Art / Mexico

Santiago Sierra

05:08 / 13.01.2008
David Barrington
London

Whilst conceptual art in the 1960's and 70's very successfully led to the total dematerialisation of the art object, from a craft based practice to one where tracking turtles could be seen as a work of art. It could be argued that the genre indulged too much in logical systems. Whilst it signalled a move away from sellable objects, the pamphlets and photography left behind from the era have now been commodified and traded, rendering the project politically sterile.

Not so the works of Santiago Sierra, who has been using the techniques and 'style' of the period, (actions rather than objects, black & white framed photography) for the last twenty years.

Sierra chooses to engage with the very real problems created by economic systems of 'first' world countires for workers in so called 'third' world countries. Now this sounds quite boring, but the absurd lengths he goes to get points across actually give his work a wit usually absent from much political artworks.

He's currently got an exhibition on at the Lisson Gallery in London, from the warning plaque installed outside to the blocks of human excrement dried for three years and shipped to the gallery, his scathing critique of the apathy of capitalist societies does not let up for a second, and dazzles logistically in its ambition and breadth.