30 de enero de 2013, Lenin tenía razón Mr. Goebbels
[30 January 2013, Lenin was right Mr. Goebbels] (2013)
Screen printing on paper76x56.5 cm each / set approx. 350 x 160 cm
BA Collection
Inventory No.: 2013.251.15
‘He was right fifteen times. They shook hands fifteen times despite having reproached each other for everything that was reprehensible. Fifteen times they greeted each other kindly, as if nothing had happened. In reality, the raison d’être of one lies in the existence of the other – at the same time – by declaring fifteen thousand times that the other is not necessary and is surplus. But they have to occasionally shake hands at least fifteen times, with light and stenographers, so that each one can continue in his position, fifteen more years, fifteen centuries more…’ (Arturo/fito Rodriguez Bornaetxea. Text taken from Rude but nude. Todo por la parti, 2013)
Pau Figueres Ortiz juxtaposes two historical figures loaded with symbolism in order to make the viewer reflect on how political manipulation and the construction of collective narratives continue to be part of our societies. The choice of screen printing establishes a direct link with the languages of propaganda, poster design and mass reproduction, thus reinforcing the critique of the mechanisms of ideological dissemination. The dialectic between original and copy, inherent in the graphic arts, is at the core of the work. On the one hand, printmaking was used from very early on to reproduce famous paintings, and was a means of copying; on the other hand, all the prints in a print run are the same reproductions of the same master document and, as a ‘multiple work’, they are considered originals on a par. However, this is not entirely true, as there are tiny variations in each print run when using non-industrialised processes; Pau Figueres Ortiz here highlights the political reading of this accumulation of contradictions, and turns the medium into part of the message.
The work is part of the Rude but Nude project, which to quote the artist: ‘arises from a series of personal reflections on identity problems, feelings for the homeland, for the nation, roots and ultimately a series of concepts that push us to believe once again in something intangible: What is homeland? What is identity? What are roots? Why do sovereignty issues resurface so forcefully in the face of a climate of political disenchantment and an economy weakened by a system that is increasingly difficult to sustain? This project seeks to be an even-handed and at the same time ironic look at the conflicts that arise from the coexistence of different cultures within the same society. Rude but nude is an action of recycling, remixing and decontextualising the information arising from the Basque-Spanish conflict, as a catharsis or vomiting at a historical moment in which the situation seeks to come to an end’.
Pau Figueres Ortiz (Benidorm, 1976) lives in Astigarraga and works between his studio in Donostia/San Sebastián and the Leioa Faculty of Fine Arts (UPV/EHU), where he lectures at the Department of Sculpture and Art and Technology. He has a PhD in Contemporary Art from the UPV/EHU (2022), in conjunction with the School of Visual Arts at Penn State University. His work address hypermodernism from the allegorical paradox of the DJ, by remixing pre-existing resources to generate an autonomous outcome, that at the same time keeps certain references to the original intact.