The thundering sound of Miguel Angel Rios’s “Aqui” greets those who enter the Blaffer Gallery. The exhibit’s two video installations feature spinning tops used in trompos, a popular game in rural Mexico. The volume is turned up so, as the tops spin, viewers feel like they’re standing under a noisy highway. For the installation On the Edge, Rios uses dual screens, and for the titular Aqui, he surrounds viewers with black and white tops in a pentagonal theater.
Art fans might experience déjà vu as the Argentinean artist’s work with the toys is also currently on display in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston’s Constructing a Poetic Universe. In Friendly Fire, a documentary showing at the Blaffer exhibit, Rios explains how the colliding black and white tops symbolize violence and power struggle. He recruited tromposplayers in Tepoztlan, a rural Mexican city, to help him. Pictures of these men spinning their magic are on display, along with the artist’s drawings and plans. See how Rios’s vision spun out of him.
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