a surveillance camera recording the criminal act of which we were all participants
Dear Shaded Viewers,
Mario Canal, curator of Passage Souterrain Guerrilla Gallery
What makes a strong exhibition? Is it the fact that when you leave the gallery the gallery does not leave you ? I went to see the work of Ruben Santiago at the guerrilla gallery of Mario Canal with my 2 friends, David Gil and Vincent Gagliostro.
Vincent Gagliostro, Mario Canal and David Gil aka Passport Number
Ruben Santiago attaching the document to the wall so that any passerby could become a collector
Mario Canal and Ruben Santiago at Passage Souterrain_Guerrilla Gallery
David Gil talks to Mario Canal with Vincent Gagliostro. David has an art collective called Passport Number
We were the first to arrive and the artist Ruben Santiago was still fixing the stolen i-D’s to the wall of the gallery. Yesterday Mario Canal, the curator of the gallery, explained Ruben’s criminal Project which is that over the past years Ruben Santiago has been collecting stolen i-D cards from robberies carried out in the streets of Barcelona.
What happens is the robberies take place and after the thieves remove the cash they throw away the remains. The concept of Passage Souterrain Guerilla Gallery is that the art is for free. If you like it you just take it off the wall and bring it home with you. That is why you had better arrive on time for the opening because you never know how long the art will stay. None of us dared to take the French passport on the wall in the hopes that by chance the owner of it would have the pleasure of recuperating it here at the Passage.
25 of the documents travelled to Paris under the guise of artistic objects, they were framed as art-wroks, signed and numbered by the author then transported by a company specializing in the shipping of art-work. At that point the shipping company became a part of the crime. The possesion of the material is a criminal activity agains the state. The documents do not belong to the individuals but to their governmentes.
When we each took an i-D off the wall we became actors in the crime and thus the works recover their original origin. When we got outside of the gallery, Vincent and I deposited our passports in the bag of David Gil, aka Passport number, for a project that he is currently working on. I felt like a thief involved in this act. It was very strange and profoundly disturbing. The emotion passed on by this exhibit continued with us for the rest of the night.
Later,
Diane
