Sopa de letras, 2021

Iván Navarro is a conceptual artist from Santiago, Chile, who works with light, electricity, and mirrors to create politically charged sculptures. He is best known for his use of fluorescent lights. Due to his use of light bulbs, Iván Navarro’s work invites comparison with the Minimalism movement, particularly the work of Dan Flavin. However, Navarro’s work is conceptually different from Minimalism and does not belong to a specific movement. Iván Navarro lived under the Chilean dictatorship and his work reflects the psychological anxiety of living under a corrupt and controlling regime. One of his early and best known works, You Sit, You Die, is a chair made of white fluorescent bulbs. This piece is Iván Navarro’s version of an electric chair, in reference to how the Chilean government used electricity as a means of torture, and also in response to executions in the United States. The chair included names of all prisoners executed in the state of Florida and was held together with shoelaces, which were items forbidden to prisoners due to fear that they would hang themselves. Although Iván Navarro’s explores suffering and oppression, his use of light in his sculptures is also an attempt to represent hope and truth. (Artist website)