Santiago Sierra's 'LA VORÁGINE' at Prometeo Gallery Milan

Santiago Sierra's solo exhibition 'LA VORÁGINE' at Prometeo Gallery Ida Pisani in Milan, from January 19 to March 8, 2024, confronts colonial violence and capitalist exploitation. The show features large bichrome photographs of 275 cubic meters of mud dumped on a fashion audience (Los Embarrados, 2022) and a hypnotic video shot in Gambia in 2023 (The Maelström, 2023). The video loops audio of EU High Representative Josep Borrell's 2022 statement comparing Europe to a garden and the rest of the world to a jungle. Sierra critiques European and American perspectives, stating 'Europe is a butcher, and servant of America.' The exhibition builds on Sierra's 2005 installation House in Mud, originally at Kestnergesellschaft Hannover. The video shows faceless young Gambian footballers choreographing police arrest positions while Borrell's words are distorted. Marco Scotini's critical text notes Sierra's approach lacks humanist idealism, instead pushing capitalist barbarism to obscene extremes. Controversially, Sierra admits not consulting colonized subjects: 'I didn't need to talk to them; I understand their struggles and interpret them personally.' This echoes his 2020 Union Flag work, criticized by Aboriginal natives for lack of consultation, leading to its withdrawal from a Tasmanian exhibition. The show raises questions about who speaks for whom in art.