Gestures of Uncertainty (Mercury) 2025 graphite on marble, 12 x 12 inches. David Castillo Gallery, Miami.
The refined silhouette of Mercury, or Hermes in his sense of the phrase, has dominated the dome of the Lonja del Comercio since 1909. The copper sculpture rotates like a weather vane, tentatively indicating with its index finger, depending on the wind, the course of fortune and the fate of low-level thieves. Each of the different government mandates has had its own relationship with the mythological figure; in the contemporary drawing, the winged nude appears immobilized, tangled in a series of inoperative cables holding small flags, improvised to celebrate some waning ideology.