VERSIFYING MACHINES: INDICES, DISPOSITIVES, APPARATUS 1. WHAT EXILE TEACHES US 2. EL SACCO / 3. THE NEW BABYLONIANS

from Pedro G. Romero. Versifying Machines. Indices, Dispositives, Apparatus

Conversation: THE POPULAR (B

Versifying Machines

INDICES, DISPOSITIVES, APPARATUS

(Freedom of movement) I often say that I don’t know what freedom is, but as in so many other things, my strongest argument is no more than an allegory, that of puppet strings: the more there are, the greater the freedom. Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio, Campo de retamas, –

Since Pedro G. Romero (b. , Aracena, Huelva) began to work as an artist in the mid-s, his projects have assumed a particular, singular, even eccentric place, although he has not by any means sought to stand alone or follow an individual path. His modus operandi—beyond simple labels such as collective, cooperative, and sociable—has consisted of contriving indices, dispositives, apparatus, in short, machines associated with the fi eld of art. This exhibition presents a compilation of many of these machines, the models of which are the cyborg, Wolfgang von Kempelen’s chess-playing automaton—“The Turk,” in which, according to Walter Benjamin, theology was hidden within historical materialism—and, principally, Jorge Meneses’s “versifying machine,” described by Juan de Mairena in Coplas mecánicas (Mechanical Verses), a magnifi cent explication by Sevillian poet Antonio Machado. This versifying machine is a modern, avant-garde machine, in the tradition of Mallarmé’s Un coup de dés and of the experiments and experiences of the Futurists and the Dadaists. Machado links it to a certain popular approach to culture, typical of troubadours, of fl amenco, and of the songbook of Manuel Balmaseda, the unschooled, illiterate author who carried in his memory hundreds of fl amenco lyrics and made them appear at will using his own mnemonic method.

Thus, since the late s Pedro G. Romero has worked on two of these large apparatus: the Archivo F.X. and the Máquina P.H. Through them, he carries out projects in which he explores historical events, the life and circulation of images, sacramental iconography, the iconoclastic gesture of the twentieth-century artistic avant-gardes and of modern art, fl amenco, ideas and imaginaries of popular culture, the economy, cultural policies, forms of urban speculation, etcetera. The intention is not simply to revisit a series of commonplaces such as Conceptual Art, relational art, and lumpen productivism. It is all of that, but it is also an attempt to break away from the modern art academy, not by excluding it, but by incorporating other idioms: those of critical theory, cultural studies, and fl amenco. The works presented here show that there is no natural, original, or national voice, but only ways of speaking, ways of looking, and ways of doing, and that all these ways are interconnected, entangled, and intertwined.

Versifying Machines is a chronological overview of Pedro G. Romero’s work that moves backward from the present—El Sacco (–), Los nuevos babilonios (The New Babylonians, –), and Lo que el exilio nos enseña (What Exile Teaches Us, –)—to his fi rst exhibitions of the s—El almacén de las ideas (The Storehouse of Ideas, –), La sección áurea (The Golden Section, –), and Un mundo r.a.r.o. (A Strange World, –). It considers the popular turn in the works from the s, El tiempo de la bomba (Time of the Bomb, ) and ¿Llegaremos pronto a Sevilla? (Will We Reach Seville Soon? ), and charts a course through twenty years of the Archivo F.X. (–) on iconoclasm and the image. Also on display are some of the works he made for Documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens (); the large-scale installation of the Archivo F.X. at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in , entitled The Empty City: Community; and some of the works that were part of El Sueño Imperativo (The Imperative Dream), curated by Mar Villaespesa in , and Before and After the Enthusiasm, curated by José Luis Brea in . Also included is a project created specifi cally for the occasion, Canciones de la guerra social contemporánea (Songs of the Contemporary Social War), a large installation and scenography conceived as a kind of public square and documentation space. It will host a series of performances, restoring the détournements compiled by Alice Becker-Ho and Guy Debord, which Pedro G. Romero has invited several composers and artists to perform. At the same time, particular attention is given to what Pedro G. Romero calls “The Knee,” “The Kneecap,” and the “The Patella”: activities carried out

