A forest in ruins

On the wood of a fallen cypress tree, Juan Rey carved scale replicas of three windows from the tower of the former Electric Power Plant (White). At first glance, the idea may seem simple. But those who pay a little attention will understand that what they have before them is something very different from a simple copy. He carves these windows not as José Molinari, the architect who designed them in the late 1920s, drew them on the plan, but as they appear today, over 30 years after the closure and subsequent dismantling. In ruins, each era looks at the enigma of its past. However, it is also possible to think that in those remains, there is a question about our future. The ruins reflect an image of our own transience. In their astonishing ability to capture detail, these carvings make tangible an experience of loss, the perception that something escapes us in what we see. As if the sculpture sought not to fix things outside of time but only their impermanent becoming. Nicolás Testoni.