Works by Spanish artist Albarracín on exhibit at Cervantes Library

Spain's Pilar Albarracín is exhibiting her works at the Miguel de Cervantes Library in Shanghai.

"Facing the Rigidity of Forms" covers Albarracín's 30-year career with her most iconic videos and performances, as well as images and writings. It provides a comprehensive outlook on Spanish society and culture.

Albarracín's multidisciplinary works in video, performance, installation, drawing, and photography explore the relationship between social commitment and formal aesthetics. Humor, emotion, chromatic viability, and aesthetic beauty coincide with the rejection of inequality, prejudice, and dualism.

Starting from popular culture as a point of departure, the artist defends modernity, understood as freedom of thought and stripped of social, gender, or religious prejudices. To achieve this, she revisits tradition, freeing it from rituals and clichés established in another era for political and historical reasons.

One of the exhibition's highlights is "Rare Medium, Blue" from her series "Carne y Tiempo, 2018." The three striking photographs continue the artist's exploration of the unconscious in food culture. Ropes bind the artist in the picture, suspending her like a steak ready for consumption. The Sevillian regional garb she wears makes her appear almost raw. In the eyes of the artist, this woman is like a piece of meat hanging on the butcher's hook at the counter of the 21st century, where she can be served rare, medium, or just rare.

Exhibition info:

Date: Through June 17, 11am–6:30pm
Address: 208 Anfu Rd
Admission: free