Galería Animal Gallery in Santiago

Vitacura · Contemporary programme

Editorial Profile

Galería Animal operates within the contemporary art landscape of Santiago as a space attentive to the articulation of a distinctly Latin American discourse while maintaining an outward-looking curatorial approach. Based in Vitacura, the gallery positions itself within a network of commercial spaces that engage both local and international audiences, contributing to the consolidation of a professionalized gallery ecosystem in the city. Its program reflects a sustained commitment to contemporary practices that move fluidly between painting, sculpture, installation, and conceptual work, often foregrounding artists whose research engages with material, spatial, or socio-political questions relevant to the region.

The gallery’s exhibitions tend to emphasize individual artistic trajectories while situating them within broader conversations that extend beyond Chile, aligning with the evolving profile of galleries in Santiago that operate at the intersection of regional specificity and global circulation. Through participation in international art fairs and collaborations, it contributes to the visibility of its artists outside the local context, while maintaining a consistent exhibition rhythm that anchors it within the city’s cultural fabric. In this sense, Galería Animal functions as both a platform for established and mid-career artists and a mediator between local production and international frameworks, reinforcing Santiago’s position as an increasingly connected node within the wider contemporary art field.

Selected Artists

Gonzalo Cienfuegos

Chilean

PaintingDrawingSculpture
About

Santiago-born artist whose figurative practice in oil on canvas engages persistently with the history of Western art, appropriating iconographic references and gestures from canonical works across centuries.

Samy Benmayor

Chilean

PaintingDrawing
About

A key figure of Chile's Generation of the '80s, Benmayor works in a neoexpressionist register marked by gestural mark-making, caricature-like figuration, and a playful emotional charge channelled through oil, acrylic, and watercolor.

Pablo Zuleta Zahr

Chilean

Photography
About

Trained under Thomas Ruff at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Zuleta Zahr pursues a documentary photographic practice focused on the social effects of globalization and mass culture, developed across cities including Berlin, New York, Santiago, and Shanghai.

Emma Malig

Chilean

Painting
About

Based in France since the mid-1990s, Malig trained at the Écoles des Beaux-Arts de Paris and completed residencies in Berlin and Kyoto; she received a distinction from the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2011 for her sustained painterly output.

Patricia Claro

Chilean

PaintingVideo Art
About

Working in oil on linen, Claro conducts sustained visual investigations into landscape and water as generative subjects; her painting practice extends into video work that explores water's reflective and image-producing capacities.

Alfredo Jaar

Chilean

InstallationPhotographyConceptual Art
About

Internationally recognized for politically engaged practice, Jaar works across installation and photography to interrogate global power asymmetries, humanitarian crises, and the ethics and limits of visual representation.

Selected Exhibitions

Historia de un artista

Solo show2001

Álvaro Oyarzún

About

A solo presentation of Santiago-based painter Álvaro Oyarzún, staged at Galería Animal during a period when the artist was developing a body of work shown across major biennials and international institutions.

Painting

Retratos de invención

Solo show2007

Gonzalo Cienfuegos

About

A solo exhibition gathering previously unseen paintings, sculptures, and prints by Cienfuegos, centered on his sustained study of human characters and his practice of citing and recontextualizing figures from canonical Western art history.

PaintingSculptureDrawing

Relativo al paisaje

Solo show2007

Omar Gatica

About

A solo show of Gatica's oil-based abstract paintings reframing landscape not as literal representation but as an emotionally charged and gestural field, rooted in the neoexpressionist pictorial tradition of the Universidad de Chile.

Painting

Goodbye Gasoline

Solo show2007

Sigismond de Vajay

About

An immersive installation comprising 42 motorized oil derrick models displayed in total darkness, incorporating sound and controlled movement to address the ecological and geopolitical consequences of fossil fuel dependence.

InstallationSound Art

El tiempo y los ríos no fluyen hacia atrás

Solo show2011

Patricia Claro

About

A solo exhibition combining Claro's oil-on-linen paintings with video works, both anchored in a sustained investigation of water as a pictorial and temporal subject exploring reflection, movement, and the passage of time.

PaintingVideo Art

Grabados de Polígrafa

Group show2016

Francis Bacon, Joan Miró, Roberto Matta, Christo, Antoni Tàpies, Samy Benmayor, Patrick Hamilton, Francisca Sutil, Nemesio Antúnez, Benjamín Lira

About

A curated selection of over 25 etchings and lithographs produced by Barcelona-based publisher Polígrafa Obra Gráfica, presented at Animal on the occasion of the publisher's anniversary and spanning decades of collaboration with leading Chilean and international artists.

PrintmakingCurated Group Show

El tiempo que se mira

Solo show2019

Santiago Ascui

About

A solo exhibition of 15 large-format acrylic paintings examining the human figure as shaped by digital culture, exploring how screens, filters, and image saturation alter bodily perception and the construction of identity in contemporary life.

Painting

Gallery Overview

Galería Animal
City
Santiago
Area
Vitacura
Address
Av. Nueva Costanera 3731, 7630437 Santiago, Vitacura, Región Metropolitana, Chile
Type
Gallery
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