"Wittgenstein’s Paradox" at Parra & Romero

Junio 2024

Group exhibition with works by: Liz Deschenes, Helmut Federle, Callum Innes, Florian Pumhösl and Ian Wallace.

In 1936, Ludwig Wittgenstein, perhaps seeking one possible world limit, decided to go to Skjolden where time later he would design and build the famous cabin where he spent countless days writing in solitude. After announcing his famous proposition “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” he mostly established an absolutions limit to reality. Our mind is finite, but the rules tend to be applied to an infinite number of cases. This is perhaps why the idea of limits is not strange to us but also moves us to transgress them. The paradox hidden in this proposition becomes visible through his idea of aesthetics. According to his thesis, we can only approach art from the perspective of eternity, that is to say, outside those limits of language (the world).

From these coordinates, Wittgenstein's Paradox aims to reflect on the idea of ​​limit, paying special attention to the extradiegetic value of art. The selection of works that are part of the exhibition suggest, from three different prisms, how art has the capacity to transgress, or at least allude to, these limits.