The MUSAC collection in Guadalajara

The exhibition, curated by Agustín Pérez Rubio (Director of MUSAC) and María Inés Rodríguez (Chief Conserver of MUSAC), unites a group of creators that have made words an escential factor in their works, including Shirin Neshat, Ignasi Aballí, Candice Breitz, Cerith Wyn Evans, Muntean & Rosemblum, Gillian Wearing, Néstor Sanmiguel, and Dora García and Dora García, who will represent Spain at the next Venetian Biennial.

According to the museum’s press release La Fuerza de la Palabra revolves around works that use words and the discourse that they generate, to manifest a point of view on the social environment.

This way, the MUSAC collection tries to offer in its path, reflections through spoken, written or even the absence of words (Mira Bernabeu). The artists Gillian Wearing and Chus Gutiérrez use documental photography and video respectively for a space to the “other” that is expressed in their works. The collective Mujeres Creando and Shirin Neshat use formats like performance and resources as metaphors in order to make the realities that affect individuals be heard.

The direct interpellation to the visitant serves Diller+Scofidio to delve into the consumerist psychology of human beings in a piece that deals with the frontiers of the public and the private. Pilar Albarracín, uses a parody version of Snowhite’s mirror which exalts the ugliness of the spectator that looks for his or her reflection. In this way, the artist rejects the bitter cult of the body in contemporary society.

Ignasi Aballí make use of the deconstruction of language through clippings and landscapes found in newspapers to offer new constructions and new meanings based in the use of fragments that acquire another meaning and a new narrative construction.
Candice Breitz and Eulalia Valldosera reflect on matter of identity. Breitz refers to the language, in this cade Japanese, that from an ironic and critical perspective explores knowledge that we have in the West about this culture. Valldosera is also interested in the construction of aphorisms in order to study human conduct.

The works of Cerith Wyn Evans and Fernando Sánchez Castillo propose through bright announcements messages that, in the case of the former, question our perception and, in the case of the latter, question the problems of work.
Alicia Martín annuls the primordial function of books as physical carriers of information, in order to reflect on ideas about emptiness.

La Fuerza de la palabra. The MUSAC Collection in the 24ª FIL. Artists: Antoni Abad, Ignasi Aballí, Pilar Albarracín, Txomin Badiola, Erick Beltrán, Emese Benczúr, Mira Bernabeu, Marc Bijl, Candice Breitz, Carles Congost, Diller + Scofidio, Dora García, Chus Gutiérrez, Pierre Huyghe, Immo Klink, Cristina Lucas, Alicia Martín, Tracey Moffatt, Mujeres Creando, Muntean & Rosenblum, Shirin Neshat, Fernando Renes, Clare E. Rojas, Néstor Sanmiguel Diest, Santiago Sierra, Yinka Shonibare, Eulalia Valldosera, Gillian Wearing y Cerith Wyn Evans.

Distinto el caso de Stefan Benchoam, quien desde su praxis personal y también en su trabajo en el BIP (Buró de Intervenciones Públicas) junto al arquitecto Christian Ochaita, ha incorporado el civismo en su actividad del ámbito urbano. Sus trabajos en el espacio público tiene un fuerte contenido político, pero obliterado por otras lecturas como la inclusión social, la reformulación del tropicalismo y la viabilidad de una mejor escena pública para el guatemalteco promedio, a través de la construcción de parques, intervenciones lúdicas y actividades recreativas en una Guatemala que está constantemente adherida a su historia reciente.

La obra de “los Ultravioletas” como se les conoce a Benchoam, Brenner y Mármol, es una alternativa que “refresca” literalmente la producción contemporánea centroamericana imponiéndole y demandándole otros derroteros a nivel conceptual y formal, para que el discurso del arte contemporáneo centroamericano no termine ahogado en una pausa tan larga y predecible como la propia posguerra.