Daniel Guzmán Curates Collaborative Exhibition La Llamada del Dios Extraño with Ritual Performance

Artist Daniel Guzmán curated the exhibition La Llamada del Dios Extraño, inviting Esteban Aldrete, Bayrol Jiménez, Cristian Franco, and José Luis Sánchez Rull to collaborate on new works and display existing pieces. The show, inspired by Hans Jonas's 1958 book The Gnostic Religion, explores themes of an alien God and pop-cultural phenomena like demons and UFOs. For the opening, performers in beige costumes and masks staged a ritual at a mortuary across from the gallery, singing a death-themed song while carrying wooden slabs with lyrics and collages, disrupting traffic with chains before moving into the gallery. Inside, two artists were on a gallows, one playing guitar with a noose, as others danced around. The exhibition includes collaborative sculptures displayed as artifacts, video documentation of the ritual, and films such as Joel and Ethan Coen's O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) and Walter Hill's Crossroads (1986). Aldrete's Sombras (2014) collage series and Franco's Golden Dawn (2014) pieces are featured, while the second floor holds more collaborative installations, Jiménez's drawings of gods, Guzmán's The God Without a Face (2014) series, and colorful works by Sánchez Rull and Aldrete. The dialogue between works is fluid and complementary, emphasizing formal and thematic connections without repetition. The article was published in April 2015.