Santiago Sierra, Acto 1, 2008 black and white photograph 55 x 98", edition of three.

Santiago Sierra, Espaldas de los Penetrados, 2008, Detail (Espalda 3) , black and white photograph, 18 x 12.5", edition of three.

Santiago Sierra, Espaldas de los Penetrados, 2008, Detail (Espalda 6) , black and white photograph, 18 x 12.5", edition of three.

Team Gallery
83 Grand Street
212-279-9219
New York
Los Penetrados
Santiago Sierra
September 9-October 23, 2010

Los Penetrados (The Penetrated) is a 45-minute film in eight acts. The film was originally shot on October 12 2008, Día de la Raza, or the Day of the Race, which is the Spanish holiday commemorating Columbus’ discovery of the Americas. The film features a mirrored set with ten geometrically arranged blankets positioned on the floor, on which the various possible combinations of male and female and black and white, engage in anal penetration. The faces of the hired participants are digitally removed, rendering them as dehumanized, modular workers in Sierra’s imposed economy. The eight acts are divided into the following permutations: white man/white woman, white man/white man, white man/black woman, white man/black man, black man/black woman, black man/black man, black man/white woman, black man/white man.

Choosing to film on Día de la Raza, Sierra makes an allegorical connection between the conquest of the Americas by the Spanish, and the penetration that occurs in his film. The subject matter of anal sex invites an examination of cultural psychologies of domination and submission as they relate to labor, race, gender, and class. Though conceived upon a mathematical formula, the film’s acts arrive at a succession of fluctuating outcomes, which yield an analysis of contemporary social structures in Spain. For instance, in Act III, seven of the ten blankets are left without performers, due to police pressure against females taking part in the labor. Or in Act V, where the number of passive black male subjects is diminished by cultural insecurities, perhaps born from experiences of racial inequality.

Also on view are two distinct series of photographs, which document the action and become supporting material in its subjectivity.  A series of eight large photographs depict the film’s individual acts; the mirrored set, the arrangement of hired workers, and the ten blankets placed on the floor. The other series — of 55 small photographs set in a grid — presents images of the backs of the penetrated, further emphasizing their submissive character, and the authority exercised over their bodies.

Sierra’s projects often employ underprivileged individuals who function as laborers in useless and demeaning activities. These acts have largely been seen as a commentary on the social ramifications of capitalist models. Procedures such as tattooing a continuous line across the backs of his “workers” foreground the artists’ concerns with exploitation. He is well known outside of the United States as an agent who challenges notions of the “politically correct” in order to illuminate social incongruities. Stemming from minimal and conceptual practices of the 1960s and 1970s, Sierra’s controversial actions and performances yield evidence and/or documentation in the form of sculpture, photography, video, and installation.

Over the past 20 years, Santiago Sierra has exhibited widely in Europe and the Americas, and has been the subject of numerous solo presentations in museums and galleries, including London’s Tate Modern; Mexico’s Museo Rufino Tamayo; the Konsthall in Stockholm; Kestnergesellschaft in Hannover; Kunsthaus Bergenz in Austria; and at Kunst Werke in Berlin. He represented Spain at the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003.

Santiago Sierra, Acto 5, 2008, black and white photograph, 55 x 98", edition of three.

Santiago Sierra, Door Plate, 59 x 69 x 2 cm, Edition Schellmann, Munich, Germany. April 2006, Courtesy Lisson Gallery and Santiago Sierra.

Santiago Sierra, Obstruction of a Freeway with a Truck's Trailer, Anillo Periférico Sur, Mexico City, Mexico. November, 1998, Courtesy Lisson Gallery and Santiago Sierra.

Santiago Sierra, Obstruction of a Freeway with a Truck's Trailer, Anillo Periférico Sur, Mexico City, Mexico. November, 1998, Courtesy Lisson Gallery and Santiago Sierra.

Santiago Sierra, Obstruction of a Freeway with a Truck's Trailer, Anillo Periférico Sur, Mexico City, Mexico. November, 1998, Courtesy Lisson Gallery and Santiago Sierra.

Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall
Frihamnen, SE – 115 56
+46 8 545 680 40
Stockholm
Santiago Sierra
Curator: Elisabeth Millqvist
February 19-June 7, 2009

Santiago Sierra focuses on Magasin 3’s location in the historic free port area and presents works dated from 1998 to 2009. Transport, merchandise and shipping, all essential elements of a port, are also important subjects in Sierra’s artistic practice and the focus of an exhibition that drones, rumbles and smells.

The exhibition starts outside the entrance with Door plate (2006), a work that lists all those who are barred from entering. Well inside Magasin 3, in works especially made for the exhibition, he focuses his attention on the immediate surroundings. In addition he will stage an action, which will be exhibited as video documentation. The entire ground floor is occupied by a large-scale sculptural work 21 Anthropometric modules made from human faeces by the people of Sulabh International, India (2005/2006). For the exhibition Sierra thinks site-specifically in a wider sense of the term. He creates a link to Sweden and local current debate regarding the situation for Romani people, showing two pieces made in Naples, 2008. The exhibition is also present in the city, spilling over onto billboards with the work 89 Huicholes. Instituto Cervantes (the Spanish cultural institute in Stockholm) will in parallel with the exhibition at Magasin 3 show works that have a connection with his native Spain.

The exhibition’s curator Elisabeth Millqvist describes the challenging artist as follows: ”Sierra’s work leaves no one unmoved. He combines the political with the poetical and provocative in works that deal with urgently pressing contemporary issues.”

Santiago Sierra has been creating socially critical actions since the mid 1990s. When he represented Spain at the Venice Biennale he bricked up the entrance to the Spanish pavilion. He has worked with drug addicts and prostitutes, and has created an income index related to skin color. By means of formal works or staged events, he exposes and calls attention to social conditions. In these works, people become objects that can be painted, used, and organized according to different hierarchies. Often seen with their backs to the viewer, they become anonymous examples of how human dignity is an economic privilege. The artist uses the titles of the works to describe precisely what we are seeing and thereby invites us to look beyond the form or the action being performed.

Santiago Sierra was born in Spain in 1966. This exhibition is the first extensive presentation of the artist in Sweden. His work can be seen concurrently at Political/Minimal, Kunstwerke, Berlin, and The Living Currency, Tate Modern, London amongst others. In London he is also showing the new work Death Counter. Sierra has exhibited extensively at venues such as the Venice Biennale (2003, 2001); ARS 01, KIASMA, Helsinki (2001); KunstWerke, Berlin and PS1, New York (2000). A new catalogue with texts by Elisabeth Millqvist and Lisa Rosendahl will be published in connection with his exhibition at Magasin 3.

Santiago Sierra, 21 Anthropometric Modules Made of Human Faeces by the People of Sulabh International, India, New Delhi / Jaipor, India, 2005 / 2006, 20 parts, each 75 x 215 x 20 cm, mixed media, David Roberts Collection, London. Courtesy Lisson Gallery and Santiago Sierra.