Isabel Díaz Ayuso has attended the inauguration of Arco 2025 on Wednesday, the most important contemporary art fair in Spain, which will keep its doors open until next Sunday, March 9. The president of the Community of Madrid has obviated in her journey the work of Ramón Mateos 7,291which refers to the dead in residences during pandemic. Nor is the rest of the delegation with which he has made his visit to Arco, formed by the kings of Spain, the Minister of Culture Ernest Urtasun, the mayor of the city José Luis Martínez-Almeida and the Secretary of State for Culture Jordi Martí, among others.
The author of the piece valued at 15,000 euros, Ramón Mateos, has been working with data and figures for some time, as shown by his polyptic CRISIS Performed in 2024 – also explained in Arco -, which includes, through dates, all the financial crises of the history, from the first in 1637 to the present: more than 20 in just 400 years, with which the question raises: “Are they not caused by the capitalist system itself as a mechanism of strengthening and self -regulation?”. In front of her is in the Spanish gallery stand 7,291a curtain made with black chains on which they are printed, blank, the aforementioned number. A work of which Ayuso has decided to pass by and on which he has not made any mention.
“We came to Ifema five years after the pandemic and it seemed important to make a reflection around things that have happened in our most immediate environment,” the artist acknowledges. Ramón Mateos emphasizes that the arch headquarters is precisely the space that the Ayuso government transformed into a hospital during the Health crisis of COVID-19. He also quotes Samuel Beckett: “He said that art is not a mirror that reflects society, which is rather a hammer that helps us to configure it and to shape.”
The Madrid creator supports his position, since for him, the work of the artists, who work with “symbolic capital”, goes through “helps to analyze in the head what has happened in our environment.” “Going through here without reminding people who lost their lives in very dramatic situations seemed to me that it would be a little strange thing,” he values.
Ramón Mateos indicates that, within this context, he considered that this figure was in itself “very imposing”, although immediately. “I don’t know if it will be so, because there is this feeling that nothing has changed. This woman continues, ”he recalls referring to Ayuso. 7,291 is not the only figure that left the health crisis of COVID-19, but Ramón Mateos clarifies that he chose it because “it refers to an issue that has happened in Madrid and has to do with a series of political decisions.”
“It has not happened about something that has come to us and we know why, but there are those who have a political responsibility, who make decisions about our lives, that affect us and have had very sad and brutal consequences,” he argues. Even so, he says he does not want to “judge what had to do.”
The work of the artists, who work with symbolic capital, is to help analyze already having in the head what happened in our environment. Going here without remembering people who lost their lives in very dramatic situations seemed a bit weird
Ramón Mateos
– Author of the work ‘7,921’
Asked about Ayuso’s possible visit to the gallery, the artist pointed out that he would have no “problem” in explaining his creation to the president of the Community of Madrid. “This is not a thing that goes against anyone in particular. When one has a position of responsibility, he is also on the part of us as a society to call into question the decisions that have been made, ”he says. In any case, the PP leader has not given him the option of commenting on his work.
Figures that are wearing in memory
The author, who has reflected in several of his works regarding the figures, considers that they are something that “helps to understand and clarify” what happens around, but “at the same time is the easiest thing to forget. Just as it appears, it disappears. ” And he cites as an example the number of people who lost their lives crossing in 2004 the Mediterranean, from North Africa to Europe: “It came out one day in the press and disappeared, and that are the most bulky data since there are records.”
Ramón Mateos wanted to represent this duality by inserting the number inside a curtain. “This mechanism that allows us to go to the other side and that, in some way, we also wearing it with use, as we do with one’s memory; By force of using it, or counting it, it fades and we lose it. That’s why it seemed like a good way to tell it, ”he says. And he defends that creating it for the contemporary art fair does not respond to “a frivolity, a free thing, or opportunism.” On the contrary, he argues that this is an “important” time to remember that “these things happen and have happened.”
“The political class is not interested in art”
Angustias Freijo, owner of the Madrid gallery that houses the work of Ramón Mateos, believes that “no” believes that Ayuso “likes art, because the political class is not fond of art.” “I think the last one who did interest was Don Manuel Azaña, and I think he has been a hundred years. That is the panorama we have, ”he laments. In his gallery, the work of Rocío Garriga, Concha Jerez and Olalla Gómez is also exposed. Artists and pieces that have not been part of the visit to Arco 2025 of the president of the Community of Madrid. Of course, there are still four days of fair, in which the PP leader would be in time to acquire the work 7,291which is valued at 15,000 euros.
#Ayuso #opens #arc #visiting #work #remembers #deaths #residences #pandemic
