The floors and the walls of a museum / gallery are the silent witnesses to an artist’s journey. They are the beholder of spaces occupied by a canvas; records every hole made and patched; and traces movements of every object mounted and removed on them. As he reaches 50 years of age, José Santos III reflects on his career as an artist through the scope of his past exhibitions in and out of the country. 

In Retrospect utilizes scale models of Santos’ solo exhibitions from galleries, art fairs, and museums like Artinformal, The Drawing Room, Pearl Lam Gallery, Art Basel Hong Kong, Armory Show, A3 Arndt Art Agency, Vargas Museum, and MO_Space. Every small space serves as a time capsule eliciting introspection, revealing minute details—exposing the mind behind the exhibition. In the confines of these miniatures, we are introduced to the moving parts and the process before the reveal. Each room takes us back to the small step taken, the milestones marked, and the visions that helped shape and carve Santos’ recent works.

In this exhibition, each show is scaled down to .9cm: 1ft ratio and every piece are recreated from various materials ranging from found objects, clay, paper, screen wire, and cardboard. The museum and gallery spaces are recontextualized as their engulfing wall borders become insignificant, bringing the audience at the forefront of the entirety of the exhibitions. The series of works gives a glimpse of the expanse of Santos’ visual language; how he transits from an idea to another; and how his art practice organically progresses over time.

Integral in Santos’ works is how he recasts the banal and turns it into art and the process that goes through finding inspiration from these objects. Through his initial solo show at Boston Gallery, Building Blocks (1995) and his Artinformal exhibit Rebuilding Blocks (2015), Santos displays how he has begun revolving and continually evolves around these themes. His two solo shows at The Drawing Room Gallery, It’s Never the Same (2017) and Bardo (2019), takes us back to the long hallways of the gallery to its main space. In them, a transformation transpires, as the same structure is guised with the artist’s assemblage, discarded objects, and video installation. Poetically, the prior explores the idea of memory and its limits, while the latter’s starting point are objects from demolished heritage houses – the vestiges of our society’s history.

The miniaturized model for the show In Retrospect stands as a landmark to José Santos III’s process of exploring everyday objects and appropriating them into his art practice—a reminder that small things can be significant and that nothing is lost, only changed.

‍

‍

All work photos courtesy of Kerwin Kaiser Yu.