Extraordinary Rendition
27 May - 19 Jul 2008
EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION
James Casebere, Elmgreen&Dragset, Alicia Framis & Santiago Sierra
May 27th – July 19th 2008
Opening hours: 11 am – 2 pm & 4:30 - 8:30 pm.
Opening: Tuesday May 27th 2008, at 8 pm.
Extraordinary Rendition is an expression coined by the Bush administration to define a series of the new legal measures designed to sidestep the existing Human Rights system and deprive citizens from its protection.
The excuse for these measures can be traced back to the “dirty war” in Latin America during the 1980s, yet it was with the 9-11 attacks when it really took off and gained visibility under the shelter of the so-called “war on terror”. Though outwardly minor steps, they nevertheless lead, little by little, to situations allowing or “legalising” illegal detentions and torture under euphemistic formulas.
For instance, laws like the “Patriot Act” limit, if not completely abolish, citizens’ right to privacy or freedom of expression while at once allowing for kidnapping and confinement of persons without charges, without trial or a detention period as has been happening in Guantanamo since 2002. Physical and psychological torture is even justified with a system of euphemisms in which methods of torture described back in medieval treatises are now given new names, like “waterboarding”, in an attempt to disguise their true meaning.
This project brings together a number of specific works by four artists addressing this issue:
James Casebere (1953, Michigan, USA) has created a series of photo he calls “Flooded Cells”. These images conjure up allusions to prisons, claustrophobic and oppressive spaces somehow reminiscent of Piranesi’s carceri yet also referencing the method of torture by simulated drowning.
Elmgreen & Dragset (1961, Michael Elmgreen, Copenhagen, Denmark & 1969, Ingar Dragset, Trondheim, Norway). This is the only work on exhibit that has not been created specifically for the show. “Phone Home” (2003) looks at the loss of the right to intimacy in communications. A series of telephone cabins offer free connection with the whole world but at the same time they record all these private conversations and make them available to the public.
Alicia Framis (1967, Barcelona, Spain) is presenting the first part of a wider project called “Welcome to Guantánamo Museum” displaying and documenting all the constitutive elements of a hypothetical museum on the installations at the US detention centre in Cuba. Scale models, drawings, floor plans and structures are exhibited together with an audio piece created with the collaboration of Enrique Vila Matas and Blixa Bargeld.
Santiago Sierra (1966, Madrid, Spain) has also come up with a work addressing torture and one of its most commonly applied methods: the sleep deprivation of detainees for days and months. A huge spotlight operated by a generator are the only elements in “Público iluminado con generador de gasolina” [Public illuminated by oil generator].
James Casebere, Elmgreen&Dragset, Alicia Framis & Santiago Sierra
May 27th – July 19th 2008
Opening hours: 11 am – 2 pm & 4:30 - 8:30 pm.
Opening: Tuesday May 27th 2008, at 8 pm.
Extraordinary Rendition is an expression coined by the Bush administration to define a series of the new legal measures designed to sidestep the existing Human Rights system and deprive citizens from its protection.
The excuse for these measures can be traced back to the “dirty war” in Latin America during the 1980s, yet it was with the 9-11 attacks when it really took off and gained visibility under the shelter of the so-called “war on terror”. Though outwardly minor steps, they nevertheless lead, little by little, to situations allowing or “legalising” illegal detentions and torture under euphemistic formulas.
For instance, laws like the “Patriot Act” limit, if not completely abolish, citizens’ right to privacy or freedom of expression while at once allowing for kidnapping and confinement of persons without charges, without trial or a detention period as has been happening in Guantanamo since 2002. Physical and psychological torture is even justified with a system of euphemisms in which methods of torture described back in medieval treatises are now given new names, like “waterboarding”, in an attempt to disguise their true meaning.
This project brings together a number of specific works by four artists addressing this issue:
James Casebere (1953, Michigan, USA) has created a series of photo he calls “Flooded Cells”. These images conjure up allusions to prisons, claustrophobic and oppressive spaces somehow reminiscent of Piranesi’s carceri yet also referencing the method of torture by simulated drowning.
Elmgreen & Dragset (1961, Michael Elmgreen, Copenhagen, Denmark & 1969, Ingar Dragset, Trondheim, Norway). This is the only work on exhibit that has not been created specifically for the show. “Phone Home” (2003) looks at the loss of the right to intimacy in communications. A series of telephone cabins offer free connection with the whole world but at the same time they record all these private conversations and make them available to the public.
Alicia Framis (1967, Barcelona, Spain) is presenting the first part of a wider project called “Welcome to Guantánamo Museum” displaying and documenting all the constitutive elements of a hypothetical museum on the installations at the US detention centre in Cuba. Scale models, drawings, floor plans and structures are exhibited together with an audio piece created with the collaboration of Enrique Vila Matas and Blixa Bargeld.
Santiago Sierra (1966, Madrid, Spain) has also come up with a work addressing torture and one of its most commonly applied methods: the sleep deprivation of detainees for days and months. A huge spotlight operated by a generator are the only elements in “Público iluminado con generador de gasolina” [Public illuminated by oil generator].