Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea is presenting "Esto es América, o qual é o limite?", the debut New York solo exhibition by Argentinian artist Gabriel Chaile. The show, currently on view through October 18th, 2025, features a powerful collection of adobe sculptures, drawings, and photographs that blend ancestral forms with contemporary political imagery. The exhibition centers around five sculptural works that extend Chaile's long-standing exploration of what he calls the "genealogy of form" - his term for the ways shapes and motifs recur across cultures and time periods.
The clay structures dominate the gallery space, resembling bread ovens and animal figures with surfaces covered in dense black line drawings. "Each sculpture is covered in black line drawings," the artist explains. "Within those lines, other hidden drawings emerge - like walking through a jungle, where you're present, yet not always visible." These intricate tattoo-like drawings create layers of meaning that make the sculptures appear restless and alive with movement.
Chaile has arranged the works to suggest motion, as though they are marching across the gallery floor in a deliberate procession. The largest piece evokes the body of a lizard or bird, captured mid-transformation. Four oven-like volumes surround it, each one suggesting both domestic use and anthropomorphic presence. Together, they form what the artist describes as "a walk, a march, or a protest," creating a powerful visual narrative about movement and resistance.
The exhibition also includes large photographic prints mounted along the walls that document a protest Chaile witnessed in Montana during a residency in the United States. The images show elderly people, children, and young adults gathered quietly with ambiguous signs. "What struck me was the manner of protest: people standing quietly on sidewalks," he recalls. "Watching from the car, I felt a kind of alignment - not necessarily with the political opposition, but with the deeper message: a call for a more inclusive coexistence."
These new works represent a significant departure from Chaile's earlier artistic approach. His previous sculptures were often upright and hieratic, monumental in their stillness. "My previous sculptures were more static," he explains. "In contrast, this new group feels animated - as though they're walking, moving. There's an intentional sense that these once-static forms are now coming alive." He describes these pieces as the "rebellious siblings" of his earlier work, continuing the same artistic lineage while shifting its emotional tone.
The exhibition's bilingual title carries deep symbolic meaning that reflects Chaile's artistic concerns. "Esto es América" states "This is America" in Spanish, while "o qual é o limite?" asks "What is the limit?" in Portuguese. For Chaile, this dual language approach mirrors the complex histories of colonization that reshaped Indigenous languages across the American continent. It also raises contemporary questions about what kinds of boundaries can foster coexistence rather than division.
The artist sees this exhibition as an exploration of limits and boundaries in both historical and contemporary contexts. "This exhibition, for me, raises the question of what kind of limits allow us to live together - what boundaries support coexistence, rather than division," he concludes. Through his sculptural language of ancestry and protest, Chaile creates a powerful meditation on identity, movement, and the possibility of inclusive coexistence in the Americas.
