Wilfredo Prieto

Wilfredo Prieto’s repertoire has included sculptures ‘transubstantiated’ from unpromising materials – turds orbiting a toilet bowl (as seen in his video Planets, 2008), a puddle of water (Holy Water, 2010), a used match (Dying Star, 2010) – as well as a series of actions-cum-jokes ripe for rumour. Did you hear about the one about the crane that tried to lift itself up (Untitled (Crane), 2008)? Or the hovering helicopter tethered to a table (Tied Up to the Table Leg, 2011)? Prieto’s work confirms disappointment in the very stuff of things but also the thrill of the spectacular indulgence of the imagination. Although, as suggested by Left/Right (2011), where two museum wings contained apparently identical stacks of hay bales, perhaps Prieto proposes that the seemingly opposing positions are impossible to distinguish.