english text 169 In the exhibition there are also works by other artists (such as Bernard Plossu, Javier Campano, Diana Blok, Carlos Cánovas and Manuel Sonseca) who focus on a somewhat melancholy and quite mythicised view of what living on the shores of the Mediterranean meant. They are representations in which the presence of various boats entering or leaving a port in a limpid, majestic dusk, the recreation of pieces of fishing tackle placed on a wall as if they were strange sculptures or the representation of lines of the horizon in which the blue of the sea mingles and merges into the sky simply strengthen the belief that there is an ideal geographical region in which beauty and poetry are the central features of a placid existence in which there is an absence of any kind of social, political or economic conflict. In this quick look at a group of paintings and photographs that helped to establish a very distinctive way of seeing and understanding existence in the geographical region of the Mediterranean in the last century, we must not fail to mention the example of one of the great Spanish artists deeply rooted in the constituent elements that are understood to be characteristic of this area. I am referring to Pablo Picasso (1881–1973), and in the exhibition here, leaving aside his well-known landscapes and figures, we are showing two works that speak to us of significant aspects, such as courage, boldness, sacrifice and the fight against death (Corrida de toros Bullfight, 1934) or friendship, affection and companionship between men (Les lutteurs The Wrestlers, 1921), in order to understand the idiosyncrasies of the “Mediterranean” life that is so envied and desired. However, in contrast to those pleasant views that are scarcely critical of the events that make up daily life in the Mediterranean, in recent years the artist Rogelio López Cuenca (1959) has worked intensely on questioning the ideological representation of the social and political conflicts that the Mediterranean signifies as an area of encounter and difference. An oeuvre that focuses on many of the “forgotten” or marginalised issues related to what is signified by a relationship, or the sharing of life, with other cultures and other people who are different from us. In his work he questions the representation of “others” (in this particular case, Arabs) in order to think about the ways in which each moment and circumstance allow us to name, perceive or understand their visibility and enunciation. One of the central aims of his work is to try to destabilise normative representations and question any “truth” based on a belief in opinions or facts of a unitary, universal nature that undervalue the historical and social circumstances that made them possible. For example, in the installation Bazar o la Alhambra sobrevivió (Bazaar or the Alhambra Survived), 1995–2001, López Cuenca works with objects and words (souvenirs, trinkets, T-shirts and so on) connected with the Alhambra and constructed by the hegemonic ideas. The purpose of all this is to destabilise the given signifier and suggest many other very different possibilities, attempting to dismantle any idea of normalisation of representations. Similarly, as the artist himself explained, the two videos that were shown in the exhibition of the project El Paraíso de los Extraños (The Paradise of the Strangers), 2000, “are intended to be read as a visual essay about the distribution of the visible – what is seen, what is shown, what is exhibited – or, to put it another way, who speaks, who has the right to speak … who looks and who is looked at: how the gaze depicts bodies, their place in the world.” In Haram (Forbidden), there is a non-linear survey of the representation of women in Arab countries. Woman is seen as an object of desire and fear, signifying an image of a taboo, of a strange, unknown being who can only be concealing something suspicious or accursed. The other video, Voyage en Orient (Journey to the Orient), concentrates on an ironical, critical reading of the many stereotypes (customs and landscapes) that have fed the more biased views of the countries of North Africa. In the three iconographic representations López Cuenca shows – and deconstructs – the more clichéd aspects of a mythicised genre view (which still prevails today) so that we may question the partial, superficial nature of what we are seeing. 2 Fright “I am not exotic I am exhausted”. Yto Barrada The relatively small size of the Mediterranean and the number of towns turned towards it would lead one to suppose that it is an easy sea to cross, a fluid area of cultural and economic encounter, coexistence and exchange. However, its history (especially tits most recent history) tells us of a difficult and complicated relationship between its various shores. The Mediterranean Sea has now become an arid boundary, a difficult barrier for thousands and thousands of migrants (from Sub- Saharan Africa, the Maghreb or the Middle East) who are desperately fleeing from their countries because of their grave economic problems and the unbearable conflicts, wars or political, religious and/or sexual persecutions perpetrated by the fanatical ideas, movements and regimes that are razing those territories and that are creating nothing but destruction and death. In response to this dramatic situation the countries on the north coasts of the Mediterranean have preferred to look further north, turning their backs to the sea to which they belong culturally and historically, and instead of establishing solid links with North Africa and the Middle East they have bound their political and economic future to the European Union. This is causing a dramatic humanitarian situation which reaches terrible limits every day, and at the same time it is converting the Mediterranean into a militarised border ruled by constant surveillance, in which methodical violence is turned against those who dare to cross it even at the
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