About politicsby Chantal Mouffe, y All chroniclesby Clarice Lispector. I just finished Pablo Lemebel’s book I’m afraid bullfighter. I loved it.
What is the book that has ‘self-helped’ you the most?
The joke and its relationship with the unconsciousby Sigmund Freud, and also The presentation of the person in everyday lifede Erving Goffman.
If you couldn’t have been an artist, what would you have wanted to be?
Psychoanalyst. Or teacher. Well, I already am, I’m a teacher.
What stories will Elba Benítez tell us in the gallery?
Walter Benjamin is dead tells three intersecting stories, interwoven around the notion of disenchantment (and political sadness): those of Asja Lacis, Carla Lonzi and Alejandra Pizarnik.
Literature and the visual arts are entangled in his work. What does each of these languages give you?
When I work, I always start by reading a book and taking notes, which are transformed into drawings, installations, films, writings or larger drawings.
After 30 years of experience, tell us about a fertile failure in this time that you defend today.
I don’t believe in failure or success, things happen as they inevitably happen. Surely, they are about the same thing, it depends on how you look at it.
It is now located in the Arctic Circle. What project will you carry out there?
I comment on an exhibition by Picasso and the Guernica at the KIN Museum. I have never found an angle from which I wanted to talk about Picasso and I have found it: Guernicahis communism, his identification with the miners and the history of extractivism. Kiruna produces 80% of the iron consumed in Europe, it is an inexhaustible wealth that has been exploited for a hundred years and shows no signs of ever becoming extinct. But at what price?
A historical event that you would have liked to experience on site. Because?
The Paris Commune. Not to participate in it, since I am quite a coward. It was such an unlikely event, almost like a miracle. And that thing about shooting the clocks… wonderful.
An album/song that is put on loop these days.
I should have taken more photosby Bad Bunny, the album of the decade.
What is the series you have devoured the fastest? Would you say, by the way, that it is the best you have seen? Or is it another?
Twin Peaksseasons 1 and 3, 25 years apart. It has marked my life. The best I’ve ever seen.
Which movie would you stay in and which one wouldn’t you last a minute?
In The Wizard of Oz o Blade Runner and I wouldn’t stay in one by Christopher Nolan.
Have you ever experienced Stendhal syndrome?
No. I have infinite appetites for art, literature, music, theater and cinema. I would spend my life doing just that, stopping to eat, sleep and go to the bathroom.
Don’t bite your tongue, tell us something that you can no longer stand in the cultural world.
Complicity with the State of Israel, Saudi Arabia and the Arab Emirates. If we investigate where the money comes from and where it goes, there is very little to be proud of.
A guilty cultural pleasure.
I don’t feel guilty about any cultural pleasure.
What is the last exhibition you have been to?
I have gone to see Trinh T. Minh-ha, Paloma Polo and Isaías Griñolo in La Virreina. I loved all three. Courageous, interesting, relevant works.
Will artificial intelligence kill artistic creation?
No. I think it will rather kill the planet. So much recycling and every time ChatGPT is consulted a couple of streams dry up.
Spain is a country…
Well, the first thing that comes to mind is to say that it is a country of m… But no, I will say something truer: it is a surprising and very entertaining country, almost always exasperating, but, of course, you will not get bored.