Claudia Schiffer, Pachi Santiago or Claudio? Friday, March 1 at 7:00 p.m. You can enjoy the performance "Copying Claudia" by the artist Pachi Santiago at Art Madrid'19. Attendees can enter first hand the world of an artist who ironically plays with stereotypes and reflects on gender issues, the so-called fake fame as well as fashion.

Pachi Santiago, "Cerca desde lo masculino", 2012. Galería Zielinsky.

Pachi Santiago, the artist represented in this edition by the Zielinsky Gallery, is a multidisciplinary creator whose main line of work is in representation codes, with all of its implications. Identity, gender, ways in which we profile ourselves, ways of projecting our image as well as the way we are seen, are some of the issues that define his work. In reality, as he himself affirms, it is about seeing life "under another prism", investigating those folds that deeply characterize life and in which, in most cases, are the most important things happen.

Therefore, his work moves between "a thin line among the enigma, the absurd, aesthetics, surrealism, drama, solitude and humour, creating symbolic images and mysterious characters, located in a kind of parallel instant that in reality represent the emotions of our own life." The languages and formal strategies he employs are very varied, working photography, video, illustration and even more hybrid creation, and configuring a very personal and fantastic imagination. After the success of projects such as "Ausentes", "Hybrids", "Sonÿ la musa", "Fábula project" or "Utopia House", the artist will present a performance of another of his most celebrated series: "Copying Claudia".

Pachi Santiago, "Scarface", 2016. Galería Zielinsky.

The German top model Claudia Schiffer, focusing on that version portrayed by the recently deceased master, Karl Lagerfeld, is one of the great obsessions of this artist. His admiration for the work of both of them, sublimated by the process of mythification and adoration so very characteristic of our time, leads the artist to this series of almost total symbiosis. Santiago plays with the identity of Schiffer and his own, he repeats her photographs or commercial videos, enters fully into her universe but without losing his own personality. The artist proposes to rethink the aesthetics and media icons, the power of fashion and our individual aspirations, so often frustrated by not appearing enough to our idol.

Masquerades, deceptions and disappointments, games of admired and admirers, criticism, humour and certain magic, to reflect on issues relevant today such as gender, fashion and so-called fake fame stereotypes. "The man assuming a role that supposedly is attributed to a woman; the stereotyped relationship between artist and muse seen from another point of view, treating the muse as something globally independent from its genre; the man also reified; or the power of being different in a universe in which we aspire to be or to reach something far beyond ourselves". Great problems such as gender as well as differences to distort through so many clichés that flood our daily tasks and our most intimate dreams.

Pachi Santiago, "Disfraz", 2016. Galería Zielinsky.

ust for a determinate period of time, an Art Madrid space will become a very unique photographic set. In that live fashion shooting a camera will record the actions and poses of Pachi Santiago and can be seen live on a screen installed next to the set. Another television will show the images of Claudia Schiffer in which the artist is inspired to pose, trying to do it as his muse in the original photos, reflecting her expressions, playing to be another character: that "Me Claudio", the alter ego between Schiffer and he himself under an ironic look.

Santiago does not care about the fact that he does or not resembles her, but that he wants to interpret being it even if he does not succeed. This romantic, freak and melancholic factor has a lot to do with the essence of the project, something that you can enjoy live in the new edition of Art Madrid, where, Santiago will explain this work to you in person. Don’t miss it!

The CEART opens this Thursday, November 14th in the room A an exhibition dedicated to this master of photography, which will be open to the public until February 9th. The show includes one of the artist's latest projects, focused on the hard work carried out by the miners of Serra Pelada, an open gold mine in the heart of Brazil where employees daily risked their lives.

Immigration, poverty, marginal life, slave labour, man's relationship with the land, the use of natural resources... are issues that have always fascinated Salgado. From the beginning of his career as a photographer, his work has opted to give visibility to the most disadvantaged groups and to create with his images a vivid and impressive visual story without fakes. With a raw black and white, this author's work transits between photo-reportage and naturalistic photography.

And the idea that permeates all his work is human dignity. Salgado portrays employees, miners and gatherers from a purely humanistic approach that wants to value their integrity, their strength and their resilience.

“If you photograph a human, so that he is not represented in a noble way, there is no reason to take the picture. That is my way of seeing things.”

Salgado entered this discipline long after completing his studies in economics between Brazil and the United States, and a doctorate in statistics in France. But in 1973 his life took a turn, and he decided to start his career as a photographer. He achieved to work at the Gamma Agency and Magnum Photos for more than 15 years until in 1994 he founded his own agency “Amazonas Imagen”.

With the “Gold” project, the photographer portrays a harsh reality that takes place in the Serra Pelada mine, a name given to a totally devastated and anarchically excavated mining enclave, the world's largest open-pit gold mine, through which more than 50,000 people have passed. In the heat of the legends about the mysterious “El Dorado”, the enthusiasm for this precious metal led to the development of strenuous exploitation practices for the workers and to originate tales of grief and glory, of human victory and defeat between the soil, the tunnels and the cargo baskets.

The CEART exhibition brings together Salgado's full portfolio in his characteristical black and white and large-format photographs that leave no one indifferent.