BY KAT BARANDY
sculptural language of ancestry and protest
Marianne Boesky Gallery in Chelsea presents Esto es América, o qual é o limite?, the debut New York solo exhibition by Argentinian artist Gabriel Chaile. Currently on view through October 18th, 2025, the show brings together adobe sculptures, drawings, and photographs that combine ancestral forms with contemporary political imagery.
The five sculptural works at the center of the exhibition extend Chaile’s long-standing interest in the genealogy of form — his term for the ways shapes and motifs recur across cultures and time. The clay structures resemble bread ovens and animal figures, their surfaces marked with 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.’
gabriel chaile’s procession of anthropomorphic ovens
Artist Gabriel Chaile arranges the works in motion, as though marching across the gallery floor in procession. The largest piece suggests the body of a lizard or bird, captured mid-transformation. Surrounding it, four oven-like volumes evoke both domestic use and anthropomorphic presence. Together they form what the artist describes as ‘a walk, a march, or a protest.’
Along the walls, large photographic prints document a protest Chaile witnessed in Montana during a residency in the United States. 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.’
Earlier sculptures by Gabriel Chaile were often upright and hieratic, monumental in their stillness. The new works, by contrast, embody motion. ‘My previous sculptures were more static,’ he continues. ‘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.’
The intricate tattoo-like drawings across their surfaces amplify this quality, making the sculptures appear restless and layered with meaning. Chaile describes these as the ‘rebellious siblings’ of his earlier work, which continue the same lineage yet shift its tone.
The exhibition’s title spans Spanish and Portuguese: Esto es América states, ‘This is America,’ while o qual é o limite? asks, ‘What is the limit?’
For Chaile, this dual language mirrors the histories of colonization that reshaped Indigenous languages across the continent. It also raises the contemporary question of what boundaries allow coexistence rather than division. He concludes: ‘This exhibition, for me, raises the question of what kind of limits allow us to live together — what boundaries support coexistence, rather than division.’
