A visit to the secrets and techniques of the controversial artist Santiago Sierra | Culture | EUROtoday

Santiago Sierra (Madrid, 58 years outdated) is probably the most acknowledged Spanish conceptual artist on the planet. The overwhelming creations with which he denounces the injustices and abuses that the ability perpetrates in opposition to probably the most deprived feed an intensive work that started three many years in the past and has developed in 73 international locations, particularly in Mexico, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Despite the virtually unanimous applause of critics and their recognition amongst artwork lovers, in Spain few retrospective exhibitions have been devoted. The documentary Santiago Sierra, the finger on the sore, That this Saturday is projected on the Malaga Film Festival, it involves fill that lagoon with ignorance. Directed by photographer and filmmaker Enrique Palacio, the movie is the results of 4 years of analysis and monitoring of the artist. All their works will not be represented as a result of the trouble can be not possible. Nor is a private portrait of the artist made as a result of, because the Sierra himself says, his life shouldn’t be the topic with which his work is constructed. What Palacio has achieved is an entire portrait of the universe that pursuits the artist. “On his canvas he raises the realities with which we live,” says the director. And he provides: “His minimalist work, in black and white, is a call to awaken consciences without making the jump to activism. He draws, photography or films the issues that interest him. His way of focusing these issues is what made me think that there was a powerful story with Sierra to tell the world. ”

First artist who rejected the National Prize for Plastic Arts (2010) for not wanting Political prisoners, that he introduced within the 2018 version on the Helga de Alvear gallery and was withdrawn by order of the IFEMA course, the enclosure the place Arco is widely known. That is why the documentary begins with a body during which what Sierra thinks of the ability of the inventive work is collected: “Art can be very powerful and depends on how you use it. It is the favorite tool of politics, state and capitalism. Art is what the Church uses in its temples and in its performative rituals to fascinate the believer. We are artists. We must find a way to face all that. ”

With that phrase, a declaration of intentions, the projection of fragments of a lot of his works is occurring, accompanied by voices of specialists linked in several methods to the artist. They communicate, amongst others, the lately deceased Helga de Alvear, her Spanish gallery proprietor and producer of the documentary; Manuel Segade, director of Reina Sofía; Cuauhtémoc Medina, Chief Conservative of the MUAC, and Rosa Martínez, Spanish commissioner of the 2003 version of the Venice Biennial, during which Sierra represented Spain with a efficiency On the borders and for this he closed the pavilion to whom they didn’t accredit being Spanish. The outraged guests had been a part of the illustration. There had been no exceptions. The documentary recollects that the jury of the biennial granted by the Golden Lion couldn’t entry and maybe, he factors out, Spain and his artist ran out of prize.

Santiago Sierra is a creator little to grant interviews. In this case he has answered with WhatsApp audios to the questions that the nation despatched by e mail. The artist doesn’t imagine that this documentary is any type of anthological. “There would be a lot of work to be an anthological. That was not the goal. The director has worked the project as he has considered. I have only been the object of study, ”he says.

Spain, a rustic hostile to artwork

Sierra has executed his work in quite a few corners of the world. The documentary factors out 4 eventualities that stand out about others: Mexico, Spain, Italy and Germany. “In Mexico I lived 12 years. I owe that country to know a part of the world that I did not know that it would exist, with a new social organization for me. He introduced me to unknown issues, such as the breed. Spain, the country in which I was born and in which I live, is very hostile to art. The institutional is very important and that generates a rather docile art. Spain has very little weight in the art world, it is very peripheral. In Italy [donde trabaja para la galería Prometeo de Milán] I have always worked very comfortable because the artist is very respected and they are very art lovers. In Germany I have also worked a lot and I am very interested in his cultural scene, more serious and powerful ”.

The documentary begins with its well-known piece on the flag of Spain after which parades works impressed by marginalization, exclusion or labor exploitation. When requested what worries you probably the most in as of late when prebelic songs are heard once more, the adjective factors out: they don’t seem to be prebel. “They are warlike, directly. This has never stopped. Westerners have always lived from war, taking from other countries what they did not have in their own. What happens is that we now have it in the Mediterranean, in Europe, and more information than ever comes to us. War is part of what we live. He spoke of this in The veterans [obra en la que se ve a 25 militares castigados mirando a la pared por sus 2.205 crímenes de Estado]”.

The German artwork critic Georg Imdhal says on the display that artists like George Grosz or Otto Dix couldn’t keep away from the third Reich. What does Sierra suppose? “The work of art cannot do anything against a nuclear missile. We do our work. Dogs bark and we make art. ”

Censorship

The Arco Fair has been a formidable stage to make it recognized internationally. There got here the tour World Cup NO And there he suffered in 2018 censorship for Political prisoners, that Helga de Alvear needed to choose up with nice disgust. Did they shot them by the censors? “It was an unfortunate spectacle, and on top of that of the politicians prisoners instead of political prisoners. My piece went beyond the Catalan nationalists. I also referred to environmentalists, abertzalas or the Andalusian field workers. But censorship is effective and seeks silence through fear. ” They didn’t know the censors that when the piece retired had already been offered to the collector Tatxo Benet, in response to Benet himself within the documentary.

Santiago Sierra seems little within the documentary, and there’s no speak at any time of his life or private circumstances. Is it a deliberate secretism in Banksy Plan? “It is not deliberate, although it is not possible to count private things because I am not the matter of my work. It is the director of the director, not mine. I thank him and Helga de Alvear for having financed. ”