{"id":32161,"date":"2021-04-12T06:00:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-12T05:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/a-desk.org\/?p=32161"},"modified":"2023-07-09T14:45:19","modified_gmt":"2023-07-09T12:45:19","slug":"lo_insoportable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/a-desk.org\/en\/magazine\/lo_insoportable\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unbearable"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Efr\u00e9n \u00c1lvarez, Atlas\/Salvator Mundi<\/p><\/div>\n

“This drawing was commissioned by David Bestu\u00e9 for this series of articles, and throughout our conversations we described it as steeped in \u201cthe unbearable.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Things went like this:<\/p>\n

David set up a meeting for what I thought would be an interview. A few months before he had told me he wanted to propose something to me which I figured would be a text that we would work on together about the idea of \u200b\u200bthe \u201cunbearable\u201d in art. The theme seemed a bit confusing to me then and I still don\u2019t understand it very well now, either. I don’t know what my work has to do with the idea but it seems he will explain more to me in the next few days.<\/p>\n

He sends me a draft of the text, a kind of curator\u2019s statement, which I don’t understand very well. It mentions a series of articles around the idea of the \u201cunbearable\u201d but states that the word \u201cunbearable\u201d is not definitive, and that that isn\u2019t even the point. I imagine he will clarify things later.<\/p>\n

After a few messages, we meet at his house. The idea was for us to have the text ready within a day, and so we reserved a couple of hours to work on it. I bring some of my fanzines just in case they are of any use. I had to go and look for them, it\u2019s not that I have them lying around on the table or anything. I had been assuming that he would interview me or something like that but then I am overcome by the fear that he\u2019s going to shoot a video and record me without even knowing what we are talking about. I still don\u2019t understand why he wants to talk to me about this idea.<\/p>\n

Once I arrive, it seems it won\u2019t be an interview since he hasn\u2019t even prepared anything. He begins to record the conversation with his cellphone, and my fear is confirmed. He asks me what I\u2019ve been working on lately. I show him a few of my fanzines instead. What I\u2019m doing now I don\u2019t think he\u2019s going to consider art work, even though I hang up that famous \u201cartist at work\u201d poster in case someone wants to believe that is what I am doing.<\/p>\n

Showing him the fanzines doesn\u2019t go over very well. He criticizes me for adding text and for not simply relying on the drawings, which according to him is what gives my work its value. Have I been pretending to be someone I am not? We talk about some technical aspects of my drawings and a bit about politics. He is trying to find out what I want to achieve with my work, and finally he asks me straight out. My attacks on art institutions betray me, he says they\u2019re not an important issue. In regards to the idea of the \u201cunbearable,\u201d he still hasn\u2019t found the right word.<\/p>\n

He shows me Thomas Hirschhorn\u2019s monument to Gramsci and he mentions Helios G\u00f3mez\u2019s expo in La Virreina,<\/em> to which David adds a big exclamation mark, two artists who actually DO what they say they do. He loses patience several times when I try to resolve the conflict that seems to have arisen. Perhaps we are attaining the frustration that he wanted to talk about with me. He cuts me off and changes the subject. He won\u2019t let me explain anything, it\u2019s as if he no longer wants to talk to me.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know what to do. Our meeting is floundering and it becomes obvious that there isn\u2019t enough time, nor will there be, to prepare a text. He cannot spend any more time on it and they won\u2019t pay me more than for just a couple of hours of work. We both agree that this isn\u2019t going anywhere. We save a bit of time by coming up with the idea of making an intervention so we can avoid doing the interview.<\/p>\n

Luckily, he starts talking about his own work. It seems he has been giving workshops for a long time on the \u201cunbearable,\u201d or the other thing that we are still calling it. He takes out his KeyNote and we look at some photos.<\/p>\n

Slide after slide, it all seems like a huge waste of time to me, but no, it\u2019s just my resentment of his unasked-for criticism. In fact, I\u2019m actually starting to get a sense of what he\u2019s saying. I feel I could actually enjoy the project. I couldn\u2019t have come more predisposed. David has been right before and now I sense a genuine interest in a big problem.<\/p>\n

Mark Lombardi, Daniela Ortiz, Allan Sekula, Alex Reynolds and other artists whose name I have forgotten appear in the slides. I don’t know if we\u2019re producing new information or if the preconceptions I brought with me to this interview are now taking effect. It seems to me that we should have started here, but the time we had set aside for this meeting is already over.<\/p>\n

After a few days I decide that I am going to write this text. I have the drawing in my head. I want to collaborate completely without putting up any obstacles. David didn\u2019t forget me during this time of withdrawal that I am in, and he wants me to participate in this project. I consider the possibility that he transmitted to me the idea about the \u201cunbearable\u201d that he is working on in a non-verbal way during the meeting we had. I don\u2019t rule out the idea that this is an absurd thought, but there is something to it: photos, grimaces, timely frustration. In any case, I think I understand what he wanted to talk about.<\/p>\n

If I had to say something, it would be that I wound up believing that if what we are talking about cannot be called \u201cunbearable\u201d it is because, under normal conditions, it is usually the exact opposite, something perfectly bearable.<\/p>\n

Wild acts of global environmental and political destruction come to mind, an imprecise and neglected memory of the workings of our institutions, large and small, or the way in which the perfectly tangible entity called the Bourgeoisie has completely disappeared from thought, but not from the contemporary world, just like domestic traumas buried within our daily relationships.<\/p>\n

We only hesitantly speak of these things. Of monstrous buildings ignored or prohibited in the neighborhood, or as he says in his book about the monastery of Escorial (Empire and Stomach), of curses and residues that won\u2019t disappear.<\/p>\n

In a more personal way, this whole affair with David has reminded me of THE TERROR OF THE SITUATION, the title of an influential spiritualist novel that refers to a liturgical tradition promoted by Ashiati Sheimesh. The main goal of this philosopher hero was to produce in his followers a permanent state of consciousness of the most terrible and unacceptable facts of our existence and of the universe.<\/p>\n

Which is why I have chosen a religious theme for my intervention.”<\/p>\n

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