Vienna Secession, Austria's foremost international institution for contemporary art, is presenting a solo exhibition featuring three films by the Puerto Rican artist Beatriz Santiago Muñoz. Assembled under the title Elogio al disparate (In Praise of Nonsense), Santiago Muñoz shot these three films on 16mm, using free association and formal play to establish connections between sound and image that defy rationality.

Santiago Muñoz draws her inspiration from jitanjáforas, imagined nonsense words that are used profusely in Caribbean poetry and music of the 20th century. Their phonetic properties open up new poetic dimensions, introducing dissonances and chaos that disrupt the stranglehold that the reactionary concepts of fixed truths have on maintaining the political and societal status quo.

Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, That which identifies them, like the eye of the cyclops, 2016. Image courtesy of the artist.

Santiago Muñoz likewise conceives “new words” and introduces them into her films, establishing a contrast between the formal methods of drawing the viewers’ attention to rhythm, shape, sound and movement, while simultaneously disrupting the linearity of the narrative and the traditional production of meaning. Her choice of title is itself a reference to a short essay by the Peruvian Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui (1894-1930) on the poems of his compatriot Martín Adán (1908-1985), honoring the disruptive power that nonsense has in denouncing the insincerity of the old order and hastening its dissolution.

Santiago Muñoz' artistic practice is centered around Puerto Rico, while also including references to Haitian poetics and feminist speculative fictions. In her works, which are firmly established in long-term observation, a method common to ethnography and documentary filmmaking, Santiago Muñoz tackles the political and ecological crises affecting her homeland, dispelling the exoticized narratives about Puerto Rico that are so familiar to the outside world.

The exhibition Elogio al disparate is open until February 23, 2025. For more information about the artist, resources are available on her site, her IG profile and at Sociedad del Tiempo Libre, which represents her on the international art market. For more about the current and upcoming exhibitions on view at Vienna Secession, visit their site.

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