with communities, collaborations with magazines, artist groups, and university institutions, such as his work with the magazine Arena, in the collective Juan del Campo, and in La Situación, Carta de Ajuste, BNV Producciones, Arteleku, UNIA arteypensamiento, Plataforma de Refl exión de Políticas Culturales (PRPC). Also, as part of the research of the Máquina P.H., his activities in the pie.fmc (Plataforma Independiente de Estudios Flamencos Modernos y Contemporáneos), which have allowed him to work on the artistic direction of dancer Israel Galván, and to collaborate with Niño de Elche, Rosalía, Rocío Márquez, Inés Bacán, Tomás de Perrate, and others. It is in these spaces where the works fi nd articulation and scope, works that in this exhibition appear, disappear, and reappear, polyphonically, fi lling the whole space, in rhythmic cadence. Lastly, there is also an “exhibition within the exhibition” that in a sense refl ects Pedro G. Romero’s work as curator: Máquina de Goya (Goya Machine). It is a partial presentation of an almost lost generation, that of the nineteenth-century artists (such as Leonardo Alenza, Francisco Lameyer, and Lucas Velázquez) who, in the wake of Goya—especially Los Caprichos and Los Disparates (The Follies)—connected Conceptismo with the force of popular culture at the dawn of contemporary Spain. The whole setup is conceived as a kind of optical theater, in which each work, of a markedly anachronistic nature, unfolds, necessarily, as a gesture, as a moment of the present. Against the backdrop of Walter Benjamin’s contention that when fascism aestheticizes politics, the response is to politicize art, Pedro G. Romero’s work reveals a true struggle between the notion of aesthetics writ large and art that is always approached as a minor art. Art that is—according to the teachings of Ángel González García—above all, the invisible. But the invisible is not ideas, concepts, the spirit, credit, or surplus value. It concerns relationships, ties, magnetic fi elds that connect—as language does—certain things with other things: human beings, animals, landscapes, journeys, times, spaces, in short, things. Spinoza used to say that an image is only an image if it is connected to other images. These interwoven warps, wefts, lines—like the puppet strings in Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio’s example at the start of this text—are the strings that move the versifying machine, and this is what we discover in this exhibition.

Soleá Morente Canción a la insurrección de Parla. Unknown artist from Madrid,  (Canciones de la guerra social contemporánea, )

1. WHAT EXILE TEACHES US

(Songs of the Contemporary Social War)

Like the projects El Sacco and Los nuevos babilonios (The New Babylonians), this cycle of works revolves around the fi gures of alienation, the foreigner, and the exiled, not just as a political or economic fact leading to forced displacement, but also exile as a condition of life, as described by María Zambrano and José Bergamín in relation to the Republican exile after the defeat in the Spanish Civil War. Or, going further back in history, associated with the expressions of marranism after the expulsion of the Jews and Moors from the Kingdom of Spain. Or, fi nally, as the condition of life of certain groups of Spanish Roma, such as the andarrios and canasteros who still live a nomadic existence but are excluded from the constant mobility demanded by the new global capitalism.

Lo que el exilio nos enseña (What Exile Teaches Us) began in , fi rst with Leire Vergara through various works presented at the Dutch Art Institute’s Roaming Academy, most notably at the Bauhaus Dessau in , and then with María García Ruiz through the Political Parties project for the Bergen Assembly in  and Una forma de ser (A Form of Being or Life) at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart in . At the original heart of the project lies the question of the condition of the so-called cultural or creative classes—like those who toil in art—which, as Martha Rosler reminds us, emerged from the nineteenth-century bohemia, who took their name from the gypsies or Bohemians then believed to have come from that part of what is now the Czech Republic. This explains many of the founding characteristics of the life of the modern artist as social outsider—precarity, fl exibility, relativism, debauchery, nomadism, etcetera—in perpetual exile, very closely linked to Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s idea of a “minor literature”: deterritorialization, the connection between the individual and the political, and the collective assemblage of enunciation.

SONGS OF THE CONTEMPORARY SOCIAL WAR

Canciones de la guerra social contemporánea is based on the songbook of the same title, compiled and prepared by Guy Debord, Alice Beker-Ho, and other Situationists, and published anonymously as a pamphlet in  under the pseudonym “Some iconoclasts.” The project involved disseminating the documents, performing selected parts of the songbooks, and compiling historical documentation of the new lyrics or found détournement. It is based mainly on the songbook written by Federico García Lorca for the dancer La Argentinita in , together with folk and fl amenco coplas and recordings by political singer-songwriters. Participants include Samuel Mestre and Victoria Sacco, as well as the artists Rodrigo Cuevas, Niño de Elche, Pollito de Graná, Gabriel de la Tomasa, Oier Etxeberria, Julio Jara, Soleá Morente, Christina Rosenvinge, and Le Parody, as well as the choirs El CoroFón, Coro de Mujeres Malvaloca, and Coro Intercultural Voces de Ida y Vuelta. The twelve songs presented here—as in the original pamphlet—are a sort of chronicle of the Spanish political transition from the point of view of autonomism.

