Through photography, site-specific installations and video, Mauricio Guillen explores interpersonal politics, the division of space and the way in which different ideologies and rhythms co-exist everyday. The work locates and reinterprets the frictions between center and periphery, making visible the boundaries that frame social relations. Characteristically distilled and reserved, Guillen examines the daily social processes that lie beneath and reveal the socio-cultural climate of our times.

Guillen’s video No Sharp Objects (2005) draws our attention to the paranoias, alliances and motivations that underlie the present political situation. No better stage for an exploration of the effects of post 9/11 trauma, the video takes us to the cabin of a Continental Airlines flight from Bush International Airport in Houston to Mexico City. As we watch the artist methodically peel an apple, the loaded context converts this banal and familiar action into a micro-thriller with disastrous potential. The apple is peeled and the audio reveals the location of the shoot and we are reminded that, in this instance, the disaster only takes place in the heights of our imagination.

Mauricio Guillen was born in Mexico and lives and works in London and Mexico City, where he has been widely exhibited. He is one of the artists representing Mexico in the fifth Mercosur Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil this October. This is his first solo exhibition with Guild & Greyshkul.