You wouldn’t know it, but there’s a gallery at the Wagner Foundation, on the second floor of an unassuming office building in Central Square.
On view for just two more weeks there is “Slow Loops,” the second-ever exhibition at Wagner Gallery and a solo show of Luis Arnías’ work. It includes two experimental films, drawings and a wall of sculptures, and it’s well worth a look before the exhibit travels to the Boston Center for the Arts.
In all his work, Arnías is intent on documenting Black life with patience, purpose and curiosity. In the main gallery space, “Bisagras” (2024) gives an impressionistic view of Arnías’ visits to Goreé Island, Senegal, and the port of Salvador de Bahia, Brazil.
Arnías first went to Senegal to work on a friend’s documentary, but he used lunch breaks to film his own project. He got support later from the Harvard Film Study Center for more work in Brazil. Those two locations form a loose and somewhat fictionalized journey meditating on the Transatlantic slave trade and on Arnías’ own Afro-Latine heritage.
Arnías shoots on 16 mm, and for “Bisagras,” he used Hi-Con film stock, a black-and-white type of film that oversaturates black and white. Arnías plays with this, switching between negatives and positives in the same sequence. In a quick flash, a group of jumping Black boys become ghostly white, as if you flipped a light switch. The editing feels musical. A hypnotic drum soundtrack propels the film toward its finish.
Walking is a big part of Arnías’ artistic practice and his life, and that’s perhaps one reason why there’s such a keen sense of rhythm in his work: It takes a long time to get to know a place, and it’s best to do it slowly and with purpose. Whether he films in New Jersey or Senegal, Arnías has an eye for moments that are worth your attention and a level of patience that is singular.
The exhibit is open to the public from noon to 5 p.m. Thursdays. Self-guided appointments can be booked here.
Wagner Gallery, 485 Massachusetts Ave., second floor, Central Square, Cambridge. Free.
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