Exhibitions
Rafael Mayu Nolte creates 'Ceremony of Response' in Crisis
Rafael Mayu Nolte's artistic output encompasses painting, drawing, watercolor, ink, and acrylic, as well as works that intertwine words with fiction and the conceptual. Inspired by Julio Ramón Ribeyro's short story The Insignia , Rafael Mayu Nolte's solo exhibition, Ceremonia de respuesta , evokes the memory of an invented ritual: an imaginary cult that allegedly took place on November 11 and 12, 1966.
The exhibition, held from August 23 to October 4, is based on documents from the organization, which trace letters from the President and describe certain aspects related to his goals, ideals, and the creation of the Ceremony. Among the few defined elements, it is clear that the event took place in Lima Bay, through a ritual performed by various participants aboard boats and accompanied by an impressive fireworks display.
More than presenting itself as a simple dialogue with its historical time, Response Ceremony fully inserts itself within it, exploring and stressing the crossroads that crisscross it—whether political, spatial, or discursive. The work doesn't simply record or reflect these tensions; rather, it dismantles, questions, and subverts them, proposing a space in which fiction becomes a medium for generating new interpretations of reality. In this ambiguous terrain, where mystery and detachment take center stage, the piece seeks existential reaffirmation, a kind of poetic resistance to the rigidity of established narratives and the certainties that seek to impose themselves from history.
Among his most notable exhibitions is El retorno del cometa Biela (The Return of Comet Biela, 2018) at CRISIS, where he constructs a narrative that interweaves symbols, violence, memory, and fiction. He now returns with Ceremonia de respuesta (Response Ceremony), an exhibition that includes posters laden with symbolism and encrypted messages, conceived as announcements addressed to the organization's members; storyboards of the ceremony, depicting key moments throughout its duration; and reconstructions of the organization's key symbols. The exhibition culminates with a large-format portrait depicting a titanic entity hovering over the Costa Verde, presented as a token of gratitude to the event's scriptwriter, known under the pseudonym "the Obituary Writer."
From the Lima space to Madrid, as Crisis together with Bombon have created a new space in Malasaña with the first exhibition Pink spices of dust in garden with no sun , by Marie Zolamian and Daniel Jacoby, opening the season in the capital of Spain.
