Tzompantli is an exhibition composed of five interconnected series that operate as a unified body of work. Each series maintains a distinct visual language while contributing to a modular structure designed to function cohesively within the exhibition space.
The exhibition is conceived as an evocation of standing at the base of a pyramid, a position in which all are equally exposed to systems of sacrifice. In this contemporary reimagining, the forces of incompetence, corruption, and apathy replace historical deities, operating through capitalist structures that shape power and control. Through variations in scale, medium, and compositional rhythm, the five series articulate a sustained inquiry into authority, neglect, and the human condition.
Together, these series form a visual architecture that situates the viewer within these systems, encouraging critical reflection rather than spectacle.
AGENCY
Once idealized positions of power, influence, and authority, grounded in dedication, expertise, and understanding. Today, these roles are increasingly attained through friendship, manipulation, and bribery, diluting the meaning and responsibility once associated with such positions.
For-profit medicine, environmental regulators paid by polluters, and morality judged by the corrupt illustrate systems that no longer serve the public good. In fearing overt expressions of evil, attention is often drawn to isolated, granular threats, while the greater dangers of inaction, complacency, and aversion to conflict remain unaddressed.
This condition allows harm to persist not through spectacle, but through neglect, silence, and the normalization of dysfunction.
STRUCTURE
Largely invisible and seemingly innocuous networks of lukewarm action and diluted rhetoric that maintain systemic comfort while normalizing increasingly extreme positions. Within this dynamic, the burden of moderation and restraint is consistently placed on those capable of critical, forward-looking thought, while disproportionate influence is granted to factions that primarily process their environment through emotional reaction.
This imbalance allows harmful systems to persist not through overt force, but through normalization, deflection, and the steady erosion of accountability.
FIELDNOTES
Field Notes refers to documentation, chronicles, and investigative journalism that exercise both the right and duty to examine and expose the mechanisms behind systemic failures. It highlights the actors and practices that have contributed to a fractured social structure, the erosion of a culture of knowledge, and the decline of reasoned, constructive political discourse. A recurring theme throughout the bibliography is incompetence, apathy, and corruption. One could argue that these failures appear almost concerted, even though the evidence points to numerous, less overtly malicious facets, each of which would be far less consequential if considered in isolation.
Arturo Fresán 