Ruben Gutierrez

GESTOS DE CONTINUIDAD
January 20, 2026

This exhibition reflects Ruben Gutierrez’s engagement with philosophy and absurdity through a cinematic lens. Rather than waiting for the storm to pass, the works propose learning to dance in the rain. Often infused with wit, Gutierrez offers playful and ironic commentaries on life and art.

In Rags from Hell (2025), a 3-bit video game dismantles the rituals, discourses, and hierarchies that govern the contemporary art world. At the same time, it offers a gaming experience that echoes the absurdity and stubborn persistence inherent in the act of creating and surviving within a system that demands originality, resilience, and constant networking.

Working across disciplines, including drawing, painting, video, and performance, Gutierrez re-examines existing forms of knowledge and mass-media imagery. In Amigos Imaginarios (2020-2022), a series of ink and pencil drawings installed across the gallery space in intimate clusters, childhood emerges as a space for play, belonging, and shared imagination, a notion that feels particularly poignant at current times, when connection can feel elusive.

Throughout his practice, Gutierrez is interested in art as a means of approaching others, creating encounters that foster conservation and collective moments. This impulse comes to the fore in. In the future, emotion will be the scarcest resource (2026), a mural created throughout the exhibition. Similarly, a gallery wall in the second space remains intentionally empty, allowing for spontaneous screenings, performances, or happenings to unfold.

Another group of works on paper, the Post-Philosophical drawings 1-16 (2025), employs the imagery of “the cowboy” to address loneliness, emotional distance, and the struggle to connect. The figure also becomes a metaphor for the artist as a solitary wanderer, moving forward despite uncertainty. These themes reappear in the paintings. They say I am always angry (remake) (2024) and Time to Engage Again Socially (2024), presented alongside the drawings, creating an ongoing dialogue between resilience and fragility.

The works in Gestures of continuity give form to life, death, and rebirth with levity and tenderness, inviting contemplation and exchange. These sentiments are echoed in the painting. Some things are born, others die (remake) (2024) and are beautifully chronicled in Gutierrez’s latest work, Sofia (2026), a moving portrayal of the artist’s dog during her final days.

- Louky Keijsers Koning