Caí con mi padre por el espacio, enamorado locamente de la Tierra II [I Fell with My Father Through Space, Madly in Love with the Earth II]

In this painting, Miguel Angel Ríos establishes a dialogue with David Shapiro, a poet and art historian. Ríos cites his poem “To the Earth,” dedicated to the well-known art historian Meyer Schapiro, and quotes the first and last lines, both in English and in Spanish. The poem begins with father and son falling through space towards our planet, and then continues with a meditation on how artists from different parts of the world create art, until it ends with the safe landing of their space module in Texas. Ríos interprets the poet’s journey by turning the canvas into Earth itself. Its enormity is circumscribed by the lines of the poem written on its edges, and its surface animated by the colors of ancient deserts. Numerous marks and pictographs seem to claim Earth for its indigenous artists, who loved it first.