Since the beginning of 1990’s Eduardo Abaroa has developed an artistic production proposing a reconfiguration of daily life. In his practice he uses or alludes to familiar objects, spaces, or situations, in order to alter their functions, perception, and usual understanding often from a humoristic point of view. While the artist's production includes actions, videos, paintings, and drawings, Abaroa has devoted great attention to three-dimensional pieces and projects throughout his career. The physical presence of this upset ordinary world, through the use of sculptures, installations or interventions in the public space, seems to materialize the possibility that the sphere of everyday life can be understood in different ways. His work thus provides an "oblique phenomenology of ordinary life." Humor takes a critical role in this: it confuses the expectations and produces a singular present time, plays and questions accepted or recognized practices by society, and transforms the existing state of things opening up new perspectives and possible questionings about it.
In his practice, Abaroa reflects on the legacy of twentieth-century art (from the historical avant-gardes, post-minimalism and certain conceptual practices that have been revisited since the 1960s). Serial repetitions, accumulations, the symbolic use of materials or scales, the notion of readymade or ensemble, the constant transformation or plasticity, among other formal solutions, appear in his work. Occassionaly, his pieces underline situations or make critical observations. When referring to the everyday domain, Abaroa analyzes, among other aspects, the construction of identity, the uses of science and technology, the culture of merchandise as well as the effects they can have on communication, the environment, and the perception of reality. When recurring to humor, the artist's work points out the contingency and arbitrariness of these structures as well as the social rituals they generate.
Tipología del estorbo (Typology of obstruction) includes a selection of 20 two and three-dimensional pieces and videos made by the artist from 1990 to date. In this group, different formal strategies, artistic solutions, conceptual interests, and critical perspectives that characterize the artists production can be appreciated. The second project presented is Destrucción total del Museo de Antropología (Destruction of the National Museum of Anthropology), 2012, which speculates on the demolition of the iconic and symbolic building constructed by Pedro Ramírez Vázquez and Rafael Mijares in 1964. Since the project was first presented, Abaroa has continued his research on that Museum. Some results can be seen in this exhibition in Notas sobre la destrucción del Museo Nacional de Antropología (Notes for the Destruction of the National Museum of Anthropology), 2014, a proposal that keeps the lines of reflection of the original project, such as giving visibility to the political and economic assaults on the country’s native peoples. The exhibition also includes two videos: La gran catástrofe del oxígeno (The Great Oxygen Catastrophe), 2016, belonging to the project Fotosíntesis (Photosynthesis), an intertextual and low-tech work of science fiction, and La caverna del diablo (The Devil’s Cavern), 2017, that presents a visual reflection elaborated at the interior of a volcanic grotto in the state of Morelos.