2. EL SACCO

(Moneta, Rome/Romá)

The scope of this series of works, which have been carried out in Rome since , extends beyond the historical event that their title refers to. The Sack of Rome in  by the troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, the desecration of churches, the looting, and the murders committed, serve as a backdrop for two of Pedro G. Romero’s interests: iconoclastic violence and the emergence of popular culture. His historical analysis cuts across various periods, from legendary events in the city during the Roman Empire to the current mafi a capitale in which mafi a powers are in league with capitalist entrepreneurs to plunder the municipal coffers, speculate with land, and trade in basic resources. Exploring this monstrous something, part profanation and part populism, that always reappears in times of crisis is what drives El Sacco. The work consists of bringing together small assemblages or teams of collaborators, such as Matteo Binci, Ludovica Manzetti, and Massimo Mazzone for El elefante blanco (The White Elephant), or Bruno Alviani, Riccardo Ascani, Ciro Biasutto, and Maria Doriana Casadidio for La peña fl amenca Silverio Franconetti de Roma. These assemblages refl ect the fl uctuations of a certain plebeian administration or baroque economy—as Verónica Gago calls it—

given that there are over one hundred collaborators in total, including Institutions such as the Academia de España en Roma and the Ippica Nerone/Roma River Ranch; collectives such as El Dorado-Sociedad Flamenca Barcelonesa and Goroka; and individuals such as Isaki Lacuesta and María Marín. The fi lm Los caballos (The Horses), still in production, has taken El Sacco to Vienna and Antwerp. Two works from the series, Roma/Romá () and Moneta (), are presented here.

MONETA

The fi rst conversations with the Nacheinander were on the economy of art: a critical view of the system, but also a search for survival strategies. In , Salvator Rosa Gallery—of which Pedro G. Romero formed part and which was run by Zbynˇek Baladrán, Jiří Kovanda, Juan Pablo Macías, and some other artists—in association with Carico Massimo in Livorno, presented the exhibition Arte, Magia e Capitalismo, where Moneta (Coin) was presented for the fi rst time. Produced in collaboration with Matteo Binci, the machine perfectly illustrates a scene from Ermanno Olmi’s fi lm Il mestiere delle armi (The Profession of Arms, ), in which lead from one of the fi rst fi rearms is turned into coins. ROME/ROMÁ

The titles of the seven sound pieces listed on this poster refer to a series of recordings made in Rome with gitano artist Juan Jiménez “Bobote”—fl amenco dancer, palmero, and occasional singer—and Austrian sound artist Stefan Voglsinger. The sound pieces are still awaiting fi nal mixing. The titles are a fairly accurate expression of the itineraries and actions recorded in Rome in the summer of  and of the incidents that took place along the way, such as being thrown out of the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls by the Vatican police, or being denied permission by Fendi to record inside the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, an iconic fascist building that is now the head quarters of the Roman luxury fashion house.

3. THE NEW BABYLONIANS

(The Swords, The False Coin, Nine Sevilles)

This term is used to refer to certain human groups from which the Situationists could be said to have learned: Maghrebi migrants, bohemian barfl ies, and the autonomist left, to name a few. Nueva babilonia (New Babylon) is a utopian

project—consisting of scale models, architectural plans, writings, fi lms, collages, etcetera—developed by Dutch artist Constant on the basis of his design for a gypsy camp in the Italian town of Alba. The title, suggested by Guy Debord, was based on the direct imaginary of the  fi lm Novyi Vavilon—inspired by Karl Marx’s and Émile Zola’s writings on the Paris Commune—made by the Factory of the Eccentric Actor (FEKS—Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg). And it also refl ected the historical appeal of New Babylon for cities such as Rome and Seville that aspired to be the New Jerusalem. Constant’s project includes a direct reference to the soleá de Triana sung by Pepe de la Matrona, “Se hundió la Babilonia” (Babylon Has Fallen). Under the name New Babylonians, Pedro G. Romero embarked on a new approach to three human groups he had been working on for some time: the Roma, fl amenco artists, and Spanish libertarian exiles. An extensive array of works consequently appeared in , synthesizing his two main cycles of projects in progress at the start of the twenty-fi rst century—the Archivo F.X. and the Máquina P.H.—on popular culture, especially fl amenco. It is not just about research or activism or a work of political emancipation. Once again, the idea is to form an assemblage with these groups and their points of view, highlighting the intersections and forms of lumpen productivism that are inherent to them, and likewise with exemplary fi gures such as the libertarian communist, gitano fl amenco, and avant-garde realist Helios Gómez.

