Political Sculptural Practice in Spain. On Memory, Democracy and Critical Views
Article published on April 30, 2021
Written by Avelino Sala
«After the Civil War, from 1936-1975 Spain trembled under the dictatorship of general Franco. Avelino Sala, artist, curator and editor, shows how Spanish artists shed light on this dark chapter of Spanish history that is ignored too often.
To launch a reflection on the sculpture of political mood in a country where historical memory is a vague, diffuse, unclear concept, because after the dictatorship in Spain everything went on in a «normal» way for the Francoists, the transition to democracy was that time in which their families were diluted or camouflaged in society keeping their great wealth and a lot of power accommodated in a less visible position but still among us. Today, in 2021, we continue to be heirs of those shortcomings of justice, restoration and democratic vacuum.
Today, many Spanish artists have worked with concepts of memory, criticism of the past but also of our time in relation to the relationship between society, politics and memory focused on democracy, the state, our near past, the legacy of Franco’s regime and its consequences in our days. From very different aesthetic and ideological positions the artists talk about these problems.
By continuously exploring social imagery, Sala tries to put a finger on sore spots, demonstrating the power of art as a space for experimentation and for the creation of new worlds. Sala is a Spanish referent of art as a vehicle for political resistance, in his production there is a sort of poetics that contains a reflection on state powers and the control they exercise. His recognizable aesthetic strengthens a discourse that is as necessary as it is powerful, encompassing sensitive and relevant subjects such as migrations, contemporary dislocation, the environmental crisis and the paradoxes of capitalism. (…)
Trauma of confinement, and punishment
There are other artists who address these issues related to the past, to democracy, from other perspectives, perhaps not so direct but equally effective. The work of Paula Rubio Infante (Madrid 1977) focuses on the deprivation of freedom as one of the references of his work, the formalizations of the traumas of confinement, surveillance and punishment (typical of Franco) through objects of prisons or pieces of furniture, violent objects generates sculptural structures that make up a silent but ultra powerful work in terms of its meaning, the violence of the past in prisons, psychological and physical, emerges in his works. A more subtle look that generates sculptures of a magical beauty but that also transmit uneasiness, contradictory sensations of a resounding work.
A part of the current sculpture in Spain stands out for this look at our own past, there are many more artists who work with these memorial materials, although we can not speak of all of them.
If the artists mentioned here are capable of developing projects that remember what happened and articulate mechanisms so that, as a society, we are able to prevent history from repeating itself, then their work is already a real success. Because we cannot and must not forget. An Art for the memory.»
Author: Avelino Sala, (Gijón-España, 1972) is an artist, curator and editor (Sublime Magazine).
