Realidad vs. (a)ficción/ Reality versus fiction (2003)

Realidad vs. (a)ficción
Desafío artístico y futbolístico consistente en jugar un partido de fútbol, enfrente del museo de arte contemporáneo el día 05.04.03. En el encuentro se enfrentaban la realidad, compuesta por tres educartistas que impartían un seminario de arte participativo en la Universidad Europa de Madrid, contra la (a)ficción, integrada por un equipo de 3 personas que se iban cambiando con el público, entre los que estaban los estudiantes de dicho taller.

Este reto tuvo lugar a la entrada del prestigioso Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Reina Sofía, lugar donde se encuentran las obras institucionales más significativas de la ciudad, pero que raramente alberga manifestaciones de arte participativo, reivindicativo, social y popular. Sin embargo, en la plaza donde se desarrolló el encuentro, suele reunir a niños, inmigrantes, marginales y espontáneos a practicar el deporte más popular: el fútbol. Elevado a la categoría de arte gracias a los medios de comunicación, seduce a la población real y no real y hace olvidar el presente, aquí en Madrid, y en el Reino Unido, y en Marruecos, pero también en Irak y más allá...
 
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Reality versus (a)fiction[1]

Football and art challenge, consisting in playing a football match in front the Madrid´s Contemporary Art Museum on the 05.04.03. In this game, ‘reality’ which included ‘artist teachers’ who were following a collaborative workshop in the European University of Madrid, played against ‘Fiction’ formed by students of the afore mentioned workshop, which changed each other with different members of the public.

It took place at the entrance of prestigious Reina Sofia Nationals Contemporary Art Museum, where the most significant institutional art pieces of the city are exhibited. The Reina Sofia, at that time, had rarely shelter participative, critical, social and popular art displays. Nevertheless, in the square where the match took place, children and immigrants used to meet, spontaneous and marginal people practised the most popular sport: Football. Due to the media, this sport is considered, an art which seduces a real (royal) and not real (royal) people, making us forget them the present, here in Madrid, and also in Great Britain, and Morocco, but also in Iraq and even further…

This magical game between reality and fiction had two halves of 30 minutes each: the first part was played with “the word” (with a ball on which “word” was written) and the second part was played with “fact” (the playing ball was written with the word “fact”). The dorsal of the reality team (4, 7 and 10), and the name of the team (real) were written with chalk on black t-shirts which disappeared little by little. However the dorsal 03, 04 and 05, and the name of the other team (fiction), printed in to a grey colour t-shirt , which were permanent, but the player who wore them, because they were rotating with the public.

The team celebrated their goals with they rising and showing his written palms with the word NO[2]. All of this occurred under a secure police presence, which controlled all popular radical demonstrations in the city and the referee watched, who custodies the order and  legality of this strict artistic-didactic-sporty event.

Both teams played fairly during the match. Fiction won with the minimum difference, in a contested sport confrontation, distinguished by the sportsmanship, enthusiasm and good football quality in both sides.

The sporty -artistic match turned in to a pun of words and meanings, in which the public and the following, those who don´t belong to the reality, were the protagonist winning. It was the “real” Madrid of the following ( in Spanish aficción), the real and socially implied art, the real immigration, the real students, the real public and the real social situation, which win the Real Madrid[3]  of Fernando (4), Raúl (7) y Luis (10)[4], the art of the museum, the teachers, the artistic elite, the well-off EC citizens and the TV world. The words and the facts, the repression and the demonstration, the museum and the street, the elite and the popular, the culture and the football were mixed, crossed, jumbled and played.

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[1] If you read the (a) in Spanish, that word means following, addiction and fondness. There is a double meaning in this text because “real” means in Spanish real and also royal. In combination with the word Madrid ist can be interpreted as a name of a team and also as a real situation that is happening in Madrid

[2] This artist action was made in other to protest against the military occupation of the Unites States, Great Britain and Spain in Iraq and also the police repression in their pacific demonstrations. It mixes two pacific references: the slogan NO WAR, used in multitudinous demonstrations against that military occupation, and also the white palms, used in the antiterrorist demonstrations in Spain. A year latter, in less than 500 m of distance, an Al Qaeda commit a terrorist attack in the Atocha train station.

