From June 7 to September 6, 2026
Curator: Viviana Kuri Haddad

Luis Barragán Gallery

If You Hesitate, You’ll Miss, or Art Is a Space Where Everything Is Possible

Mario García Torres is an artist who engages with historical accounts of conceptual art in order to situate them in the territory of the imagination and in a fictional dimension. Twenty-five years ago, when he began to create conceptual works, it was important for him to be able to explain his intentions clearly before executing a piece. Nowadays, a different kind of wisdom emerges, as he prefers to distance himself from accumulated knowledge and make way for a mysterious impulse. Only thereafter does he submit the gesture to a reasoning process.

In sports, this intuitive gesture or sudden reaction ―which borders on surprise― can be more clearly explained. It is clearer still when a player, having mastered the techniques and well aware of possible outcomes, suddenly does something without knowing how, something beyond the scope of logical expectations or technical training. It is only then that an unanticipated outcome is produced, following no familiar narrative. The surprising reaction comes from a space of creativity, from the realm of the sublime.

Jorge Campos is the goalkeeper who has scored the most goals in the history of Mexican soccer, ranking among the top five internationally. El Brody is also believed to have the gift of prophecy. Considered a shaman by some, he is said to be able to see and anticipate what remains concealed to others. Mario García Torres recalls an insightful and charismatic Campos in an interview where he claimed that he could predict what was going to happen, almost as if it were a matter of magic. Every Mexican soccer fan remembers how, in 2021, Campos announced that Atlas would win the championship and that the MVP would be Camilo Vargas: “the best, and Atlas’s champion.” Following the championship match, a headline made the rounds of the sports pages: “Jorge Campos, the IMMORTAL PROPHET of the Atlas-León final.”

For García Torres, the artist “has to be a little like that”: he or she has to be in that space of intuition, “in tune with the gods.” The trick is getting to that place and understanding that one only arrives at it blindfolded. It is not by means of any rational process, but rather of intuition, of silence: in the pause of the abyss.

The notion of inspiration doesn’t get very good press these days. In the world of contemporary art, the figure of the genius, touched by epiphanies, is a thing of the past. It is possible that we have stopped speaking of the Muse, but the fact remains that a spectator falls silent before a work that communicates a gift or grace to his or her soul. In the moments before a penalty shot, the silence is absolute, until an impossible goal enters the net, or until the ball is lodged forever in the arms of the goalkeeper, who becomes a god for an instant. And the collective euphoria erupts.

This exhibition is precisely that place: an intuitive exercise in which two practices intersect, as the creative experiences and modes of the artist and of the soccer player encounter one another.

Viviana Kuri Haddad