Acts of Tender Rebellion

Exhibition Dates: May 3 – July 20, 2025
Location: Perrotin, New York

In Breathings, Iván Argote sketches a tender rebellion against the brittle architecture of memory. Across two decades of work, he has scattered the seeds of critique and care, now gathered in this latest exhibition. Here, laughter topples marble tyrants; ponchos drape cold kings; and worn-out monuments collapse into flower beds of wild dandelion and sage.

Argote's interventions—whether floating obelisks, parading fallen idols, or orchestrating the quiet removal of imperial relics—are acts of civic theater, performed with a craftsman’s wit and a poet’s restraint. He reminds us: the city is not a museum; it is a living text, open to revision, apology, and hope.

In the silk paintings of Breathings, Argote moves from satire to song. Phrases like “The warm air between us” and “Let’s write the history of hope” unfurl against the hard steel of the modern city, offering windows into a gentler possible world.

Through pigment filling cracks on a New York sidewalk, etched with “Dignidad y Respeto,” Argote extends his hand to a country dizzy with division. In every gesture, he insists: it is not permanence we must seek, but the courage to begin again.