Relying frequently on foundational works of universal literature, the Mexican artist Jorge Méndez Blake (°1974) deepens his understanding of the contemporary world, choosing as the point of departure for this exhibition Before the Law, a chapter from Franz Kafka’s The Trial. He relies on it in an architectural sense, just as an arch rests on a column.Méndez Blake uses literature as raw material to elaborate, even to inhabit, a place. The interplay between literary practice (reading and writing) and architecture is one of the distinctive features of his work. For Inside the Law, his fifth solo exhibition at the gallery, he makes a direct reference to the parable recounted by an abbot to Josef K., the famous protagonist of The Trial.

 This allegory is the story of a man who stands before the door of the Law and who, prevented, or rather, left unaided by the doorkeeper, never crosses its threshold, even though it was destined for him, and him alone. Starting from this passage, which remains widely commented on without ever having been explained by Kafka (let us not forget that almost all of his writings were meant to be destroyed after his death had his executor not decided to preserve and publish them...), Méndez Blake draws up a polyphonic exhibition made up of writings, paintings, sculptures, drawings, and a video.

 By breaking free from Kafka’s text, Méndez Blake stages works that we cannot avoid contextualizing and interpreting today from a political, ethical, or moral point of view. The idea is not so much to interpret Kafka as to forge links between a story written over a century ago and a current situation that clearly bears the scars of absurdity, injustice, confinement, outrageous power, and tyranny.

Through Inside the Law, Méndez Blake shows that art can be seen as a sanctuary, a place of refuge. He also reminds us of the untenable situation of being kept apart from one’s own life, and therefore from one’s own place, like the man in Kafka’s parable. In order to live in harmony with the world, it is imperative not to shut oneself up within the narrow limits of the self, but to rethink common space and the sharing of territory. And this is where the paradox lies: while it is important to build together, and therefore to erect walls, it is equally necessary to tear them down in order to welcome the Other into one’s home and to restore the noble concept of hospitality.