“Monument tourism standardizes cities”

Reimagine utopia and dystopia as an architect who not only invents, but signals and pronounces with a certain humor: “Because humor can be used to decide the most tragic and terrible,” he states.

Arturo Sorio’s Lineal City is the starting point for his next project after the award-winning retrospective he presented at MACBA last year.

Please. How did a major retrospective take place in an institutional gallery space with a significant change in scale and audience?

Response. Good luck. I’m very excited to work with so many hands on this exhibition because I’m looking forward to something so big where I come from. You intend to return to the statue and object. It’s been fun because I’ve been working a lot on collaborative projects over the last few years, like the video I’m featuring, Modena paradewhich involved more than 500 people, 100 in production. I had the strength to turn to myself.

P. Why this title?

R. I present some songs inspired by slogans that have been used in Spanish tourism for 40 years, not so much for foreigners, but also for its promotion among Spaniards. We have “Alegría y descanso”, “Spain is different”, “Passion for life” and “Everything Under The Sun”the illustration of this announcement was, of course, a story by Miró.

P. Explanations that could illustrate the campaign for the same Lineal City…

R. Yes. Let’s note that Arturo Soria thought the way he did an imaginary line that runs from Cádiz to St. Petersburg y de Bruselas in Beijing. Imagine an avenue that covers the entire territory. A single city, but with different languages, alphabets, religions, what identity would there be?

P. Usted studied the history of art, architecture and design. What is your inclination towards artistic production?

R. I’ve thought about all of this before, but I’ve also been through the theater. Ultimately, it is a synergy of interests. What interests me is the idea of ​​what a city is and how it is built.

P. what is a city

R. Something that is constantly changing, in permanent motion. I am fascinated by Brasilia, for example, which has since been built on a place where it had nothing, but has grown old. I’ve thought about those things, but people strangely walk those paths of desire, those steps. We can also imagine the Lineal City and think of it as a suburb or extraradio of contemporary cities everything seems to be there.

P. Is this the city you represent in your models?

R. Yes, I wanted to form this continuous suburb where there are factories, shopping malls, building blocks… All suburbs look like that.

P. Also the center, taken by the French.

R. Resorts are deserted; anyone wanted to live there, until there was tourism of the created monuments, uniforming all cities. Tourist experiences are the same. In my models, these suburbs are represented by foreign words (“It is forbidden to sing happy songs” or “Alegría y descanso”) that float like a dystopian and inquisitive Big Herman atop the streets.

P. Among the pieces is an installation with a large bus parade.

R. Yes, it is inspired by a real Armenian parade. The guard gives you a techo, but obliges you to share this “temporary casita” with other people. It seems trite, but it is something shared in a public space. When you hope, the head moves very slowly because you are in constant motion. I find it interesting to compare this situation with strangers.

P. Considering your theater and theater experience, do you use it when designing the courses of your shows?

R. In this case, yes. In each space there is a specific and clear situation; It holds its own uniqueness. In exchange at MACBA, where he exhibited works thirty years apart, it was the other way around: he asked for the works to be mixed and contaminated. In the MACBA lineup, we wanted to recreate how we moved around the city, including lost or abandoned pieces. It is important that there are spaces that I cannot control: there is a life that can happen.

“What interests me is the idea that what a city is and how it is built is something in constant motion”

P. Another sign of identity is the way it works displaya device that accompanies watching a video or a sculpture: a stamp or case that makes the experience of receiving his work fun and surprising.

R. Thank you very much. From the beginning, I thought a lot about the viewer, even physically. Works do not have a separate life if they are in relation to the body. I always hated it black box: What’s going on in your space? Not only objects matter if we relate to them.

P. Urban utopia is the starting point of your work.

R. Yona Friedman said something very interesting. There are many people in the field who settle in the periphery, but they draw all their customs from their countries in Asia or Africa: they bring animals, plant a plant… Why not imagine another country town?

P. Friedman’s words hackean normative city.

A. We made a city among all. I present here a collage of a person who fascinates me, which is Ceausescu, who wanted to go to the fields in Romania and who the whole world moved to the city; and you have a photo that represents a giant set of blocks, all the same. This is the dictator who calls himself an urban planner. Walking down the street and doing what you do every day is being a city.

P. “The street is mine,” as Fraga Iribarne said.

R. (Ríe) Of course: “Spain is different” was also his invention.

P. In 2017, we were represented in Spain at the Venice Biennale. How do you remember it?

R. It was rare to live in Venice. She was obsessed with tourist equipment and found that everything had to be a real city; and as for the show part, it was a great gift. It’s strange because It is an outdated model that often attracts more visitors.

P. Are you after this exhibition?

R. I can’t tell you, but it’s something illusory, also in Madrid.