ViewsOfArt.com Mónica Núñez Luis

Dark has been the room where those who have been murdered for their political convictions, and who have had the worst off ates, have slept: awaiting the recovery of the historical event the experienced, in order to see their names acquire some dignity, alter their bodies were dumped into a mass grave. An event such as this, in the context of the importance of preserving the memory of the past, instead of the usual oblivion, as well as the unsuspected consequences of certain political acts, are some of concerns which have defined the work by Francesc Torres (Barcelona, 1948). Here, the artist’s critical approach and sarcasm, as well as conceptual value of his work, play with the experimentation of the formal limits of photography, video and sculpture; and interrelation which has turned Torres into one of the most innovative installation artists in Spain.

ARTIUM displays the artist’s reflections by means of two completely different pieces, which examine issues that are different in terms of both time and space. The exhibition “Oscura es la habitación donde dormimos” (Dark is the Room Where we Sleep), Torres emphasises the unfair treatment to which time subjects the victims of a war, in comparison with those who caused their suffering, questioning the displacement of historic memory in a present which is always defined by it.

The installation Memorial (1992) recreates a living room with a switched-on television set, a cabinet containing ornamental objects and books, which hint at a progressive family. On the opposite side, we can see the video of a Kuwaiti oil well fire, which serves as backdrop to several rifles stuck in the ground, crowned with hats stereotyping the diversity of a society. As everyone will recall, millions of homes were impasse witnesses of the first televised war in history, the first Gulf War, which lost its value as a result of the overexposure of the images on show. Torres wants to use this monument to remember this great ground offensive, and the way it was relegated in the collective conscience, despite its historical implications and the lives it claimed.

The meaning of this piece joins the one which lends the show its title, and which documents the recovery of an execution that took place during the Spanish Civil War. Torres reflects on uncertainly, impotence and the need for justice and a dignified remembrance of all the victims. Oscura es la habitación donde dormimos (2004) shows the disinterment of forty-six male skeletons in Villamayor de los Montes (Burgos). Some twenty-nine photographs and a watch, which probably continued to work, buried along with those for whom time had stopped, illustrate the work carried out by archaeologists, forensic doctors and anthropologists during the excavation of the two mass graves. Of the forty-six men of different ages, more than half were killed by a bullet to the head. Many of the large-scale images show, inevitably and thanks to their visual power, the nature of that 1936 event, which Torres captures with a piece of a shoe, a comb or the shattered skulls themselves. The exhibition’s sense of emotion increases with the final photographs. Where family members of the victims give them a burial sixty-eight years after they were killed.

Torres combines documentary photography with his subtle artistic approach and the critical sense he applies to his images, in order to encourage a profound reflection on the need to reveal the past so that justice can be done, so that the anonymous protagonists of history are given a dignified memorial and so that we can appreciate the importance of remembering the past if we are to understand what are today.

ARTECONTEXTO. Arte, cultura, nuevos medios. Madrid, Nº 22 / 2009 / 3, pp. 114-115.

Etiquetas: conceptual art, critical art, spanish art, politic art, photography, individual, installation

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Topic: ...Texts of exhibitions, ..All the texts and videos, 2009, Spanish Art, Past exhibitions Tags: conceptual art, critical art, spanish art, politic art, photography, individual, installation

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