àngels barcelona

143.353 (The eyes do not want to be always shut), 2010

Video installation projected in 2 channels. Variable dimensions.
117 min. (45' + 27')

http://marceloexposito.net/pdf/exposito_143353.pdf

http://marceloexposito.net/pdf/143353_transcripcion.pdf

English: http://marceloexposito.net/pdf/exposito_143353_en.pdf

ENG

143.353 (the eyes do not want to be always shut) is a project initially thought as a contribution to the exhibition The Potosí Principle. The central topics of the above-mentioned exhibition (for example, the archetypical continuity of the process of primitive accumulation of capital between the different moments of the possible beginning of the modernity, and the inseparable interlacing of modernization and colonialism: that is,the exploitation and the genocide asbasis of capitalist modernity) are supported by the following modus operandi: many artists and activists from different parts of the world were asked to realize projects that would answer a series of works —basically paintings— originated from several moments of the Spanish baroque or the Latin-American colonial baroque. The location of the images on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean makes possible to state the following question: How do certain specific articulations between power and visual representations circulate, updating in the (historical) time and in the (geopolitical) space?; and to consider this interrogation at the moment when the bicentenary of the independence of most of thecurrent States-nations of Latin America is celebrated.

This work consists of a series of mirror-like projections under the paintings of the Santiagos, depicting images of exhumations and the contemporary exploitation of workers. The artists says regarding his work: I think that the relationship between modernity and colonialism, in the case of Spain, were rather problematic, since the colonial metropolis was also, in historical succession, a European bastion of Counter-Reformation, anti-Enlightenment, and fascism: every project of modernization or reform has been problematic here, and they all have been essentially defeated.

Capturas del vídeo 143.353 (los ojos no quieren estar siempre cerrados), 2010