Museo Del Palo v7

G A L E R Í A | A G U S T I NA F E R R E Y R A
Michael Linares
Museo del Palo
(Museum of the Stick) 
2013 - 2016
As early as the Pliocene epoch, the stick as a specific three-

dimensional form has played a vital role in the technological, social,
political, religious, and aesthetic development of humanity and some
animal species. The chimpanzee’s that poke at the termites, the facial
ornamentation of the Yanomami people, the Shulgi of Ur’s weaponry—
as well as the toothpick, knitting needle, and vaulting-pole—all
of these represent a minute slice of the myriad transfigurations that this
object has undergone throughout history. For Linares, the stick serves as
concrete evidence of the neurological evolution of some animals and
indicates their ability to create metaphor. It is an ancient example of the
moment in which an object, such as a branch or bone, ceased to be what
it inherently was and became an instrument with transformed meaning
and purpose. As such, Linares considers the stick to be an archetype of a
“thing;” a vessel devoided of connotation that anticipates signification
through utility.
Treating the stick as a readymade, Linares divests it of any
original use value or context, presenting the form as dependent on
conceptual shifts with radically altered implications and functionality.
An Aleatory History of The Stick is the formal outcome of
Linares’ investigation into the history and quotidian uses of stick-like
objects—defined as long, rigid shapes, the length of which are
dependent on function and proportion in relation to the body. As a
simple machine, a stick can transform energy, increasing tangible force
as with a baseball bat, or symbolic power as with the baton, wand, or
750 Ave. Fernández Juncos
Local 1. San Juan, PR 00907
M +1 (787) 361-6046
info@agustinaferreyra.com
agustinaferreyra.com
GALERÍA | AGUSTINA FERREYRA
scepter. His study emulates the exploratory and archaeological

method of prospection—involving image, text, video and data
gathering—with the aim to generate an audiovisual archive that
represents a collective knowledge base. In this project, Linares
exploits the gaps that exist in science and history as opportunities to
create speculative associations and narrative.

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Collection
Collection is an ever-growing compilation that to
this day gathers almost four hundred artifacts that serve
as material evidence of the ubiquity of this object.

Local 1 San Juan, PR 00907
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Selection of objects from the Collection

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Museum
Museo del Palo, 2015

General view of the installation
Beta-Local, Casa del Sargento, Puerto Rico

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Detailed view of the installation
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General view of the installation
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Curator’s Text
by Catalina Lozano
A stick is not exactly a branch fallen from a tree.
To become a stick, it needs to be picked up and utilized;
it needs the imprint of the agency of the person who
wants to use it.1 The intention carved on the stick gives
it the ability to transform energy; a universal,
immeasurable energy set in motion for many ends.
Therefore, a stick is a tool, a material extension of
human will. The nature of a stick -which is also present
in language when it is called "a stick" - is linked to its
functionality, practical, recreational, or symbolic. This
means the stick is part of the social sphere, along with
its occasional or exceptional usages, as well as the
communication related to these. This book, also
imprinted in a social reality, gives another turns of the
1“Agency is attributable to those persons (and things …) who/which are seen

as initiating casual sequences of a particular type, that is, events caused by acts
of mind or will or intention, rather than the mere concatenation of physycal
events” (Alfred Gell, Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory, Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 16.)

M+1 (787) 361-6046

screw to the stick's existence. It indexes the stick and
mobilizes it in the context of art.
A stick could be more or less modified in order to

perform work -- from the simple semantic modification
that changes it from branch to stick, to advanced grades
of physical and magical intervention that could enhance
it with special functions and powers. However, Michael
D. Linares’s archetypical stick is, conceptually, a
manuport (an unmodified found object which has been
selected and moved from its original context by human
agency), beyond the fact that its nature is exactly that of
a stick. Namely, Linares's stick is the gestural stick set in
motion to produce art, torture, pleasure, etc., despite
the level of physical human modification. His interest is
located in the instinctive, first intention that drives a
person to grab a stick, universalizing it.
Here, we come across two elements that relate

dialectically. On one hand, we have the finds of an  
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archeological research that studies the stick as a tool
that responds to many kinds of stimuli --from the
gestural and instinctive, to its most elaborate and
derivative usages. On the other hand, we have a
collection of still and moving images. These images
have an agency of their own, with even another layer of
intention: that of the artist who is able to recognize
them, organize them, and link them together as a work
of art.
This is not a historicist sequence of the evolution

of the stick as tool, neither it suggests forms of cultural
differentiation derived from it. Peculiarly, these images
question and suspend the actual concept of evolution,
as the collection takes a form that is also suspended and
is not easily verbalized. The challenge to any possible
interpretative hierarchy leads to a certain unprogressive
notion of time. Evolution is also involution; progress is
also barbarity.

