Art Info

Hooded woman seated facing the wall, Spanish Pavilion, Venice Biennial, Venice, Italy. ,
Santiago Sierra, 2003

Materials: Prints

Dimensions: 29.5 x 21 cm

Ed. 8/10

Santiago Sierra’s work belongs to a set of critical operations which call into question the belief that art is an autonomous, sublime and unselfish activity. Certain subjects persist in his work - recurring lines of action which end up pointing to a basic obsession: that of deconstructing minimalism as the hegemonic language, associating it with the dictatorship of production and profit.

The action, Hooded woman seated facing the wall took place in the physical location of the Spanish Pavilion interior, with no audience, on 1 May 2003. For an hour, a woman wearing a black hood remained seated, still and in silence. This work, which the artist documented in photographs and on video, dwelt on the idea of labour as a technology of domination and punishment, bearing witness to the violence of disciplinary processes and the objectualising power of money. The iconographic connections with Goya’s works, and with torture by the Inquisition, link up with many other contemporary iconological references.

£2,566