.05 2025]
Omar Castillo Alfaro, Haonan He, Henri Tauliaut & Elize Charcosset

¶Marion Vasseur Raluy ^{[read here]}
Cura à Tropiques Atrium program 
at Scène Nationale

Naab
Centre Pompidou [19.10. 2024] 
Post-performance Future 
Method/e Liv®e, Paris, France.
“The concept of post-performance questions the influence and legacy of performativity on the visual arts. It reveals artists in training and at work, involving the body, the voice, the manipulation of objects and the reading of texts. Featuring a number of artists who embody different facets of contemporary performance art, this evening accompanies the publication of a book by art historian Marie de Brugerolle, the fruit of ten years' research. Designed by the author, the scenography features a sculptural installation by Omar Castillo Alfaro and Tyler Coburn's Ergonomic Futures.”

[Post-performance Future Method/e Liv®e]




Omar Castillo Alfaro, Naab (Performance, variable dimensions). Exhibition view Post-performance Future Method/e Liv®e at Centre Pompidou. With Marie de Brugerolle, Tyler Coburn, Asher Hartman, Cally Spooner, ISMA, Jasmine Orpilla and the collaboration of Than Hussein Clark and Emmanuel Tibloux. Invited curator: Marie de Brugerolle. Production: T&P Publishing & Centre Pompidou. Music by ISMA. Translations of texts into Yucatecan Mayan by Francisco Chimal Chan.  Avec le soutien de l’Ensba Lyon. © Rubén Garay.

Naab Balam — Nikteo’o
Studio, Villa Belleville, Paris, 2024

¶Carlota de Torregrosa

Gesturally, Omar convolutely contort, incise, carve, articulates, dazzle further than the perceived materials in his work. Narratively, infusing them with the Maya flower (naab) iconography and cultural migrative thinking.

Omar Castillo Alfaro, Naab Balam - Nikteo’o, 2024. Installation. Rebar (steel), paraffin, soil, soapstone, UV print on mirrored stainless steel plate and red filters, variable dimensions. View of the exhibition ‘End of residency’ Tant chauffe-t-on le fer qu’il rougit, June 2024, Villa Belleville, Paris, (FR) © Objets Pointus
As part of the end of his residency at the Villa Belleville in Paris, Omar’s sculptural practice embodies a transgenerational historical and personal heritage, revisiting ancestral techniques. Upon entering the studio, which has been transformed into an exhibition space, visitors have to wander through the verdant vegetation that invades the entrance to discover the installation Naab Balam - Nikteo’o, immersed in a glowing red light. The contrast between this wild, natural outdoor environment and the artist’s impressive in situ presentation allows us to immerse ourselves for the first time in the centre of his work, and to perceive it in its wholeness.
The ensemble of the installation is displayed in three parts, with the main iron structure surrounded by earth, creating a single, linear path to the central stone sculpture. The shape is a reference to the artist’s beloved bird, named Pedro. [...]

Given its approach to height, the freedom of its forms and its intimate cage-like structure, I inevitably remembered the installations and sculptural works of Louise Bourgeois. Questioning space in relation to the body and the place given to the emotional and psychological state. They both also share the same artistic vision of being deeply involved psychologically and physically in their work.


Omar Castillo Alfaro, Naab Balam - Nikteo’o, 2024. Installation. Rebar (steel), paraffin, soil, soapstone, UV print on mirrored stainless steel plate and red filters, variable dimensions. View of the exhibition ‘End of residency’ Tant chauffe-t-on le fer qu’il rougit, June 2024, Villa Belleville, Paris, (FR) © Objets Pointus

Naab
Another Land

[17.10.2024 — 16.11.2024]
Pilar, Brussels, BE

Group show: Tristan Bründler, Omar Castillo Alfaro, PaolaSiri Renard 
& Astrid Vandercamere

¶Carlota de Torregrosa


Another Land takes us on an exploration of a uchronic reality, in the wake of current violence, wounds of the past and concerns for the future. Selected artists collaborated on the creation of this “final” universe being in between reality and fiction. Through a science-fiction text, sculptures, video and sound installation, engage in meaningful dialogues becoming a gateway to collective contemplation, delving into the complexities of human existence, political landscapes, meeting point between ornamentalism and architecture, and the intimate aspects of our lives.

Exhibition views of Another Land, Pilar, Brussels, 2024. © Tim Evers

Ah ah naab
Les Sillons #1

[19.03.2023 — 16.07.2023]
CAC La Ferme du Buisson, FR

Group show: Jacopo Belloni, Benoît Le Boulicaut, Vincent Caroff & Juliette Jaffeux, Grand Chemin, cluelesS, Omar Castillo Alfaro, Théophylle Dcx, Charles-Arthur Feuvrier, Mélina Ghorafi, HaYoung et Nesrine Salem

¶Thomas Conchou

Omar Castillo Alfaro, ah naab, 2023. Installation: rebar, paraffin wax, earth, marble, soapstone, cinnabar, red filters, variable dimensions. Courtesy of the artist. Production La Ferme du Buisson, with the support of Patrick Cavecchi and the École nationale supérieure de beaux-arts de Lyon in partnership with Leyre León Álvarez. In collaboration with Francis Desjeunes and Alexandre Rabot. Exhibition view Les Sillons #1, Centre d'art contemporain de la Ferme du Buisson © photo Émile Ouroumov

Naab
Primer Aviso 
JULIO Artist run-space
Assemblage#45

Group show: Omar Castillo Alfaro, 
Vir Andres Hera and Manoela Medeiros
¶Dayneris Brito

This exhibition tends to contradict and contaminate the Western perspective of the relationship between the marginal subject and art, established through strategies of reconciliation and disruption.

These works derive from the multiple forms generated in the cosmogonies operating in the territories of Abya Yala (the pre-conquest term for Latin America). Taking Ivy Queen and Maria Becerra’s iconic single as its title, Primer aviso recreates a declaration of autonomy, as a validation arising from the expression of a voice of its own. It is at once a meme, a refrain and warning of a confrontation to come, and it evokes the collective language of a fringe of
Latin American women who have succeeded in reclaiming their place in history from otherness and exile. 

A language condensed into mobile, transgender, multiform, cross-border bodies. By occupying the JULIO space with this collective action, the result of a curatorial complicity between curator and artists, we aim to rethink the concept of occupation, of borrowing. What does it mean to operate on foreign soil? Is there really such a thing as a neutral space, where practices coexist without being silenced?

Omar Castillo Alfaro, Stalactite-Naab (series), 2022. Rebal (steel) and kerosene Earthen curtains, 2024. Fabric, soil, dried peppers, coffee and glue, 2 canvases. Exhibition view at Primer aviso, 2024, JULIO artist run-space, Paris, (FR). © photo Julio Artist run-space.

Omar Castillo Alfaro, Exhibition view at Primer aviso, 2024, JULIO artist run-space, Paris, (FR). © photo Julio Artist run-space.