Commissioned to perform the initial work from our developing What if everything we know is wrong? project, Mike and I stepped into a large empty room in Artium – the Museum of Contemporary Art of the Basque Country in Vitoria-Gasteiz – carrying a bag of pocket dictaphones, a small roll of tape, a black marker pen, and four polaroid photographs. This time we re-titled the event:
NOSOTROS PUSIMOS LOS MUERTOS Y ELLOS DISFRUTAN DEL CUADRO
A quote taken from the writings of painter Antonio Saura (which translates roughly as: We provided the dead and they enjoy the painting). Ultimately using the place built by the work as a context to introduce a recorded reading of Saura’s polemic text Contra el Guernica (Against the Guernica), written in response to the arrival of Picasso’s Guernica in Spain in 1981. Our contribution to the gallery’s celebrations of the painting’s 75th anniversary.
Photos by Mike Brookes