The only memory Jorge Satorre retains of his visit to the ruins of the infamous conquistador Hernán Cortés’s house in Veracruz is not of history’s grand narratives, but of something much more anecdotal: the footprints of a cat and a bird imprinted in the clay tiles that once lay within. Who, he wondered, had chosen to install these seemingly flawed tiles? And what impulse had led them to embrace such accidental embellishments? Years later, these lingering questions somehow took shape as “Wrecking the Floor Tiles (Gates)”, a work whose dates (2016–2025) reflect its ongoing transformation—most recently into a two-part gate for “Ría”, his survey exhibition, curated by Latitudes, currently on view at Museo CA2M, the Museo Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo in Móstoles, Madrid, until August 31, 2025.

In a remote area of Barcelona’s Collserola Park, where wild boars spend their nights wallowing in mud, Satorre laid down a fresh clay floor. After two days, a herd of boars wandered across it, their hoofs sinking deep into the soft surface. By morning, Nuk—the hunting dog belonging to Satorre’s host—had followed suit, instinctively tracking their path and adding his own paw marks to the composition. But when the tiles were fired, an unexpected flaw emerged: cracks laced through the pieces, rendering them too fragile to serve as the ruined-yet-functional floor Satorre had envisioned. The kiln, like the tile-maker in Veracruz, had the equivocal last word—turning a record of movement into a riddle of unintended authorship, where beasts, artisans, and materials each left a mark, but none got the final say.