Santiago Sierra

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Santiago Sierra (* 1966 in Madrid ) is a Spanish conceptual artist .

life and work

Sierra studied art in Madrid , at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Hamburg (1989–1991) with BJ Blume and in Mexico City , where he has lived since 1995.

He repeatedly caused a stir with his socially critical projects. He often addressed poverty and wages , but also the established art scene. If the viewer and the work of art are traditionally in the position of subject (art viewer) and object (work) in art, this relationship becomes precarious in Sierra's actions - if not canceled at all. His practice integrates the viewer into the work or it usually only becomes an artistic practice through the audience and their reaction and imagination.

Sierra often documents the actions he has designed with photographs or video .

Works from 1998 to 2005

Sierra blocked an intersection in Mexico City in 1998, paralyzing traffic.

He also made men masturbate for a fee ; In 1999, six young Cubans tattooed a line on their back for a low wage . In another action, workers waited under cardboard boxes for a fee.

At the opening of the Biennale in Venice in 2001, he dyed 133 immigrants hair blond and paid them each 60 US dollars for it. So you should be considered European. Sierra exhibited videos of the action.

On the Spanish side of the Strait of Gibraltar in 2002 he paid selected immigrants from Africa to dig holes in the ground.

Sierra also had the Spanish pavilion walled up and guarded at the Venice Biennale in 2003. The empty building was only allowed to be entered upon presentation of a Spanish passport. The globalized world and the way we deal with migration were impressively exposed.

In 2005, Sierra caused a stir when he filled a room with mud in the Hanoverian Kestnergesellschaft . The visitors were provided with rubber boots with which they could wade around the installation. The Haus im Schlamm project was intended to commemorate the job creation measure for the excavation of the Maschsee lake in the 1930s by around 1650 unemployed Hanoverians. Contrary to initial considerations, neither so-called 1-euro workers (work opportunities with additional expense allowance) nor original sludge from the Maschsee were used in Sierra's installation . The first prevented requirements from the Federal Employment Agency , the second prevented bacterial contamination of the Maschsee sludge.

Projects on the German past

245 Cubic Meters and The Punished (2006)

In 2006, as part of the 245 cubic meter project, he conducted the exhaust gases from six cars to the synagogue in Stommeln near Cologne , thus turning them into a gas chamber . Visitors were able to walk through the area individually with a respirator and accompanied by a firefighter. The aim was to counter the trivialization of the memory of the Holocaust and to address “the chronic and instrumentalized feeling of guilt”. The Central Council of Jews in Germany sharply criticized the action as "levelless" and "insulting the victims". In the synagogue you find yourself alone, only watched by a fireman in the background. You can hear your own breathing and that of the firefighter and you can look out of the breathing mask on the room with the six hoses through which the poisonous carbon monoxide is fed into the synagogue. After massive protests, the action was stopped by the city of Pulheim. The artist has announced that he will hold a discussion with the critics.

Reactions to the project 245 cubic meters

Daniel Kothenschulte FR:

“If car exhaust fumes are now directed into the Stommelner Synagogue, that doesn't mean that an absurd experience is to be simulated here. Rather, it is about making a place inaccessible because it has been temporarily rented to death. "

- (web link / date missing)

Wenke Husmann ( Die Zeit ):

“There's no shame in self-marketing as an artist. But one can get the impression that a lack of taste is justified by the fact that it rubs against the memory of the Holocaust. "

- Tasteless - double room, March 2006

Christoph Schlingensief in an interview with the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger :

“You can't call that art. A work of art must be able to speak, this work has already fallen silent in itself. Even for an old 'provocative' like me that's too flat. This action trivializes the actions that Sierra did before. It is banal, simply wrong, stupid. He should put his cars in front of the Reichstag and let the gas flow in there. The politicians could then be indignant in gas masks. Let's see what would be going on then. The action in the former synagogue of Stommeln is too close. "

- Christoph Schlingensief about the project - March 2006

The Punished

Only shortly after the start of the “gas chamber project” in Pulheim near Cologne, the “The Punished” project began on the occasion of the “Fine Art Fair Frankfurt”. Here, too, Sierra grapples with Germany's responsibility for the Holocaust . At ten different locations in Frankfurt , from March 15 to 19, 2006 , elderly people symbolically stand in the corner for four hours at a time (out of shame).

More work

In 2012, The Black Cone, Monument To Civil Disobedience in front of the Icelandic Parliament in Reykjavík , was the first permanent work in public space . In 2015 he designed the minimalist light installation The Dept for Arnsberg .

In February 2018, a series of 24 pixelated black and white photos with the title “Political Prisoners in Spain” was removed from the sales exhibition of the ARCO Madrid art fair under pressure from the management of the Madrid exhibition company (Ifema) . On the signs under the pictures were the names of real people, including three activists of the Catalan independence movement : Jordi Cuixart , Jordi Sànchez and Oriol Junqueras , who had been in custody since autumn 2017. The actions of the Ifema led to a storm of protest in the Spanish media; Sierra spoke of an "act of censorship".

Exhibitions

  • 2002: Hiring and arranging 30 workers according to their skin color and The Displacement of a Cacerolada , Kunsthalle Wien (cat.)
  • 2013: Santiago Sierra: sculpture, photography, film , Deichtorhallen , Hamburg (cat.)

Prices

In 2010 Santiago Sierra was to receive the Spanish National Prize Premio Nacional de Artes Plásticas de España . However, he turned down the prize, which is endowed with 30,000 euros. a. With the words “This award exploits the prestige of the winner for the benefit of the state.” He told another artist that he lives from his work and not from licking the balls of those in power.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ typical! Clichés about Jews and others . Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-89479-479-8 , pp. 106 (book accompanying the exhibition of the Jewish Museum Berlin and the Jewish Museum Vienna ).
  2. ↑ hall list "santiago sierra: house in the mud"  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.kestnergesellschaft.de  
  3. ^ Description Kunstverein Arnsberg
  4. ↑ Thomas Urban , Spanish opening , sz.de , February 22, 2018.
  5. ↑ Whose bread I eat, the song I sing. (No longer available online.) Producer Gallery Halle, November 9, 2010, archived from the original on July 6, 2012 ; Retrieved August 24, 2012 .

Web links

literature

personal data
SURNAME Sierra, Santiago
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Madrid