The corpse of a woman is lying on the pavement of some pedestrian street in Seville. Many people remain paralyzed with fear in front of the body, others go on their way avoiding to look at the throbbing horror that remains on the pavement. The same body, now surrounded by mannequins, is part of a lingerie shop window. And those who stop in front of the glass of the shop barely distinguish between the texture of skin and that of the plastic, between the color of a living body and that of inert matter.

These lines that seem to describe our reality, are part of the radical bet of Seville-born artist Pilar Albarracín, who through her performances, sculptures, paintings, photographs, fabrics and installations, she masterfully evokes the violence against women, and embodies perfectly the fight against the gender and flamenco representations, often contaminated with clichés and prejudices begotten and consolidated during Franco´s regimen, and which now continue defining the cultural hegemony in which we are both victims and executioners.

A point. Serie Carne y tiempo, (2018)

Abuse against women, overuse of her body and progressive trivialization, as well as the overall package of clichés and tags that represents female identity in a equivocal manner, these compose the main lines of Pilar Albarracín’s work, an artist that understands art like an enunciation place in which social participation and criticism are possible; Albarracín illustrates it “con maña y desparpajo” (a local expression that means achieving something with great audacity and self-confidence) in each of her public-space performances, those in which the artist challenges the spectator through an unexpected factor disturbing and making the subject uncomfortable, taking him to the purest Catharsis, the same state that captures the author herself during the creative process.

A sort of Catharsis that reminds us of the Greek tragedies and the release experimented by Ancient Greece’s audience when they attended the performance of their own conflicts embodied in another body. There is tragedy in the dead female corpses that compose S/T (Sangre en la calle) series (1992); there is also tragedy in the display windows that exhibit disguised women wearing silk and microfiber clothes along with plastic dolls whose slender bodies are really near toxic, works from the Escaparates (1993-1995) series. There was, and continues to be, tragedy in a woman’s body.

Lunares (2000), Pilar Albarracín

However, the Sevillian artist’s work not only transpires tragic irony but also excess, lack of control, satire, mockery and madness –so characteristic of Dionysius, father of comedy– also play a leading role in her projects articulating an artistic imaginary replete with parodies and tragicomedies in which references to excess, pain, blood, bulls, wine, comedy, flamenco, female body and red color abound, the same red color that stains every scene and that which symbolizes the believe as such lo español (essentially “Spanish”), whose meaning we are still perverting.

Asnería (2010), Pilar Albarracín

In the video-performance Lunares (2001) we can watch Albarracín dressed in white flamenco clothing that she gradually colors by stabbing with a pin various parts of her body creating red polka-dots; or Prohibido el Cante (2000), in which the artist is wearing a Sevillian dress and she is singing her lamentations, songs that grow in crescendo until they become orgasmic wailings, until she ruins her dress and tears her heart out throwing it to the “tablao flamenco” (flamenco stage). Thus, Albarracín’s universe, which so well defines our present, strongly connects with the sacrifice tradition, very characteristic of the stark Baroque era, also passing through the critique of Spanish tradition developed by Goya, and just as through kitch poetics.

Flamencas (2009), Pilar Albarracín

The exhibition Pilar Albarracín. Que me quiten lo bailao will be on view until January 27, 2019, in Tabacalera - Promoción del Arte.

ABIERTO INFINITO. LO QUE EL CUERPO RECUERDA. CICLO DE PERFORMANCE X ART MADRID'26

Art Madrid, committed to creating a discursive platform for artists working within the field of performance and action art, presents Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda, a proposal inspired by Erving Goffman’s ideas in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Amorrortu Editores, Buenos Aires, 1997).

The project unfolds within a theoretical framework that directly engages with these premises, conceiving social interaction as a stage of carefully modulated performances designed to influence others’ perceptions. Goffman argues that individuals deploy both verbal and involuntary expressions to guide the interpretation of their behavior, sustaining roles and façades that define the situation for those who observe.

The body — the first territory of all representation — precedes both word and learned gesture. Human experience, conscious and unconscious alike, is inscribed within it. Abierto Infinito: lo que el cuerpo recuerda departs from this premise: representation inhabits existence itself, and life, understood as a succession of representations, transforms the body into a space of constant negotiation over who we are. In this passage, boundaries blur; the individual opens toward the collective, and the ephemeral acquires symbolic dimension. By inhabiting this interstice, performance simultaneously reveals the fragility of identity and the strength that emerges from encounter with others.

PERFORMANCE: OFF LINE. JIMENA TERCERO

March 7 | 7:00 p.m. Galería de Cristal of the Palacio de Cibeles.

OFF LINE is a performance piece that reflects on the fragility of the body in the digital age. Our relationship with the outside world is mediated by a screen, which distances us further and further from physical contact and interpersonal relationships. Focusing on creating a digital identity causes the body to distance itself from the physical world and lose its memory.

Hyperconnectivity and fragmented attention lead to a more passive physical existence, characterised by reduced spontaneous movement and less direct sensory interaction. This raises fundamental questions: how is the concept of presence redefined when our relationship with the world relies on technological mediation? What will the experience of the body be like in a future where virtuality predominates over the physical? There is a risk of progressive bodily passivity: bodies that remain still, whose activity is determined by devices and whose memory is stored digitally. The fragmentation of physical experience and the primacy of technological representation create a scenario in which, although the body is visible, it is displaced from its original function as an agent of perception and action.

This conceptual framework invites reflection on the impact of digitisation on corporeality, memory and social relationships, and on the vulnerability and inertia experienced by bodies in environments that are increasingly mediated by technology.

ABOUT JIMENA TERCERO

Jimena Tercero (Madrid, 1998) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the boundaries of the female body, identity, and the subconscious. She uses performance, video, and painting to address concepts such as memory, tangibility, and play. Tercero trained in painting with Lola Albín and in analog photography at Cambridge in 2014. She studied audiovisual direction from 2018 to 2020 with renowned figures such as Víctor Erice and the production company El Deseo. She is currently pursuing a Master's degree in Creative Direction at ELISAVA. She completed her performance training at La Juan Gallery. In 2011, she was part of the children's jury at the Isfahan Film Festival in Iran.

Her directed works include Private (2016) and Paranoid (2021), which were exhibited at the Aspa Contemporary Gallery. She has also worked on projects such as Yo, mi, me, conmigo (2023, Teatros del Canal), Inside Voices (2021, Conde Duque with Itziar Okariz), and La última regla (La Juan Gallery). She has directed fashion films for publishers and brands such as Puma, Dior, and Dockers. She has also provided art direction for artists such as Sen Senra and Jorge Drexler. Additionally, she directed the documentary Also Here for ArtforChange–La Caixa. She presented Out of View (Nebula Gallery), EDEN (White Lab Gallery), and Navel Bite (Sinespacio). She participates in residencies such as Medialab with Niño de Elche and Miguel Álvarez Fernández. In 2025, she will be part of the Special Jury of the Asian Film Fest in Barcelona and the International Cultural Museum of Assilah Art Residency in Morocco).