Battle, is a fodable pinacothèque by Carlos Amorales, is present at Kula Gallery in Split, Croatia. This art work in which a battle between rioters and policemen is represented with black-and-white paintings that, at first sight, look primitive but were actually generated with an Artificial Intelligence imaging program, then displayed in the exhibition space as a revolving fighting machine. The paintings depict the fictiuos battle that sparks after the super-rich have left for outer space: the moment when the poor realize they have been abandoned on a burning planet, while the police forces that protect the elite remain oblivious to their masters’ betrayal and continue to repress the protests. We see masses of people confronting riot police shields and batons. We see arms, legs and heads agaians each other. Policemen charge on foot or mounted on horses. But policemen are proletarians too… Everyone, who is not an oligarch or part of their entourage, has been left behind to die.
In visual terms, Battle follows up on the exhibition Riots on the Moon, presented at the end of 2023 in Madrid at Albarrán Bourdais gallery, and the publication of the artist’s book of the same title, launched earlier this year during Mexico City’s art week. Likewise, the work is thematically connected to the video The Rhetoric of the Mask, produced during the pandemic years, which serves as a visual essay about how real and metaphorical masks are used in today’s society.