To Lose Your Head (Idols)

For the 6th time, the Institut Ramon Llull presents a Collateral Event for the Biennale Arte. Pedro Azara curates the exhibition Catalonia in Venice: To Lose Your Head (Idols).

The multi-authored exhibition explores the theory of art reception and documents the complex life of public statues in our time. In a world of images, iconoclasm and iconodulia this exhibition questions the fetishism of images as living entities and encourages conversations as a way to foster human happiness, awareness and freedom.

With a performance by Marcel Borràs, video works, photography, an artist's book and an archive, Catalonia in Venice: To Lose Your Head (Idols) investigates the issue of art reception with a specific focus on naturalistic and figurative statues.

Using 20th-century statues in public spaces in Catalonia as a starting point, it considers the objectives of images from a theoretical point of view, moving between paradigms of old and new, documenting and analysing the experiences of statues, which could be enriching or destructive, lucid or irrational. The exhibition narrates the history of these statues from Catalonia, their experiences, the passionate relationship they have maintained and maintain with us, experiences that have left traces. These recent histories are similar to those that have taken place and are happening all over the world, in all cultures in which the image has played or plays an important role in personal and community life. The participating artists will interpret the ability of images to create feelings and to generate physical reactions beyond kitsch, beyond contemporary iconodulism and iconoclasm, while exploring the fascination and meaning of the power of images, as well as how and why works of art attract our attention and “awaken” passionate “feelings”.

Supported by four main pillars: performance, video works, an artist's book and an archive, and accompanied by references to poetry, literature, theatre and architecture, the exhibition documents cases in which statues from public spaces have the power to change their meaning despite their author and commissioner’s will, or the passage of time and space.

The ambitious performances of Marcel Borràs, whose explorations of identity have made him one of the most renowned theatre and film artists in Catalonia, will bring the power of images to a territory where representation, action and word play a fundamental role. With Marta Aguilar, the human statue actress, ‘She appropriates in present’ is a performance that will relive and contextualise, both historically and aesthetically, the experiences of statues in the exhibition. The performance will evolve to be complemented by the interactive sculpture ‘E.Y.M: (a f****** vending machine)’, a response to the work which will take on its own identity.

With the documentary, “EYES/EYES/EYES/EYES”, Albert García-Alzórriz will present the statues examined by the exhibition, focusing on the ambivalence of image, matter and subjectivity of naturalist images expressly created for public spaces. The space design by architect Tiziano Schürch is also inspired by the murky, disturbing and devastating impressions left after a visit to a municipal storehouse to search for monuments that have been removed from public space. The worn, mutilated, profaned and irrecoverable statues offer a poignant reminder of the complexity of life.

Catalonia in Venice: To Lose Your Head (Idols) and Pedro Azara's curatorial research will culminate in an artist’s book published by Tenov publishing house, in which six of the most relevant artists in Catalonia across two different generations reflect on the power of images. With designs, illustrations, poems and essays, David Bestué, Lúa Coderch, Lola Lasurt, Daniela Ortiz, Perejaume and Francesc Torres will explore how concepts such as iconoduly, iconolatry and iconoclasm are confronted with the history of public art and perception of art.