{"id":22840,"date":"2013-09-21T13:35:14","date_gmt":"2013-09-21T13:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/a-desk.org\/magazine\/catalonia-hot-spain\/"},"modified":"2017-11-13T13:44:16","modified_gmt":"2017-11-13T13:44:16","slug":"catalonia-hot-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/a-desk.org\/en\/magazine\/catalonia-hot-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"Catalonia is hot Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2009 the artist Juan L\u00f3pez inaugurated the exhibition\u00a0\u201cCatalonia is hot Spain\u201d<\/a>\u00a0at the NoguerasBlanchard gallery in Barcelona. The installation converted the space, with vinyl and insulation tape, into a swimming pool, with a video-projection showing a swimmer just about to dive into the water, something he never quite decides to do.<\/p>\n

Lately, each time I talk to someone from outside Catalonia, the first issues to arise, before any sort of conversation, are either Bar\u00e7a\u2019s latest victory, or the question of independence. Normally I move quickly on without pausing on them for too long. But inevitably it seems at the moment it\u2019s a hot subject.<\/p>\n

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But let\u2019s take it bit by bit. The idea of this text is to reflect, in a totally subjective manner, on the political process taking place at the moment, regarding the articulation of Catalonia and the Spanish State, and the place that culture, and more specifically creation and contemporary thought, can have in all this. The reflection arises based on examples of works by some artists who touch on the question \u2013 albeit tangentially-.<\/p>\n

To begin with, is it possible to understand the Catalan question without bearing in mind the Spanish state, without understanding its diversity, plurality and the wealth of culture that it possesses, but also the complex coexistence that all this brings with it? It\u2019s vital to evaluate the historic processes which precede the current paradigm, the Spanish transition urgently needs revisited, in order to move forward once and for all from the bases that were established in 1978. The Spanish State is a mosaic of regions with distinct histories, languages and cultures, and their articulation within the coexistence of the State has always been complex. We could go back as far as the era of the Catholic kings\u2026but this isn\u2019t the right place, nor am I the one to do so. After a civil war and more than 30 years of dictatorship, the Transition was a process hemmed in by the very complex, specific and defining circumstances in which the Constitution of 78 was written, that established the bases for the coexistence of the Spanish State by which we are governed in the present day. Something that can\u2019t have been an easy task, as a minimum of consensus had to be reached amongst all the parties involved, from the ministers of Franco converted into democrats, to the communists who were returning from exile.<\/p>\n

Years which, in the last few decades, have been hard to approach with a critical spirit. Contemporary art has been no exception, with only a few artists trying, although in the last few years the dynamic seems to be changing, with younger artists approaching without prejudices an era that is crucial when deciphering the current territorial structure. The unstable equilibrium upon which essential issues are based are made explicit in \u201cHistory as a Story\u201d, a piece by Fran Meana in which he arranges a series of archival photographs from that time, one on top of the other, in chronological order. The funeral of Franco is at the base, at the top Adolfo Su\u00e1rez drying the sweat from his brow. In between, some scenes that belie the seriousness that one bestows upon them.<\/p>\n

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For its part,\u00a0\u201cCarmen\u201d, by L\u00faa Coderch<\/a>, shows an image of Carmen Polo, the dictator\u2019s widow, voting in the Referendum of 1976, the symbolic beginning of the Spanish democracy, alongside an audio-essay that relates in a precise manner how to establish a \u201cpolyarchy by gradual emancipation\u201d. The piece also refers to the period of transition, \u201ca process that has been attributed for a long time with a high degree of consensus and legitimacy, being in any case, the process which established the bases for the present parliamentary monarchy. Without trauma, rupture or conflict: what is usually called an \u201cexemplary\u201d transition, with which they want to say untouchable, or unsullyable.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Both pieces suggest that it maybe wasn\u2019t quite as clean as we were told at school, that there are many grey areas, open wounds and aspects to be discussed and reconsidered, leaving aside the stereotypical and established stances, the quasi \u201cdogmas of faith\u201d upon which many of the current, territorial, political discourses are established. There are more than enough reasons to reconsider different aspects of the Constitution \u2013 of which one is the territorial question-, and at this point we ought to be in a position to evolve and come to agreements and structures that are more in accord with our times. After all, when it\u2019s a case of changing the economic rules of the game \u2013to save the banks-they can be modified.<\/p>\n