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However, the image of the stick, or the images of
the sticks, are not the actual stick or sticks as objects;
they are, in fact, constructions, “complex assemblages of
virtual, material, and symbolic elements."2 The
collection constructs a setting to make the images
appear, adding information to these multiple yet limited
images --making it possible to categorize them as "a
stick". Spyros Papapetros, quoting Aby Warburg, states:
“…it is ultimately the image that absorbs, inflects, or
nullifies all previous agencies and mediates our
communication with both subjects and objects."3 Even
if Linares's work can be called archeological in terms of
the agency of the stick, the images work to "absorb" this
agency, particularly the agency of the stick over the
human body, and that of the human body over the stick.  
2W.J.T. Mitchell, What Do Pictures Want? The Lives and Loves of Images,
Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004, p. xiii.
3 Spyros Papapetros, On the Animation of the Inorganic: Art Architecture and
750 Ave. Fernández Juncos the Extension of Life, Chicago y Londres: University of Chicago Press, 2012,
p. 24.
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The images acquire the right to exist on their own; they
are not representations of the stick, they do not
describe the stick, and yet they work in favor of the
stick, because they have been summoned to do so. In
the words of W.J.T. Mitchell, “pictures want equal rights
with language, not to be turned into language." 4

4 W.J.T. Mitchell, Op. cit. p. 47.
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An Aleatory History of the Stick

Video Collage
An Aleatory History of the Stick is an
audio-visual collage made of more than three hundred
videos found on the Internet. The work aims to
narrate the history of our species through the
use of this instrument.

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Michael Linares
An Aleatory History of the Stick, 2014

Video. Color. Sound
Rt | 53:00 minutes
Ed. of 5 + 2 A.P
Please click here for full length video

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Video still
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Stills
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Archives
Archives is a digital image compendium,
generated as the visual result of the two and half year
investigation on the subject in different internet sites,
made possible by emulating what is commonly known
in archaeology as superficial prospection.

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Selection of images from the Archive

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View of the Archive publication

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Biography
Michael Linares
(b.1979) Bayamón, Puerto Rico
Lives and works San Juan, Puerto Rico. 
Through a wide variety of media including installation,

assemblage, sculpture, video and painting, Michael Linares’
practice consistently raises the possibility of new relationships
between objects and signification. Mixing the foreign with the
familiar and the marvelous with the mundane, Linares
disorganizes what is perceived as common sense to create
unexpected combinations that foster new aesthetic and
intellectual understanding. Central to his practice is the
exploration of new connections between audience and art in a
way that asserts the spectator’s role in the production of meaning.
Rather than an aesthetic experience in and of itself, the artist
sees his work as a vehicle for possible aesthetic experiences that
remain open, ever changing, and ready to be redefined. 
 
Recent exhibitions include: El Museo del Palo, Casa del Sargento,
Beta-Local, San Juan (2015); The Way of Makapansgat, Galería
Agustina Ferreyra, San Juan (2015); An Aleatory History of the
Stick, Art in General, New York. Curated by Kristen Chappa
(2015); Outside In / Out, Mexico City, MACO Art Fair Solo

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Project, Curated by Juan Gaitán (2014); Unpainting, Walter
Otero Gallery, San Juan PR (2013) and Was it a rat I saw?, Ltd
Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA (2013).
He is the founder of La Sonora (2010-present), an free online

audiotheque, that contains translations of texts relevant to
contemporary art discourse and culture, most of which did not
previously exist in Spanish. The project aims to democratize
aesthetic and critical knowledge, while creating an alternative
platform for traditional reading.
Linares is also in the process of obtaining his masters degree in

archaeology. He lives and works in San Juan, PR.

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Michael Linares
(b.1979) Bayamón, Puerto Rico 
Lives and works in San Juan, Puerto Rico
 
Education
2014 - …
MA, Archaeology Centro de Estudios Avanzados de Puerto Rico y El Caribe, San Juan, PR.
 