[3] Name of the football team and also meaning the Royal Madrid.

[4] All names of famous players of the Real Madrid and also the names of the arteachers

Consuma©ción/Consummation (2002)

Consuma©ción. En colaboración con (4) (7) (10) 
Consuma a©ción o producto etéreo, concomitante y continuo, fruto de la coacción, del intercambio de lenguaje, de actitudes, de pensamientos, de palabras y de bocas, en tiempo y espacio real. Es una (re)acción frente a esa actitud servil del artista de entregar a su público un producto o una serie de artículos u objetos fáciles de digerir y agradables a todos los sentidos. (rere)acción ante lo que se consume con facilidad y se olvida incluso antes de salir de la sala.
Con suma a©ción para evitar los comportamientos pasivos del público. Es una acción creada con la participación activa del público y los demás artistas visitantes en la obra. Consuma©ción es un accionar donde se invierten los papeles y en la que los gestores ven a su público intervenir, transformar y hacer de la participación una acción propia. Consuma©ción del primer proyecto estrictamente artístico del 4, 7 y 10, centrado en la participación, en la anulación del concepto de artista -relegándose a meros camareros del proceso artístico-, en la obra abierta, irónica, crítica, cercana, plural y ágil. Es la consumación de la presencia del público en el proceso artístico, alimentándose con la palabra/comida, en un proceso orgiástico de composición de significados en el espacio.

Consummation (Consuma(c)ción). In colaboration with (4) (7) (10) 

The Spanish text is playing with several  meanings:

Consume an action or an ethereal product, consequence of the exchange of attitudes, thoughts, words, tongues and mouths. It is a reaction against a servile artist attitude of offering easy edible objects easy to digest and gentle to the senses and to the public. It is a Re-reaction against all that is easy to consume and fast to forget.

With maximum action, to avoid the public’s passives behaviour. It is an action made with the public participation and other artists. Consummation is a performance in where the roles are reversed: the artist observed the intervention of the public using their participative creativity.

Consummation of the first artistic project of the “4, 7 and 10”, based on the open, critical, plural, agile, ironic  and artistic piece. The figure of the artist is questioned, turned in this case to a mere waiter of the artist process. It is the consummation of the public’s presence in the artistic process of this group, using the food/word in a social spatial event.

Primer baño en Ecca/ First dip in ecca (2001)

Primer baño en Ecca
Performance realizado el 22 de octubre de 2001 durante los encuentros de artistas organizados en la asociación artística ECCA, en Madrid. Fue la primera acción artística dentro del contexto de estas reuniones y la primera acción del artista realizada en público y convocada con anticipación.

El artista empezó a realizar ejercicios de calentamiento en el patio exterior de la escuela en donde había instalado una piscina de niño pequeño. Eran las 10 de la noche, había una temperatura de 9 grados y los asistentes a las reuniones seguían sus conversaciones sin darse cuenta de lo que estaba sucediendo afuera. A los 30 minutos de intenso ejercicio, el artista se despojó de su ropa y te atavió con un gorro de nadador y gafas. Se subió a un soporte de la piscina y se lanzó al agua. El nadador empezó a batir sus brazos entre exclamaciones y respiraciones rotas. Paulatinamente y debido al cansancio, descendió el ritmo de sus movimientos, abandonando el agua 25 minutos después.

La obra tenía una articulación Personal y crítica. Respecto al contenido personal, cabe destacar que la piscina era una objeto vinculado al artista desde su infancia, en el cual de pequeño nadaba de la misma manera que en la acción, imaginando el momento en que pudiese flotar solo en un espacio más grande sin ningún tipo de esfuerzo. La acción repetida en presente, adquiere un talante dramático y grotesco; el hecho de ver a ese mismo individuo perfectamente entrenado y formado, que nada con más dificultades que las que tenía antes. Por otro lado es una llamada de atención a la postura inmovilista y pasiva de los artistas de estas reuniones que se quejaban desconsoladamente de la trágica situación del mundo del arte. La acción del nadador era un intento dramático e irónico en solitario por involucrase, mojarse y romper el hielo de esta situación.

