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Santiago Sierra
(b. Madrid, Spain, 1966; lives and works in
Mexico City, Mexico)
COMMISSIONED BY St Paul Street Gallery
Santiago Sierra undertook a research visit in Auckland in March 2009 supported by Seacex and the Embassy of Spain, New Zealand, but decided not to develop a project for the One Day Sculpture series with his commissioner St. Pauls Street Gallery, Auckland. During his research visit, the artist produced his own independent action in Wellington. For further information on this work, please click here >>
biography
Santiago Sierra, Palabra de Fuego (Word of Fire), 2007
From
the start of his career, Sierra has been interested in political and
social issues as well as the structures of power that operate in the
capitalist market economy. Sierra's work intervenes into these
structures exposing situations of exploitation and marginalisation,
famously hiring underprivileged individuals who, in exchange for money,
are willing to undertake pointless or unpleasant tasks. Sierra's work
never repeats reality, but challenges it exposing its intrinsic
mechanisms. Sierra produces realities instead of depicting them. The
essence of the work is often in the tension generated and sustained
between the event or its documentation and the spectator, who is
exposed to what can be described as the formal and poetic articulation
of the voice of all those who are normally marginalised or
disenfranchised.
Through
his work, he tries to show what he feels to be the absurdity of power
relations, taking his analysis to its final consequences, which
sometimes means surpassing the limits of what we consider today as politically correct. Two main lines of work inform his oeuvre:
performance art and the creation of sculptural objects. This last
betrays influences of arte povera minimalism of the 1960s. His works
are localized and temporary, related to a specific history of a
specific location.
Santiago
Sierra (born 1966 in Madrid) lives in Mexico City, Mexico. He
participated in numerous major exhibitions like the Venice Biennial in
2003 (Spanish Pavilion) and had solo exhibitions, like House in the
Mud, Hanover 2005, and 300 tons, Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2003).
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