El Angel Exterminador - A Room for Spanish Contemporary Art

El Ángel Exterminador brings together works by 28 contemporary artists from Spain. The group exhibition includes paintings, sculpture, photographs, videos, and installations. The curator, Fernando Castro Flórez selected a number of well-known artists, including Enrique Marty, Bernardí Roig, Santiago Sierra, Rodrigo García, Dora García, and Lara Almarcegui. This allows the exhibition to offer a varied picture of the contemporary Spanish art scene.

The exhibition's starting point is the Spanish surrealist Luis Buñuel's 1962 film El Ángel Exterminador. Buñuel's claustrophobic film follows what happens to a number of upper-class gentlemen and ladies who are invited to a luxurious dinner in a villa. After dinner it turns out that, for some unexplained reason, the guests are unable to leave the room. Days go by and tensions soon mount between the guests; this leads to the death of one guest, a double suicide, hysterical quarrels, and hallucinations about demons from Hell. Buñuel makes use of symbols, associations, and visually stunning images to strip away the bourgeoisie's veneer of civilisation until they become completely dehumanised and behave like wild animals. Fernando Castro Flórez has taken the film as a starting point because he believes that a group exhibition – like the room in the film – is also a space within which anything can happen. The exhibition space takes advantage of the field of tension between the need to escape and the desire to stay inside. In this exhibition the curator investigates the experience of limits and the different ways of overstepping limits.

The exhibition is conceived as a "tableau vivant": a living picture in which the theatrical dimension is central. For this reason, El Ángel Exterminador also includes a complementary section with performance art. Five artists (Paco Cao, Rodrigo García, Olga Mesa, La Ribot, and Esther Ferrer) will each give a dance or theatre performance in the adjoining room.

El Ángel Exterminador is organised in the framework of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

Artists in "El Ángel Exterminador" Abraham Lacalle, Amparo Sard, Belén Uriel, Bernardí Roig, Bestué Y Vives, Concha Pérez, Diego Santomé, Dionisio González, Domingo Sánchez Blanco, Dora García, Enrique Marty, Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Fernando Sinaga, Gonzalo Puch, Jacobo Castellano, Jaume Pitarch, Javier Pérez, Jesús Segura, José Ramón Amondarain, Juan Luis Moraza, Lara Almarcegui, Mateo Maté, Nacho Criado, Pep Durán, Rodrigo García, Santiago Sierra, Txomin Badiola, Xavier Arenós

Curator: Fernando Castro Flórez Co-production: BOZAR EXPO | SEACEX - Sociedad Estatal para la Accion Cultural Exterior | Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación | Ministerio de Cultura With the collaboration of: Embassy of Spain

El Angel Exterminador
A Room for Spanish Contemporary Art
Kurator: Fernando Castro Florez

Künstler: Abraham Lacalle, Amparo Sard, Belen Uriel, Bernardi Roig, David Bestue / Marc Vives, Concha Perez, Diego Santome, Dionisio Gonzalez, Domingo Sanchez Blanco, Dora Garcia, Enrique Marty, Fernando Sanchez Castillo, Fernando Sinaga, Gonzalo Puch, Jacobo Castellano, Jaume Pitarch, Javier Perez , Jesus Segura, Jose Ramon Amondarain, Juan Luis Moraza, Lara Almarcegui, Mateo Mate, Nacho Criado, Pep Duran, Rodrigo Garcia, Santiago Sierra, Txomin Badiola, Xavier Arenos