This print of a dead rodent belongs to the Latin American Born, Paris-based contemporary artist Constanza Piaggio’s series The Trap. We exhibited this work in an exhibition by the same name. La Rata is one of three “pastoral” images from a tight series that is uncanny and surreal, yet grounded and only fully realized by the efforts of our own imagination. The Trap unfolds as an invitation for narrative creation. The series is composed of two types of images: intricate and elaborately staged scenes with lone anti-heroes and images made in a the countryside of Southern France. There is an irony and wit to Piaggio’s work. This unlikely pairing indeed opens literal and subconscious chains of thought. We find a unity and balance in these intricately constructed places and moments.

When asked in a recent jdc Artist Talk how the theatrical scenes and characters Piaggio staged connected to images of a hunter’s playground, Piaggio described her interest in this place and these subjects: “They are constructions, clearly, but by other people . . . it was very artificial in a way.” Piaggio describes the (three) pastorals as integral to the completeness of the series saying “they open the game, and link the images between themselves.” Indeed, the scenes Piaggio creates are not so unlike the found structures in the hunter’s playground; in both instances the intention is to create a platform for narrative creation. In The Trap, we recognize the willingness of our mind to leap to assess and define everything- the strange narratives, our own constructions, the constructions of society. While in exhibition this small work acts as a token for thought, alone it carries all the secrets and weight of the oeuvre’s completeness. The nearly life sized image of a rat is actually quite serine, delicate, and detailed. It could enhance the playfulness and gravity of any collection.