Pavel Aguilar

Born in: 1989
From: Tegucigalpa, Honduras
Lives and works: Basel, Switzerland
Represented by: FORO.SPACE
Website: https://pavelaguilar.com/

UN goals

Biography

The work of the Honduran artist Pavel Aguilar has opted for the translation or extrapolation of sound and visual images bordering on the object-sensory aspect. At the same time, they display symbolic actions that bring into play acute tensions that go through the apparent harmony of things. His body of work is generated from parts from the craft of music that divert objects from their original utilitarian sense, creating the illusion of mechanics at the service of utopías. He uses sound, sculptural, and graphic gestures that impeccably twist (as is his style) the bombastic mysticism of the political dimension of the human being.

Music has had strong ties to politics in the past, with anthems becoming battle cries that echo in history. We find these proofs of commitment in songs such as “We Shall Overcome” which gained in popularity during the civil rights movement in the USA, or “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” by Marvin Gaye, a sorrowful song ahead of its time in 1971, lamenting the state of our environment.

In the same way that Claude Debussy wished to transmit the sense of certain things like the wind or the moon through his musical practice, Aguilar does so in a more material way, but still through music. It is not music without physical or signifier attachment, on the contrary there is a strong will to be affixed to real-life elements.

Career highlights

Solo shows

2021, Museo de Arte del Tolima, Ibagué, Colombia: Himnos Silentes
2019, FORO.SPACE, Bogotá, Colombia: Penúltima Palabra
2017, Contemporary Art and Design Museum, San Jose, Costa Rica: Partidas y Partituras