And why not think that contemporary art could offer a valuable space here in which to imagine possible alternatives for the future? In the end, art and artists represent a possibility to change structures of thought, to think and feel in different ways.<\/p>\n

In some areas the perception exists that the process that is occurring on a political level responds more to a series of party, electoral and economic interests and strategies, than to the real desire of those governing to articulate a process for independence in Catalonia. In this sense, and with the intention of specifying the movements of those in power, in December 2012, the \u201cGrupo Informaci\u00f3n\u201d was set up in Barcelona, composed of Efr\u00e9n \u00c1lvarez and Antonio Gagliano. Invited to participate in an exhibition programme in the Espai Cultural Caja Madrid, the artists set in motion a far-reaching project \u201cwith the perspective of activating the development of ascending systems of control on the powers that be in our society, deploying techniques suited to our times, (\u2026) We want to explore new narrative limits for data, proposing ethics of privacy and intimacy (\u2026). We\u2019re interested in promoting new forms for the compilation, connection and presentation of public information, whether it has appeared officially or in the press, to confirm, as much as we can, the well known secrets of Western democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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With the exhibition project having been censored in the Caja Madrid space, they published the fanzine \u201cLa Catalunya Triomfant\u201d, that unveils a series of instruments of communication related to the controversy. \u201cSensationalism, like caricature\u2019s capacity for contagion, can end up on occasion being an unbeatable technical tool\u201d, they state. In this way they articulate a stroll through the political centre of Catalonia, \u201cas if informing some supposed tourists, from a distant country that had managed to liberate itself from the barbaric spectacle of the culture of capital, in the face of their perplexity about the absurd government of money.\u201d The fanzine covers a fantastic, mythical journey that serves as a point of departure for its aims, highlighting and indicating without clemency in whose hands the power lies.<\/p>\n

The same mythical and epic element, inherent in certain aspects of the story of the national cause, serves as a catalyst for the work of some other artists.<\/p>\n

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Quim Packard elaborates in some of his drawings an \u201cepically absurd but romantically beautiful\u201d vision, simulating the idea of liberty and the struggle for autonomy with certain videogames, such as Final Fantasy III \u2013which is said to be a metaphor for America\u2019s colonial invasion of Japan-. Faced with the confirmation that Catalan nationalism doesn\u2019t coexist very happily with the sector of the visual arts (a while ago, an important Barcelona gallerist declared that \u201cContemporary art doesn\u2019t speak Catalan, which is why they don\u2019t pay us any attention\u201d), one solution is to make drawings that are unashamedly pro-Catalan.<\/p>\n

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Epic is also the story that Antoni Hervas tells us in\u00a0\u201cM\u00e9s que un club\u201d.<\/a>\u00a0Hervas\u2019 work talks of what\u2019s close to hand, \u201cthrough a fairly pop vision of the everyday, so that being from Barcelona and having lived here for most of the time means that, on sufficient occasions, places, traditions or Catalan symbols appear represented in my drawings and become epic scenarios where the narratives that I propose develop\u201d. In this case, he explores the construction of heroism and sacred places by establishing contrasts between narratives of the present and the past, proposing the development of an investigation that he began while working as a photographer in the Bar\u00e7a Museum with the hypothesis that a copy of the Champions League cup of 92 could in fact be that of the Holy Grail. Medieval knights, football players, Bar\u00e7a fans, Montserrat and the museum itself are objects that are placed in relation with each other in this visual essay that deals with the persistence in the way certain forms of myths are constructed and the popular fervour of Catalan nationalism.<\/p>\n

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And talking of fervour, we could look at the video \u201dTothom estima a Catalunya\u201d that Ana Garc\u00eda Pineda proposes, based on a commission from TV3, a few years ago, for a special for the Catalan National Day. \u201cThey asked me for a short piece that would refer to Catalan culture and which in some way paid homage to it. Everything to do with nationalism always provokes in me a certain scepticism. So, if I had to talk about it, it had to be with a sense of humour and irony; which when all is said and done, even if many forget it, preferring to take the matter too seriously, are characteristics that are very specific and thoroughly embedded within Catalan culture. Self-criticism, word games, pointed jokes…\u201d. The video is a compilation of clues and evidence (with irony and sarcasm) of the huge respect that the region instils, by way of homages to the legend of the flag. The majority of them coming from Hollywood horror films, remembering the legendary landscape.<\/p>\n