Better to close your eyes
Mural in wooden panels (1972).
Replica “More better to close your eyes” by Mario Toral and Museo Taller, 2023. Wood and acrylic
Dimensions: 5 plates 1.50 m wide and 1.50 m high
Series of identical faces that seem to follow the visitor with their gaze. They are five wooden plaques 1.50 m wide and 1.50 m high painted with opaque oil paint that were originally in the delegates' lounge of the UNCTAD III building. This new work was carried out again during 2023 by the artist with the support of the Museo Taller.
The original work from 1972 has been missing since the coup d'état in 1973. It was possibly destroyed.
original location
"Fifty years later, there is a new element in this work: the change in the eyes. It is a choice of form, but also of meaning, now it is more brutal. Before they were in the shadows, now the pupil is visible. We can say that they are a new invention, not a copy, which is a consolation," says its author, Mario Toral.
Toral recognizes that “going back to the past is recognizing the present, so the fact that there are people interested in this is because it has a present based on the past and that has given me agreement.”
Mario Toral
(Santiago 1934)
Painter, photographer and engraver. He studied at the School of Fine Arts of Montevideo and the School of Fine Arts of Paris. Between 1973 and 1992 he lived in New York, where he established his name worldwide. Returning to Chile, he served as a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and as the first dean of the Faculty of Art at the Finis Terrae University. He has also written short stories that have been published in various literary magazines.