Artistas
Santiago Sierra
Santiago Sierra (1966) was born in Madrid, Spain, where he lives and works. He studied Fine Arts at the Complutense University of Madrid and in Hamburg. His career began in the alternative artistic circuits of Madrid, but it was in Mexico (1995-2006) and later in Italy (2006-2010) that his career took off. Characterised by an explicit social and political dimension, its work reveals, through performances, installations, images, sounds, and actions, the mechanisms intrinsic to society that lead to alienation and exploitation of workers, discrimination against ethnic minorities, and undocumented migrants, thus highlighting the inequalities generated by capitalism.
In order to expose the established structures of power that engender different forms of injustice and marginalisation, Sierra designs provocative and often controversial works: for example, it has paid people in precarious situations, such as homeless or drug addicts, sex workers, or recent migrants to take part in useless or even unpleasant actions. Specifically, he paid undocumented immigrants to sit inside cardboard boxes for four hours in a gallery; he paid drug-addicted prostitutes to tattoo a line running across the four women's backs, paying them the price of a dose of heroin. These situations can be seen as moral and ethical problems and have generated strong reactions from the public and critics.
He also later created barbed wire structures that limited access to the gallery; he even closed the Lisson Gallery (London) during the three weeks of the exhibition in 2002; already at the Venice Biennale in 2003, he built a cement wall around the Spanish pavilion, prohibiting visitors from entering, except for the Spanish - some examples of works around a denunciation of the increasing militarisation of borders.
He has been awarded a retrospective at the Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea - PAC (Milan) and several solo exhibitions in galleries, art centres and museums such as LABOR (Mexico City); Prometheus Gallery (Milan); Galería Helga de Alvear (Madrid); Te Tuhi Centre (New Zealand); Reykjavik Art Museum; MARCO (Vigo); Madre (Naples), as well as numerous group exhibitions, including the 55th Venice Biennial. It is also represented in numerous international private collections.
CB
Janeiro 2021
In order to expose the established structures of power that engender different forms of injustice and marginalisation, Sierra designs provocative and often controversial works: for example, it has paid people in precarious situations, such as homeless or drug addicts, sex workers, or recent migrants to take part in useless or even unpleasant actions. Specifically, he paid undocumented immigrants to sit inside cardboard boxes for four hours in a gallery; he paid drug-addicted prostitutes to tattoo a line running across the four women's backs, paying them the price of a dose of heroin. These situations can be seen as moral and ethical problems and have generated strong reactions from the public and critics.
He also later created barbed wire structures that limited access to the gallery; he even closed the Lisson Gallery (London) during the three weeks of the exhibition in 2002; already at the Venice Biennale in 2003, he built a cement wall around the Spanish pavilion, prohibiting visitors from entering, except for the Spanish - some examples of works around a denunciation of the increasing militarisation of borders.
He has been awarded a retrospective at the Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea - PAC (Milan) and several solo exhibitions in galleries, art centres and museums such as LABOR (Mexico City); Prometheus Gallery (Milan); Galería Helga de Alvear (Madrid); Te Tuhi Centre (New Zealand); Reykjavik Art Museum; MARCO (Vigo); Madre (Naples), as well as numerous group exhibitions, including the 55th Venice Biennial. It is also represented in numerous international private collections.
CB
Janeiro 2021