2010-2011
Independent Studies, Beta-Local, San Juan, PR.
1999-2005
BFA, Painting and Sculpture Escuela de Artes Plásticas de San Juan, PR.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2015
Museo del Palo (Museum of the Stick), Casa del Sargento, Beta-Local. San Juan, PR.
www.museodelpalo.com
The Way of Makapansgat, Galería Agustina Ferreyra, San Juan.
A Aleatory History of the Stick, Art in General, NY. Curated by Kristen Chappa. 
2014
Outside In/ Out. Solo Project. MACO Art Fair. curated by Juan Gaitán, México City, Méx. (with
Ltd Los Angeles)
2013
Was it a Rat I Saw? , Ltd Los Angeles. Los Angeles, CA.
2012
Así las cosas (This being So), Mural Commission. Bass Museum of Art, Miami.
2011
Michael Linares, Chemi’s Room, San Juan, PR
2010
Useless, curated by Pablo Leon de la Barra, PINTA Art Fair London U.K.
Oasis Inclusive Structure at ARCO Solo Projects 2010, curated by Juan de Nieves , Madrid, Spain
2009
Found & Lost, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR
2007
Eight, ocho, bizcocho, cake, Galería Comercial, San Juan, PR
Lawrimore Loves Painting, Lawrimore Projects, Seattle, WA
2006
Tu y Yo en una Isla para Dos sentados mirando el Sol..., Galería Comercial,
San Juan, PR
2005
Un, Galería Comercial, San Juan, PR
Selected Group Exhibitions
2017
A Universal History of Infamy. Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Pacific Standard
Time LA/LA. (forthcoming)
2016
Heather Guertin & Michael Linares, Liste, Basel, with Galería Agustina Ferreyra (forthcoming)
Rican/Struction, in Collaboration with Abraham Cruzvillegas. Galería Agustina Ferreyra, San Juan,
PR.
2015
NADA Miami Beach 2015, with Galería Agustina Ferreyra, Miami, FL
2013
Group Show, Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, Curated by Abdiel Segarra
2012
Gala, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Ponce, P.R.
La Sonora, Trienal Poligráfica de Puerto Rico, San Juan P.R.
The Way In, curated by Io Carrion, Popular Center Building, San Juan P.R.
Post-Panamax, Diablo Rosso, Panamá City, Panamá
Exhibition, De la Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space, Miami, FL
2011
Painting Expanded, curated by Marysol Nieves, Espacio 1414, San Juan, P.R.
PARAÍSO, ltd los angeles, Los Angeles, CA
San Gerónimo 31, San Gerónimo 31, Colonia Centro, Mexico D.F.
Exhibición Re- Inauguración, Museo de Arte de Ponce, Ponce P.R.
2010
Exhibition, De la Cruz Collection Contemporary Art Space, Miami, FL
7x7, Galería S. XXI, Bogotá, Colombia
Michael D. Linares, Galería Altamira, Asturias, Spain
Mobile Spaces, Univesity of Wisconsin, Madison, WI
Ultrapuñeta, Proyectos Ultravioleta, Guatemala 
2009
Geografía Humana, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR
2008
En sus marcas... , Curated by Rebeca Noriega, Instituto de Cultura de Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR
Walter Otero Gallery, Circa Art Fair, San Juan, PR 
2007
Galería Comercial, Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, FL
BioKunst, Antwerp, Belgium
COMERCIAL, Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, New York, NY
Crimes of Omission, ICA, University of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
Galería Comercial, ArtLA, Los Angeles, CA
2006
Public Sculpture Art Project (with Galería Comercial), Art Basel Miami Beach, Miami, FL
Lisa Kirks Greatest Hits, The Wayward Cannon, London, U.K.
Galería Comercial, MACO, Mexico DF, Mexico.
The Galleries Show (with Galería Comercial), Extra City, Antwerp, Belgium
The S-Files II, Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico, San Juan, PR
The Lovers, CANADA Gallery, New York, NY
The Peace Tower, participation as part on Mark di Suvero & Rikrit Tiravanija’s project, Biennial,
Whitney Museum, New York, NY
2005
Ninjas killed my family, need money for Kung-Fu lessons, Galería Comercial, San Juan, PR
(Galería Comercial), NADA, Miami, FL
The S-Files, Museo del Barrio, New York, NY
Tropical Table Party, curated by María Inés Rodríguez, Centro d’ Art Santa Mónica, Barcelona,
Spain
2004
Galería Comercial, Stray Show, Chicago, IL
Group Show, Galería Sin Título, San Juan, PR
Javier Cambre, José Campeche, Michael Linares & Francisco Torres, Galería Comercial, San
Juan, PR
2003
Muestra Ecléctica, Museo de Arte de Caguas, Caguas, PR
2002
Exhibición Pequeño Formato, Galería Punto Gris, San Juan, PR
2001
Entre Hoy y Mañana, Galería Punto Gris, San Juan, PR
Bibliography
2016
Michelle Fiedler, Michael Linares, Kadist Art Foundation
2015
Michael Anthony Farley, NADA Highlights, Part 1, Art F City, 2015.
Mariela Fullana Acosta, Museo del Palo: Mirada a un objeto simple, El Nuevo Día, 2015.
2014
Pablo León de la Barra, Dispatch: Puerto Rico, Guggenheim blog, blogs.guggenheim.org 2014.
2013
Art Cities of The Future (San Juan), Edited by Pablo León de la Barra, Phaidon Press. 2013.
2011.
Ursula Dávila, "Puerto Rico Art Scene: Not Only Reggeaton Gets Your Heartbeat
Racing!,www.fluentcollab.org
Sharon Mizota, "Art Review: Paraíso at Ltd Los Angeles", Los Angeles Times, 2011
2010
Adriana Herrera Téllez, "Panorama of Emerging Latin American Art", Arte al Día, 2010.
Luis Feas Costillas, “Apuntes de Un ARCO Polémico”, La Voz de Asturias, 2010.
Marion Maneker, “Free Beer at ARCO”, Art Market Monitor, 2010.
“Michael D. Linares: Oasis”, Vernissage TV, 2010.
Paloma Torres Pérez Soler, “Arco 2010”, ABC, Madrid, Spain, 2010.
2009
Suzie Walshe, “Visual Mind Games”, New York Arts Magazine, New York, NY, 2009.
Marisol Nieves, “Michael Linares, Found & Lost”, Arte al Día, Arte al Día Internacional, 2009.
Lauren Cornell, Masimiliano Gioni, Laura Hoptman, “Younger than Jesus: Artist Directory”,
Phaidon & The New Museum, New York, NY, 2009.
2007
Manuel Álvarez Lezama, “Installations move front and center in local museums”, The San Juan
Star, September 2, 2007.
R.C. Baker, “Michael D. Linares”, The Village Voice, New York, July 17, 2007.
Holland Cotter, "Art in Review: Comercial" The New York Times, July 6, 2007.
"The L Picks" The L Magazine, July 11-17, 2007.
Walter Robinson, “Weekend Update”, Artnet, July 9, 2007.
“Out of Many, One”, New York Magazine, June 18, 2007.
Manuel Álvarez Lezama, “Michael Linares: Representante de una nueva generación de artistas
puertorriqueños”, Art Premium, Vol. 4, num. 19, 2007.
Manuel Álvarez Lezama, “Linares exhibit full of interesting surprises, as usual”, The San Juan Star,
March 26, 2007.
2006
Raisa Clavijo, “Art Basel Miami Beach 06”, Primera Hora, jueves, 14 de diciembre de 2006.
Adriana Herrera, “Art Basel Miami beach: tres dias de paroxismo”, El Nuevo Herald, December
6, 2006.
Elaine Delgado, “Puerto Rico 2005”, El Nuevo Día, January 3, 2006.
2005
Joao Ribas, “10 Artists to watch”, Art & Auction, May 2005.
Walter Robinson “Miami Heat”, artnet.com, December 4, 2005.
“El Museo Mounts 4th Bienal”, artnet.com, September 20, 2005.
Joel Weinstein, “(More Sexy Beast)”, Rotund World, 4th Edition.
Larissa Vázquez Zapata, “S-Files”, El Nuevo Día, October 2005.
GPB (Art Newspaper), March 2005.
Elvis Fuentes, “El amor es una carga pesada”, El Nuevo Día, February 23, 2005.

