Exhibitions
Santiago Sierra breaks into the Helga de Alvear Museum
The Cáceres museum shows twenty years of relationship between artist and gallerist, collector and patron
More than twenty years of artistic relationship between Helga d'Alvear and the artist Santiago Sierra give rise to the major exhibition at the Helga d'Alvear Contemporary Art Museum in Cáceres. A journey that underlines the relevance and presence of Sierra's production in the gallery owner's collection. Under the title Santiago Sierra. 2,068 teeth, The Maelström, Archive and Black Flag, brings together historical works, others created for this exhibition, in addition to the archive donated by the artist to the Extremadura museum.
The exhibition also features the first and last work exhibited by Sierra at the Helga de Alvear Gallery, becoming one of the most important Spanish conceptual artists in the entire contemporary art scene. Based on exploring and criticizing contemporary sociopolitical structures, he creates an incisive visual language that transports the gaze to generate disparate emotions.
Santiago Sierra makes a shocking appearance in Cáceres with an exhibition that can be visited until September 21. It is one of the most forceful tours of this exhibition year, curated by Alexis Callado and in collaboration with CA2M. It is not a retrospective, but a visual manifesto that analyzes recurring themes in the conceptualist's work: logics of power, exploitation, inequality or structural violence.
In 2003, Santiago Sierra's first exhibition was at the Galeria Helga de Alvear with 100 people hidden at number 12, Doctor Fourquet Street in Madrid. Later, he created different exhibitions until reaching 2,069 teeth of 2022. This work places the target in the migrants who arrived in Tijuana from South America, Central America and the Caribbean. The act of showing teeth is synonymous with our most primitive behavior and is a visceral act of threat and defense. It is an installation composed of 126 photographs and the music of a lowered and inverted cumbia.
A total of thirteen works, with the performance created by the museum, 64 hidden people, in addition to finding installations in video format, photographic works, Warning as a sound piece or Plaque for a door in three-dimensional form. The exhibition is part of a critical dialogue on the political and social dimension of contemporary art as a central and contradictory theme where the artist exposes with strength, clarity, sharpness and commitment.
“They are not autobiographical works, nor self-referential, but they reflect the world I have lived in each moment”, explains Santiago Sierra. Radicality, the ability to question the world, controversy to transport the viewer to direct reflection on the abusive dynamics of established powers, generating a critique on the responsibility of the artist and the citizen within today's society.
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