DEMOCRACIA

Democracia (formerly known as El Perro) is a Madrid-based artists’ collective. El Perro was formed in the early 1990s by Ramón Mateos (1968), Iván López (1970) and Pablo España (1970) and became Democracia in May 2006 (www.democracia.co.es). As El Perro, the group exhibited their work at, among others, the MOMA (New York), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), MUSAC (Léon), EX Teresa Arte Actual (Mexico City) or the Schedhalle (Zurich). They have also curated shows such as Deluxe in Madrid, Miami, and Valladolid, and Un Nuevo y Bravo Mundo ("Brave New World") in Madrid, and edited publications including Qué Hago Yo Aquí ("What Am I Doing Here") with Aitor Méndez and Delayed with Méndez and Ulrich Schötker.

When confronted with Democracia one feels provoked. Democracia’s work is strongly related and concerned by the state of the world today: war, immigration, consumption society, the power of the media, marginalization or violence become in their hands possible forms of expression. For instance, their idea to set up The Democracy shop as a brand (for T-shirts, skateboards), using the image of soldier Lynddie England torturing prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison, is an attempt to understand the tortures in Iraq as an initiation of Iraqi prisoners into the Western culture and its democratic values. Another example is their new sculpture with monumental proportions (3,30 metres high). A man is sitting on a chair that stands on a granite pedestal. It could be a famous writer, or a political leader, or a philosopher? But when looking closer, one discovers the bombs hiding around his belly. He is a suicide bomber. Is this a celebration of terrorism directed against civilians? How many dead bodies, literally and symbolically speaking, are hidden in a monument? Democracia’s sculpture intends to deconstruct the phenomena of historical monuments. According to Democracia, teamwork in itself is an indication of a willingness to affect social issues. The decision to work as a group is also based on the idea of grounding artistic activity in discussions and collisions of different ideas and ways of working. At the same time, working as a collective allows them to question the myths about the uniqueness of an artist and creator.

This event is part of Algo Más Que Palabras / Something More Than Words