The National Gallery and a/political present
EAST / WEST. Andrey Molodkin / Santiago Sierra
Opening: Tuesday, 26 November, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
In the exhibition “East / West,” Andrey Molodkin and Santiago Sierra are brought together by their strong political stances and the pressing questions they raise about contemporary democracy. Both artists are renowned for their provocative responses to the current social and political climate, often facing personal risks.
Andrei Molodkin presents a series of ballpoint pen-on-paper sketches dedicated to some of the most notorious political prisoners of our time, including Julian Assange and Alexei Navalny, who died in a Russian prison in February this year.
Created over the past two years, these works confront the fates of these figures directly and unflinchingly. Molodkin’s portraits of Assange, the Australian journalist, internet activist, and founder of WikiLeaks, reflect his time in a London jail, where he was detained at the request of the US government for leaking military information. The series culminates in a piece titled “Date of Freedom” (May 2024). In this large-format portrait, the space for the date is left blank, symbolizing the hope that Assange himself will complete the work upon his release. Remarkably, Assange personally inscribes the date of June 24, 2024.
In February of this year, Molodkin publicly announced that he was taking $45,000,000 worth of artworks, including pieces by Rembrandt and Picasso, hostage as an artistic gesture supporting Julian Assange and the principles of freedom of expression and access to information. He threatened to destroy these artworks in the event of Assange’s death in prison, describing it as a “Dead Man’s Switch.”
Molodkin and Sierra argue that the existence of political prisoners is a critical indicator of the health of democratic institutions and their approach to human rights.
Santiago Sierra’s work, “Political Prisoners in Contemporary Spain” (2018), consists of a series of black-and-white photographs that display the texts of political accusations against politicians, activists, artists, and journalists. This series illustrates the author’s perspective on the state of civil liberties. Notably, it faced censorship and was removed from an exhibition in Madrid during the year it was created.
“Veterans” is a recurring theme in Sierra’s work, where he presents full-length figures facing the wall as a symbol of shame. These anonymous participants in various armed confrontations are depicted as elements of a dehumanized, aggressive, and repressive collective instrument of power, irrespective of the reasons, times, or places involved—whether it be Germany, Afghanistan, Iraq, Britain, Kosovo, Yemen, Syria, or Spain.
In Sierra’s video “The Maelstrom” (2023), images of footballers from the Gambian national team intersperses with scenes of police arrests of black youths to the soundtrack of the statement “Europe is a garden… Most of the rest of the world is a jungle… Gardeners must go to the jungle…” uttered by European Commissioner for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell in 2022. The passivity of the human figures and the cynicism of the audiophone merge with the author’s vision vis-à-vis the persistence of colonialism and racism.
Molodkin’s works with the identical title “Democracy,” supplemented with specifications for the medium – “blood plates” (2024) or “sculpture of oil and light” (2019), are characterized by the term gaining popularity “political minimalism,” that emerged after the 2009 exhibition “Political/Minimal,” curated by Klaus Biesenbach, with works by politically engaged artists such as Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Monica Bonvicini, Alfredo Jaar, and Ai Weiwei. The definition refers to works with a powerful political message using recognizable symbolic materials. In Molodkin’s view, crude oil, steel, blood, and capital rule the contemporary world regardless of the political constructs and rhetoric that shape them.
Political art like Molodkin’s and Sierra’s holds particular significance at critical societal moments. It appeals not so much to the viewer’s aesthetically oriented gaze as to the whole of society to remove it from habits and clichés. Challenging, shocking, and aggressive, it is a necessary corrective to democracy.
*** a/political explores radical knowledge through the principle of Cultural Terror. Working with artists and agitators, the collective platforms voices that undermine the dominant narratives of our time. a/political functions through interventions, commissions, and a collection of modern and contemporary art featuring politically engaged artists such as John Heartfield, Nancy Spero, Gustav Metzger, and Cassils alongside representations of the a/political projects.
Becky Haghpanah-Shirwan
Director, a/political
Media partner: BTA / Bulgarian News Agency