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G A L E R Í A | A G U S T I NA F E R R E Y R A

As early as the Pliocene epoch, the stick as a specific three-

scepter. His study emulates the exploratory and archaeological

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

M+1 (787) 361-6046

Selection of objects from the Collection

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

Selection of objects from the Collection

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

Selection of objects from the Collection

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

Museo del Palo, 2015

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

Museo del Palo, 2015

Museo del Palo, 2015

1“Agency is attributable to those persons (and things …) who/which are seen

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

M+1 (787) 361-6046

A stick could be more or less modified in order to

Here, we come across two elements that relate

M+1 (787) 361-6046

This is not a historicist sequence of the evolution

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

M+1 (787) 361-6046

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

An Aleatory History of the Stick

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

M+1 (787) 361-6046

An Aleatory History of the Stick, 2014

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

An Aleatory History of the Stick, 2014

An Aleatory History of the Stick, 2014

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

M+1 (787) 361-6046

Selection of images from the Archive

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

Selection of images from the Archive

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

Selection of images from the Archive

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

View of the Archive publication

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

Through a wide variety of media including installation,

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

M+1 (787) 361-6046

He is the founder of La Sonora (2010-present), an free online

Linares is also in the process of obtaining his masters degree in

750 Ave. Fernández Juncos

M+1 (787) 361-6046

Selected Solo Exhibitions

Selected Group Exhibitions

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