Mario Santizo: El sol es un martillo

Prometeo Gallery presents the Guatemalan artist Mario Santizo’s first solo exhibition in Italy. The artist takes on a different attitude to that of his Guatemalan counterparts by using irony and satire to question current Latin America.

This frame of mind comes to the forefront in his installation The Sun is a Hammer where he uses Carmen Miranda (famous portuguese yet naturalised Brazilian singer and actress) to question the notion of the exotic in Western culture, which is often exploited by contemporary artists. He appropriates her image through a series of photographs and a sculptural bust, changing her sex and devoiding her of both iconography and aesthetic.

The artist in order to deal with and also distances himself from the complexities of the issues of Guatemalan society, such as the discrimination against the Mayans or social inequality, he uses parody and a sense of humour, not to belittle these issues but to evoke new thought patterns.