Eran nuestros abuelos, nuestras abuelas,
Nuestros bisabuelos, nuestras bisabuelas,
Nuestros tatarabuelos, nuestros antepasados.
Se repitió como un discurso su relato,
Nos lo dejaron y vinieron a legarlo
A quienes ahora vivimos,
A los que salimos de ellos…

— Fernando Alva Ixlilxóchitl’

Colorful wool, hanging, others knotted and mounted around a frame and threads that have been laboriously woven on a loom, contain the first approach to Antonio Pichillá's exhibition. We see sculptural objects neatly made in wood, loom, threads and wool, leaning against the wall. These objects, because of their entirely handmade nature, or at least referring to this imagery, contain a certain "human presence", accompanied by stones wrapped in looms and a urinal. Filled with wool and wrapped on a loom, it also begins to point the way to this reading.

The exhibit is nommed Abuelos (Grandparents). "Abuelos" in the Mayan indigenous culture, are not the "nuisance" that they represent for the western culture, they are not those subjects that bother, that talk nonsense... Antonio Pichillá, son of Tz'utujil parents, grew up within a worldview that conceives grandparents from the sacred place, in the place of authority earned by wisdom and respect. The title in turn contains a double function, referring to its link of descent; the Maya, the grandparents. It is a word that has the ability to embody the idea of continuity, so beautifully integrated into the idea of time in that culture. Time in Maya culture is the matrix of all things and when they speak of their grandparents they refer not only to past generations, but to all of them as a whole, even to the very formers of the universe. For this reason, the grandparents embody wisdom, that road traveled by carrying out their most precious task: the knowledge of time, which resides in all things in nature. In ancestral cultures, nature is not perceived as separate from man, as an opportunity for his progressive mastery. The triumph of instrumental rationality, on the other hand, has made Western man a being marked by this separation, by this resistance to think of himself as nature as well.

Taking these references, this exhibition begins by paying homage to Duchamp as the "grandfather of art", in the centenary of the creation of The Fountain (1917), symbolizing the wisdom of the readymade. A wisdom that, in a way, has surpassed the historical conditions in whose gesture it was placed, extending to the present.

Pichillá takes the traditional dress of San Pedro de la Laguna for this exhibition as a starting point, as a kind of readymade that represents the relationship of father and mother, of grandparents and of the transfer of legacy and knowledge through generations. His creative poetics is detached from the issues that generally concern contemporary art today, to focus on delving into his own issues, his own Mayan worldview that, far from the mainstream, is based on tradition and spirituality, on the certainty and rootedness to his culture.

His work is frequently conceived from the formal aspects; from the artifice as a place of the simple but at the same time profound; he has a particular attraction for natural elements and is characterized by using in his works the colors of corn -an element considered part of the family-; the knots, the loom that refers to his Tz'utujil culture or the stone and the candle used in Mayan ceremonies. The artist does not intend to create a social critique, but he does, and evidences the little attachment that has historically existed with the indigenous culture and its history. From the colors used in his palette, the colors of corn and its derivatives, he also creates the pieces Water, Air, Fire and Earth (all from 2017), pieces that enunciate the primordial elements of the Mayan calendar.

MARTÍN, 2017, refers to his research experience in Santiago de Atitlán, particularly in the brotherhood of San Martín where in the central part is located the sacred wrapper "Martín" and the sacred stones dating from pre-Hispanic times are wrapped and the tools passed down through generations for their care. In a more global way we link these materials to the Latin American indigenous culture and the exploration of its socio-cultural enunciation.

The pigeonholing of Pichillá's work into the category of "indigenous art" has no place: his art is highly conceptual, contemporary and dialoguing on an international scale. The wonderful thing, however, is that his creative origin comes from the earliest beginnings. "All his work," comments Roberto Cabrera in a text written about the artist in 2012 "inspires a world that has a lot of old and new." and who better than Cabrera to speak of this, since it was he himself who led Pichillá together with a group of indigenous artists in their research, in the artist's words, he is their accomplice in everything he creates today.