María José Arjona’s performance/sculpture “Silla” (Chair) was one of the most popular artworks in the Meridians sector of Art Basel Miami Beach 2022.

María José Arjona: Silla (2011) / Rolf Art / Art Basel Miami Beach Meridians. Miami Beach (Florida, USA), November 29, 2022
Exhibition text: María José Arjona’s Chair straddles the line between sculpture and performance. The work revolves around the concepts of objecthood, the ephemeral aspects of experience, memory, and archiving, while disclosing the body’s critical role when addressing movement, in a given space, as a form of political choreography. While the chair remains suspended horizontally in the space – it is also activated by Arjona in a durational performance, which can last as long as six hours. Chair was first exhibited in New York at the Ballroom Marfa (2011) and at NC-arte in Bogota, Colombia (2015). It was later reenacted by other performers as part of Arjona’s retrospective at MAMBO in Bogota, Colombia (2018). Each iteration expressed the artist’s engagement with the effect of time on the body as a form of sculptural process, simultaneously endorsing the history of performance as an expression that changes the perception of art itself.