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!

In the year 2020 in the heart of Barcelona a wandering gallery was born, the same one that in February 2021 would debut at Art Madrid with an exhibition proposal focused on contemporary portraits; with this subject matter it would manage to create a powerful dialogue between artwork and audience and make the seal Inéditad remain in the history of the event that contained it.

Jean Carlos Puerto. Protección. Oil and copper leaf on wood. 60 x 48. 2021. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Since that first time and until today, the wandering gallery has managed to build projects on otherness, has repositioned in the spotlight the discourses on the LGTBIQ+ collective, has consolidated a group of artists who share its principles of resilience and empathy and the best thing is that it continues to bet from the professionalism and commitment to give voice to the difference.

Claudio Petit-Laurent.. El Joven de la Perla. Oil on wood. 30 x 30 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Inéditad Gallery, thanks to its founder Luis López, its collaborators and the infinite possibilities manifested in the works of the artists it represents, is a gallery that has demonstrated its capacity and courage to stimulate the sensibility of the public through art and seduce a generation that moves between the glass window and the analogical story. Inéditad is a nomadic gallery that has gathered around it a community of artists and has moved the context with exhibition projects that think about LGTBIQ+ art without prejudices.

Pepa Salas Vilar. Las marcas del arcoiris. Oil on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 2022. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Pride and Prejudice was inaugurated. An exhibition that brings together the works of sixteen artists: Abel Carrillo, Alex Domènech, Carlos Enfedaque, Silvia Flechoso, Jamalajama, Daniel Jaén, Claudio Petit-Laurent, Jean Carlos Puerto, Fernando Romero, Pablo Rodríguez, Pepa Salas Vilar, Jack Smith, Pablo Sola, Bran Sólo, Elia Tomás and Utürüo. Painting, illustration, photography and digital art are the manifestations that bring into dialogue around fifty neatly threaded pieces, in a discursive line that discusses such a latent phenomenon as discrimination. To achieve this, the artists invited to the exhibition question themselves whether: Does discrimination exist within the LGTBIQ+ collective?

Pride and Prejudice Official Poster. Image courtesy of the gallery.

With approaches on and from the body, the proposal invites to celebrate diversity, proposes to question and self-question the prejudices and attitudes of society against the collective. Pride and Prejudice is a space for dialogue about the constructs imposed on us by society. It is also an oasis in which to deconstruct with tolerance and respect the subjectivities that sometimes prevent us from approaching the production of the participating artists, simply because "the beautiful" does not fit in an androgynous body. The subjugation of stereotypes are pressed with determination to find the beauty of diversity in other palpable facets of reality.

Pablo Sola. All men are dogs. Photography. 2014. Image courtesy of the gallery.

Throughout these three years Inéditad has stimulated the vindictive projection towards bad practices, has questioned estates around the LGTBIQ+ body and the most admirable thing, is that these capacities have resurfaced around the dialogue and the visual narrative of the stories that are told from the visual: Artworks that are people, art that is, per se, humanity. Overcome impositions and accept what is different in order to continue fighting against homophobia, biphobia, lesbophobia or transphobia and defend the equal rights that all the acronyms of the collective deserve in our community.

That's Pride and Prejudice: One creature, the happiest in the world. And maybe other projects and other people have said it - or felt it - before, but none so fairly.

Silvia Flechoso. Hola, soy maricón. Oil on canvas. 73 x 54 cm. 2023. Image courtesy of the gallery.

From June 8th until June 22nd you can visit Pride and Prejudice. Carrer de Palau núm. 4. Canal Gallery space. Barcelona.