 Removal of the Inca’s moneybox | [PRESS RELEASE (12 February 2008)] | 122 kB |
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MADRID ABIERTO INFORMATIVE NOTE ON THE REMOVAL OF THE INCA’S MONEYBOX, BY ITS AUTHOR, Jota Castro.
Madrid Abierto is an international programme of temporary and ephemeral artistic interventions in Madrid’s public areas. Public art uses different means and strategies to activate public space, reflecting on our political, social and cultural background. Public art does not consist of previously elaborated works of art as if the street was a gallery or museum.
In the five editions, Madrid Abierto has produced a total of 55 interventions , some of which have been subject to graffiti, have suffered deterioration due to weather conditions or to people’s actions, removed by mistake or simply have disappeared. Every artist dedicated to public art is aware of this and even expect this level of irresolution and interaction with their interventions.
On the 6th of February the Incas’ moneybox, by Jota Castro was installed under the bridge of Juan Bravo. The next morning at10am authors of State of Exception project, located just across the street, alerted on its disappearance. The organizers (Cultural Association Madrid Abierto) started looking for it and alerted local services that found it, pulled out from its basis and thrown away. It had been recovered and was being kept in a municipal deposit without relevant damages.
Minutes before the press conference, in Cultural Centre de la Villa at 12am, to present Madrid Abierto, we personally told about the recovery with the satisfaction of its author who, obviously upset by the situation had also talked to those responsible for City Hall’s cultural projects and the general management of archives, museums and libraries of Comunidad de Madrid, as well as with Altadis Foundation, main sponsors of the event.
During the programme presentation and when one of the curators mentioned the incident and the immediate reinstallation, Jota Castro asked for permission to speak. In his intervention he read a text written for his piece and announced that due to lack of respect to his art he was to remove his piece, saying that he would do a performance, which consisted basically of establishing a comparison between what he thought about the incident and the explanations that had been given to him: he wrote on the presentation’s promotional poster, he stepped on it and dragged it around the floor, repeating that he would remove his piece. Madrid Abierto’s management publicly accepted the removal. This artist’s intervention, No more no less, has been carried out as expected and with Jota Castro’s conformity, which he has expressed to the curators.
* Photograph: Manuel San Frutos
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