SDF, heroin addicts, migrants, prostitutes or war refugees. Anyone who lives on the margins of society and is the victim of a system that sinks the disadvantaged and exalts the privileged is a source of interest for Santiago Sierra (Madrid, 56 years old). The provocative artist, censored at ARCO 2018 and refused the 2010 National Prize for Plastic Arts, sees his work brought together for the first time in Madrid with the opening of the exhibition on Saturday. 1,502 people facing the wall at the Dos de Mayo Art Center. The whole is a series of portraits from the back which underline the anonymity of people converted into numbers who could well be unaccompanied minors from Spain or those fleeing the conflict in the Middle East.
“The validity of the exhibition lies in the fact that all the pieces, historical or recent, have a link to the socio-economic and political problems facing the planet. Migratory flows and the wars between them,” comments Alexis Callado, curator of the exhibition which will be open until February 2, 2025. In black and white and with their gaze fixed on the wall, 184 Peruvian workers in Chile are photographed, a community that has been discriminated against for decades. Next to it are 102 refugees from the war in Yemen and Syria that Sierra captured in Munich in 2023. “We think war is the exception, but Sierra presents it as a foundation and a norm,” Callado says, making reference to the recent escalation of violence in Lebanon.
Victims of war conflicts are also the focus of the series veterans from 2011, in which the artist photographed, among others, former soldiers from the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Bosnia and Rwanda. They turn their backs to the camera and are arranged in corners, with their heads bowed, a symbol of humiliation and degradation. Also in a submissive position, as if they were arrested, the Gambians in the video The Maelstrom (2023), accompanied by the distorted voice of the High Representative of the European Union, Josep Borrell, when he compared Europe to a “garden” and the rest of the world to a “jungle”. A contempt that resonates with the order this month from the Canary Islands government to no longer welcome migrant minors.
Class Condition in Body
Sierra anticipated the migration crisis with its installation in the Spanish Pavilion in Venice in 2003. It covered the space and to access it, visitors had to present their DNI or Spanish passport. “Neither the Spanish ambassador nor the international jury could enter,” Callado says with a laugh. And Sierra, since its beginnings 30 years ago, has always criticized exploitation, exclusion of the disadvantaged and excessive abuse of power. “He has a very clear, radical and powerful speech that doesn’t leave much room for interpretation,” Callado continues.
In the photographic group Economic study of the skin of the inhabitants of Caracas (2006), included in the exhibition, the artist captures the backs of Venezuelans from three groups: those who claimed to have no dollars, those who said they had 1,000, and those who claimed to have a million. The result is a monochromatic scale – he absorbed minimalism while studying in Hamburg after graduating from Complutense – in which it is evident that purchasing power influences body conservation. The first have sores and plaques; the latter, a strong and muscular dorsal.
A similar story was covered in the performance 2002 Hire 30 workers according to their skin colorwhose video documentation is on display. Sierra contacted workers of different skin tones to rank them from lightest to darkest. The artist pays the performers of the work, as well as all those who participate in his pieces. From there emerges another thematic axis: wild capitalism which puts a price on everything and everyone. For example, in 30 cm line tattooed on a paid person (1998), Sierra was looking for a homeless man who had no intention of getting a tattoo to imprint a mark for $50. In 10 euros (2017), hundreds of people trained at the Milan PAC to receive this money.
Everything has a price
Photography is more powerful 10 inch line shaved above the heads of 2 heroin addicts paid with one dose each (2000) or Line 160 cm tattooed on 4 people (2000) in which he tattooed four Salamanca prostitutes and also paid them with drugs. “Normally they charge 2,000 or 3,000 pesetas for a fellatio, while the price of the dose is around 12,000” (12,000 pesetas at the exchange rate of 25 years ago, or around 72 euros), we read on the play’s poster. While in The anarchists (2006) paid 100 euros to eight atheist anarchist activists to listen to the Pope’s mass at the Vatican.
Beggars, workers, Hindu widows and abused women complete this Sierra mosaic. No one escapes the schizophrenic machine based on greed, predation of limited resources and warlike aggression. The exhibition will continue in an upcoming exhibition at the Helga de Alvear gallery.
