Adolfo Martínez's 'Trifulca, Objetos Penitentes' at MAC Santiago

Adolfo Martínez's exhibition 'Trifulca, Objetos Penitentes' at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC) in Parque Forestal, Santiago de Chile, runs until June 14, 2026. Curated by Laura Ibáñez Kuzmanic, the show features mechanical sculptures—a boot polisher, a descending condor, a swinging trapeze, a mechanically beaten drum, a yoking pair, and coins crushed on rails—that construct a symbolic Chilean landscape of normalized hierarchies, rituals, and punishments. The works draw from provincial and rural-urban intersections, engaging with social realism through deliberate economy of means. Martínez explores the link between national identity and labor power dynamics, using objects as material deposits of social memory. The exhibition references Chilean cultural touchstones like Pablo Burchard's paintings and novels by Mariano Latorre and José Donoso, highlighting tensions between social classes and rural-urban life. The artist's manipulation of sculptural materials aims to reveal how objects can reconstruct cultural landscapes and historical scenarios, emphasizing the materiality of things as a fertile ground for contemporary art.