The collection of artworks presented by Arantxa Etcheverria in the exhibition includes the performance “Alphabet,” along with new sculptures and objects that reflect on the visual and symbolic affinities between language and architecture, a recurring theme for the artist. Since 2014, Arantxa Etcheverria’s practice has evolved in relation to the modernist architecture of her studio in Bucharest, a modernist building designed by the architect and Dadaist Marcel Iancu in 1934. Her work has gradually expanded into a body of works that captivate with their elegant aesthetics. Whether it’s painting, sculpture, installation, or photo and video montage, her creations are the result of a meticulous analysis of spatial geometry. Incorporating Suprematist or Constructivist influences, the artist also draws references from religion, tradition, or myths. Among the recurring themes that underpin her visual and philosophical reinterpretations are the Apocalypse, present in various writings, and the myth of the Tower of Babel. The evolution of the artist’s work, composed as an ensemble of interconnected pieces, has been maintained over the course of a decade. Her background as a set designer allows Arantxa Etcheverria to easily transition between different forms of art, envisioning everything as a mise-en-scène where costumes, lights, colors, sets, and movement create a certain perception of space and time, a (self-)reflective state. The “visual scenography” staged by the artist for this exhibition, which complements the performance, includes large paintings, sometimes presented in diptych form—evoking both ancient scriptures and medieval iconography, windows and doors, true aesthetic manifestos. With extraordinary attention to detail, the artist manually produces, either enlarging or reducing the scale of the elements she works with, creating abstract, artworks in relief. In the paintings, strips of PVC glued together sometimes reveal letters of the alphabet, while the shapes created by these bands form the outline of modernist architectural portals. Taking as a starting point concrete models of Bucharest’s architecture, studied by the artist over the years, the works also become “searches onto an imaginary city,” as Etcheverria herself states. By presenting us with something real, these architectural forms and configurations also leave room for the imagination. The performance takes as its central inspiration the myth of the Tower of Babel, a myth of origins in the Bible. Babel brings together two of the artists predilect themes—language and architecture. According to the myth, humans were punished for attempting to build a tower that would match the power of God. In the choreography proposed by the artist, the bodies of the performers become letters, reproducing a single alphabet, speaking of a world where the language was the same for everyone, as it was at the beginning of time before God’s punishment. On a deeper level, the exhibition invites us to reflect on the ways in which different languages structure human existence, but also to explore a play of forms at the boundary between reality and fantasy. In “Alphabet,” the artist provides her own responses to well-known moments in art history. Her compositions reference abstract art, from Kazimir Malevich’s famous “Black Square” or “White on White” to the De Stijl movement, represented among others by Piet Mondrian and Bart van der Leck. Like these movements that advocated for pure abstraction and universality through a reduction to the essentials of form and color, Etcheverria simplifies her compositions through the repetition of vertical and horizontal bars and the use of a restricted color palette. At the same time, she presents to us a unique world that consists, on one hand, of a geometric fascination reflected in abstraction, and on the other, the exploration of the duality of knowledge present in tradition and its enduring fables. The tension between this playful freedom and rigor positions her works in a state of constant research, both philosophically and aesthetically.” (Cristina Bută, the exhibition curator)