THE SWORDS

The premise was simple: to devise a group dance along the lines of the Ezpata-dantza or sword dance practiced in the Basque Country and other parts of the Iberian Peninsula. The origins of this dance are unknown, although the use of swords suggests different ways of negotiating violence in so-called times of peace. In this project, however, the festive ritual violence was transferred to the particular gestures of the eleven collaborating artists in  and : Miguel Benlloch, Marco de Ana, Niño de Elche, Javiera de la Fuente, Ines Doujak, Israel Galván, Isaías Griñolo, Juan Jiménez “Bobote,” Sonia Sánchez, Mónica Valenciano, and Idoia Zabaleta. The project began to take shape with the Archivo F.X. works for the Peace Treaty project (–, Donostia-San Sebastián European Capital of Culture ).

THE FALSE COIN

A project created with Niño de Elche and Israel Galván for Documenta 14 (), held in Athens and Kassel under the artistic direction of Adam Szymczyk, with the collaboration of Paul B. Preciado, among others. La farsa monea (The False Coin) revolved around the “subaltern economy” associated with the gitano and

fl amenco underclass, and ended with a series of events and performances that took place in the two cities. Earlier works that formed the base of this program include the production of coins (La sevillana, La padremare, La perra gorda y chica), the Atenas/Antena recordings made with José Jiménez “Bobote” and mixed by Raül Refree, and the expanded theater piece Los Pintas, based on excerpts from Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot.

NINE SEVILLES

Made in collaboration with fi lmmaker Gonzalo García Pelayo, Nueve Sevillas (Nine Sevilles) is an updating of the legacy of his  masterpiece Vivir en Sevilla (Living in Seville). It also draws on the expanded theater piece Las sabias (The Scholars), which served as the graphic image in the form of posters for the th Bienal de Flamenco de Sevilla in . Part experimental fi ction and part documentary, Nueve Sevillas is committed to polyphony through the voices of its protagonists (Javiera de la Fuente, Yinka Esi Graves, Pastora Filigrana, Gonzalo García Pelayo, José Jiménez “Bobote,” Vanesa Lérida Montoya, Rocío Montero, David Pielfort, and Rudolph Rostas “Janek”) and performances by guest artists (Inés Bacán and Raül Refree, Raúl Cantizano, Niño de Elche, Tomás de Perrate and Proyecto Lorca, Israel Galván, Alfredo Lagos, Leonor Leal, Rocío Márquez, Sílvia Pérez Cruz and Rocío Molina, and Rosalía). The fi lm, masterfully edited by Sergi Dies, is also a lumpen-productivist assemblage of the classic studio system of fi lm production.

Canciones de la guerra social contemporánea –

 display cabinets, documents, sound, and video Pedro G. Romero Studio

Julio Jara A la memoria de Gladys del Estal. Unknown Roma artist,  (Canciones de la guerra social contemporánea, )

Romance del prendimiento y muerte de Oriol Solé Sugranyes (Canciones de la guerra social contemporánea) –

 display cabinets, documents, sound, and video Pedro G. Romero Studio

Todo el poder a las asambleas (Canciones de la guerra social contemporánea) –

 display cabinets, documents, sound, and video Pedro G. Romero Studio

Todo el poder a las asambleas (Canciones de la guerra social contemporánea) –

 display cabinets, documents, sound, and video Pedro G. Romero Studio

Coplas de las barricadas de Cádiz (Canciones de la guerra social contemporánea) –

 display cabinets, documents, sound, and video Pedro G. Romero Studio

Las espadas 

Video, mobile phones, and router àngels barcelona gallery

Los Pintas 

Digital print on PVC canvas Pedro G. Romero Studio

Moneta –

Minting machine and bullets Salvator Rosa Gallery Roma/Romá, –

Printed ink on paper Academia de España en Roma

Moneta (detail) –

Minting machine and bullets Salvator Rosa Gallery

Las espadas (detail) 

(Sonia Sánchez, Idoia Zabaleta, Mónica Valenciano, José Jiménez “Bobote,” Israel Galván, Ines Doujak) Video, mobile phones, and router àngels barcelona gallery