For its first participation in Art-O-Rama, the gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition by the artist duo Xolo Cuintle, entitled “1450°C.” This new project continues their ongoing research into systems of production, materials, and the industrial narratives that shape our contemporary landscapes.

Somewhere between Paris and Marseille, on the outskirts of the Isère region, cement plants and cornfields coexist within the same horizon. This coexistence—both ordinary and deeply structuring—forms the starting point of the installation. Beyond their shared presence in the landscape, concrete and corn reveal unexpected analogies: the intensive cultivation of corn, like cement production, relies on large-scale processes of transformation, grinding, and standardization.

Indeed, cement manufacturing techniques directly borrow from those used in the transformation of cereals into flour. Massive rotating mills grind limestone, clay, and sand into a fine powder known as “raw meal,” which is then stored in vast silos reminiscent of agricultural infrastructures. This technical and formal proximity reveals a porosity between agriculture and industry, between the organic and the mineral, between cultivation and construction.
Both highly resource-intensive—whether in terms of land, water, energy, or raw materials—these forms of production contribute to the large-scale transformation of environments. By bringing these production chains into dialogue, the artists highlight the extractivist and productivist logics that underpin them, while questioning their normalization within our everyday landscapes.

Building on these correspondences, Xolo Cuintle develops an installation in the form of a diorama, where the imaginaries of corn and concrete intersect and overlap. The use of ornament—often relegated to a purely decorative role—is here considered through its political potential, as a way to question the material itself and its impact on territories and ecosystems.
The diorama thus becomes a space of projection, where productivist narratives, transformed landscapes, and vernacular symbolisms intertwine, inviting viewers to reconsider the invisible infrastructures that underpin our daily environment.