Spanish artist shouts to be heard

Sierra's work is a "comment" on capitalist exploitation

Spanish conceptual artist Santiago Sierra recently opened a new exhibition consisting of the sound of kitchen pan banging Argentinean demonstrators.

The show, Sierra explained to BBC World Service, travelled the world as part of the mission of a Mexico-based collective of artists.

The aim was to "export to the west the political turmoil produced in the south by economic globalisation".

When I made this piece I would go to bed crying

Santiago Sierra

Galleries in London, New York, Vienna, Frankfurt, and Geneva took part in this particular event by playing the same sounds at the same time, to the bemusement of passers by.

Speaking to the Arts In Action programme, Sierra explained how he thinks that "boredom" and "irritation" may be the best way for audiences to respond to his work.

"I like to look at different positions. It is experimental, you think that people have something in mind, but you are not sure and you see what they think," he said.

Outspoken

Earlier this year groups of Argentine citizens took to the streets in protest at banking restrictions imposed to try and salvage the country's crippled economy.

Sierra recorded the protests and then sent out 7,000 copies of it to various broadcasters and galleries throughout the world, inviting them to blast them full volume out of the window.

"Shock is part of the art"

Santiago Sierra

Reacting to the economic meltdown, which has gripped Argentina for most of the past year, the controversial artist claimed how the collapse of the economy is just further proof of the corruptive influence of global capitalism.

"I know I am just making art and it is too big to change, because capitalism is like the sun, it appears every day and it is impossible to stop it," he commented.

"But I really hate the capitalist system because it is killing people all over the world."

Outrage

Sierra has enjoyed the controversial spotlight on several occasions.

Spaced Closed By Corrugated Metal involved the boarding up of a London art gallery using the same type of corrugated steel sheeting that banks in Argentina used to block off their doors and cash machines when the economy imploded earlier this year.

His extraordinary performance events have also included paying a group of black immigrants in Venice to dye their hair blonde in public and jack knifing a truck in one of Mexico City's busiest streets.

Such events, he explained, are hoped to provoke "frustration" and "anger" amongst spectators.

Asked whether his demonstrations really were art or cheap publicity tricks, Sierra commented: "In art you see sensitive things... shock is part of the work of art."

A common theme of Sierra's work is paying those involved the minimum wage to illustrate that everyone can be bought for a price.

One recent exhibition sparked outrage when it included a video of men performing a sex act. Each man was randomly picked from a Cuba street and paid $20 to perform to camera.

Sierra explained how this was, by far, the most painful project to work on.

"Nobody said no and for me that was very tough," he explained.

"When I made this piece I would go to bed crying."