Spanish Artwork Denounced Political ‘Persecution.’ It Was Ordered Removed.
Of the attention caused by Wednesday’s order, she added jokingly, "I have the gallery since 1980
and I’ve never been as popular as this morning." "Contemporary Spanish Political Prisoners" includes the partially obscured portraits of Catalan politicians jailed since late last year while awaiting trial on charges of sedition and rebellion for leading the northeastern region’s drive to break from Spain.
As host of the fair, the center said it had a duty to avoid "discourses
that deviate attention away from the whole of the fair." But the director of the fair sought to distance himself from the order, saying it was not his decision, and politicians started squabbling on Wednesday over whether Mr. Sierra’s work should be reinstalled.
On Wednesday, the chill entered the realm of contemporary art, when Madrid’s main exhibition center ordered
that a work labeling Catalonia’s separatist leaders as political prisoners be removed from an international arts fair.
The exhibition center, known as Ifema, is controlled by the regional
and local governments of Madrid, though it remains unclear who exactly decided to order the removal of the work, "Contemporary Spanish Political Prisoners," by the artist Santiago Sierra.
The exhibition center said in a statement that it had vetoed the piece — a series of blurred facial images —
because it would undermine the "visibility" of other works at the fair, known as Arco, which opened this week.
Beside the portraits of Catalan politicians, Mr. Sierra’s work also shows blurred images
of several other people prosecuted under contentious circumstances in recent years.