Santiago Sierra | Destroyed Words

Santiago Sierra

Destroyed Words

1 pp., 16 x 90 cm. folded to 16 x 9 cm., accordion fold

Self-published, 2012

Edition size unknown

In 2012, Santiago Sierra commissioned the production and then destruction of three metre high letters in Australia, France, Austria, Papua New Guinea, Germany, New Zealand, Iceland, India, Holland, and Sweden. Each letter was produced from a material primary to the location's economy. Collectively, the individual letters spelled out the word “KAPITALISM.”

Destroyed Word followed other monumental text works such as Submission (2006-7), NO Global Tour (2009-12) and Burned Word (2012). The resulting piece was a 10 channel video installation which can be seen on Youtube, here. 

“My aim is the destruction of capitalism, because it is a criminal system that is bringing humankind to the brink of extinction.” 

- Santiago Sierra

Santiago Sierra | El Trabajo Es La Dictadura

Santiago Sierra
El Trabajo Es La Dictadura
Madrid, Spain: Ivory Press, 2013
87 pp., 15 x 10.5 cm., soft cover
Edition of 1000

An artist book consisting of the title handwritten over and over again, by thirty workers recommended by the National Employment Service and paid minimum wage to fill out a thousand blank notebooks as a performance in January of 2013. The phrase El Trabajo Es La Dictadura translates to "Work is a Dictatorship".

Many of the artist's best known works involve the hiring of labourers to complete menial tasks.

"What I do is refuse to deny the principles that underlie the creation of an object of luxury: from the watchman who sits next to a Monet for eight hours a day, to the doorman who controls who comes in, to the source of the funds used to buy the collection. I try to include all this, and therein lies the little commotion about remuneration that my pieces have caused."[2] More specific to his questioning of art institutions and capitalism, he said "At the Kunstwerke in Berlin they criticized me because I had people sitting for four hours a day, but they didn't realize that a little further up the hallway the guard spends eight hours a day on his feet...any of the people who make those criticisms have never worked in their lives; if they think it's a horror to sit hidden in a cardboard box for four hours, they don't know what work is...And of course extreme labor relations shed much more light on how the labor system actually works."[2] Sierra has a displayed interest in visibility and invisibility. He explains the result of his work that pursues these interests, saying "The museum watchman I paid to live for 365 hours behind a wall at P.S.1 in New York told me that no one had ever been so interested in him and that he had never met so many people. I realized that hiding something is a very effective working technique. The forgotten people want to communicate..."

- Santiago Sierra

Santiago Sierra | Destroyed Words

Santiago Sierra
Destroyed Words
1 pp., 16 x 90 cm. folded to 16 x 9 cm., accordion fold
Self-published, 2012
Edition size unknown

Sierra commissioned the production and then destruction of three metre high letters in Australia, France, Austria, Papua New Guinea, Germany, New Zealand), Iceland, India, Holland), and Sweden. Each letter was produced from a material primary to the location's economy. Collectively, the individual letters spelled out the word “KAPITALISM.”

Nuit Blanche Tonight

The 11th annual Nuit Blanche is held tonight in the streets of Toronto, beginning at 7pm and running until early tomorrow morning. This year features projects by David Hammons, Arturo Duclos, Santiago Sierra, Shary Boyle, Bill Viola, Bruce Nauman, John Akomfrah, Bill Viola, and countless others. Below is a quick selection of some book-related projects:

Kelly Jazvac
Browsing 
David Mirvish Books, 596 Markham Street

David Mirvish Books closed its doors after more than three decades in early 2009. It was the city's largest bookstore dedicated to art, design and photography. The two-story round building (once a gallery) housed a 50-foot-long Frank Stella painting and the store often employed artists as sales staff. London-based artist Kelly Jazvac worked there in the store's final years, and returns tonight with a collage of salvaged billboards, animated by industrial fans.

Luzinterruptus
Literature vs. Traffic
Old City Hall

In a project curated by Camille Hong Xin, the anonymous collective from Madrid will present a river of open books illuminated by individual lanterns. Thousands of used books were donated by the Salvation Army and visitors are encouraged to take one home with them tonight.

John Shipman
100 Libraries. 99 Books
St. Matthew's United Church, 729 St. Clair Avenue West

Each of the 100 libraries consists of a desk structure, a reading light, an illuminated sign, and a tethered book. The miniature libraries stand in for public or private libraries and bookstores from across Canada, North America and beyond. The event is child-friendly, with ten of the libraries dedicated to children's books on a carpeted platform and workshops on bookmaking and calligraphy.

Bruce Nauman
Slow Angle Walk (Beckett Walk)
Union Station, West Wing, 65 Front Street West

A single-channel fixed camera video from 1968, Slow Angle Walk, captures Nauman repeating a laborious sequence of body movements for nearly an hour. The work was inspired by passages in books by Samuel Beckett, where characters walk with stiffened legs or an unbalanced and awkward gait. Nauman recorded the video with the camera on its side so that he appears to be walking up a wall.


Nuit Blanche takes place from sunset to sunrise tomorrow morning. Visit the website, where projects are organized by artist name, project title or venue, here, or use the mobile guide tonight, here.

Santiago Sierra | Europe

Santiago Sierra
Europe
Munich, Germany: Schellman Editions , 2009
12" vinyl LP
Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies

A-side: "National Anthems Of The 27 States Of The European Community Played Simultaneously And Continously"
B-side:  "National Anthem Of The European Community Played Backwards And Continously"


Available from the publisher, here, (price on request).