Carreras
Mugica

“Imagining the analysis of the social and political systems of our day through the figures of clowns, harlequins and hands does not seem at all strange in these times. It is true that the division between individual and persona has never been so relevant.

Perhaps, as Juan Pérez Agirregoikoa’s entire practice indicates, the very exercise of politics in the order Western countries inherited after the Second World War entails adopting a persona. It seems complex to do politics from and for the street, doing politics and keeping the profile of a simple, normal citizen.

The taste for the freaky, the weird, the extreme is directly related to the sensation that things are not working, that we have no power or influence to change the course of things. What things? The things of social justice and the intellectual life of the globe, those things that interest Juan Pérez.

His work possesses the power of eloquence and is capable of convincing us that painting is a suitable means to talk about the health of our public space, our ability to allow ourselves to be seduced by the power of presences that simply occupy everything, in the media, in our conversations, in our jokes, in our mockery.

While some occupy all this space, others lose all those opportunities to construct better thinking, a better way to live, a fairer and more finely-tuned political practice that is better able to address the crux of matters without just staying on the surface of that world of unhappy, unfair laughter.

Come! It will be worth it.”

Curated by: Chus Martínez