Hay que anotar que las charlas artísticas fueron especialmente sensibles al 11S , en la que se buscaba posturas de intervención artística y social para manifestarse ante tal desastre. Después de esta acción surgieron otras respuestas artísticas de Luis Fernando Martín de los Santos y de Fernando Rubio Ahumada, que posteriormente se unirían los tres para formar un grupo de arte participativo.

First dip in ecca

Performance made the 20-10-2001, during the artist meetings organized by the artistic association ECCA in Madrid[1]. It was the first artistic performance of these meetings and also the first announced performance for the artist.

The artist started the warming up at 10 pm in an exterior courtyard of the association, where he installed a portable baby’s swimming pool. The temperature was around 9 degrees. Meanwhile inside, the artist hearing continue with their conversation without knowing what was going on outside. After 30 minutes of intense exercise, discarded his clothes and wore goggles, a swimming cap and swimming costume. He dived in to the water and stared beating his arms in the water, between yells and broken breathes. Gradually and due to weariness, he decreased the cadence of his movements, quitting 25 minutes latter.

The piece has a personal and critical meaning. In regards to personal content, it’s necessary to know that the swimming pool was a childhood object , in which he swam when he was little imagining it as a big person, swimming and floating in a bigger space without any problems. The repetition of this action as an adult, who swims with more difficulty than as a youngster, develops a dramatic and grotesque meaning. On the other side, it is a critical warning against the passive and conformist artists attitude of these meetings, who bitterly complained against the unfavourable artistic world. The swimmer performance tried to face the reality and sprang in to action in order to change the situation.

It is important to know that these artistic talks were specially sensitive to September the 11^th. They were talking about the possibility of finding an artistic and social position to demonstrate against this disaster. After this performance, there were other artistic proposals from Luis Fernando Martín de los Santos and Fernando Rubio Ahumada in the same space. These three artists created a participation art group.

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[1] One every weeks During two years, a group of artist debate about the artistic Spanish scene problems, specially the lack of resources and also the social and artistic decadence of that time.

Wie gehts? How are you? ¿cómo estás?

Uno de mis primeros videos sin edición o video performances, que realicé en Berlín. Trato los temas que por entonces me sobre embargaban la comunicación, el lenguaje y la soledad.

One of my first videos and performances unedited video I made in Berlin. I deal the issues that cared to me then as communication, language and loneliness

Proyecto de limpieza para la clase de katherina Sieverding

Fue el primer proyecto que realicé en la clase de Katherina Sieverding en la HdK de Berlín. Era un performance o acción grabada que se materializó en una video instalación. En ella aparecía el proceso de limpieza del aula de reunión de la clase que realicé durante tres semanas aproximadamente. Vídeo estético e irónico con sutiles toques humorísticos.

Sonreir (smiling, lächeln)

En esta obra aparece un primer plano del rostro del autor, que intenta complacer a los demás con una amplia sonrisa. Este expresión se mantiene durante unos minutos, pero pronto empieza a acusar el esfuerzo convirtiéndose en un gesto extenuado, dolorido y desesperado que en varias ocasiones no puede contener las lágrimas.

La obra dura 36 minutos y al igual que las obras precedentes no tiene ningún tipo de edición y sólo se hizo una grabación. Funciona como un video performance realizado en la intimidad, en el que integra con articulaciones sencillas elementos de gran expresividad y emoción, poniendo en un compromiso al espectador.

Smiling (2000)

These pieces, made in December 2000 in Wannsee (Berlin), follows the same structure as the previous artistic videos, in which the artist appears in a contradictory, ridiculous, obsessive, excessive and strenuous actions. The artist doesn’t make a representation (he doesn´t play) but presents himself in front of a camera and performs without knowing how it would finish.

In this video you can see a close up of the artist’s friendly face, which tries to please the viewers with a full and big smile. This expression is held for several minutes, but little by little begins to suffer under the strain, showing run down, doleful and exhausted features, which sometime can´t hold back his tears.

The piece lasts 36 minutes, and as previous works, has no editing and is made in just one shoot, without any test. It was exhibited at his doctoral presentation the 22-10-2003 (see Smiling II)