Santiago Talavera presents the version 3.0 of “HAUTOPOLIS

20.03.2024

From March 14 to June 16 // Nave Sotoliva, Santander

“I still think that through certain catastrophic imagery, you can appeal to the public”. Eugenio Trías

As it happens with a good wine, there are ideas that must rest for a certain time in order to achieve that unthinkable nuance. This is the case of the exhibition that opened last March 14 at Nave Sotoliva (Santander), reformulated four years later by curator Fernando Castro López and Santiago Talavera, an artist from Santiago de Compostela. If there is something that characterizes the exhibition, it has not only been formally redefined over time but also led the artist to rethink the very meaning of his work. The pandemic and the work in five studios in cities such as Madrid, Galicia and Morocco influenced Talavera's post-apocalyptic images to adopt other techniques, in addition to achieving a very special tone of urgency and timeliness. It was during the confinement that the artist inquired about the very meaning in art of the use of ghostly images. As in cinema, Talavera concluded that the excess of dystopian images has an addictive effect on the public, even demobilizing any attempt at improvement. This conclusion specifically motivated the creation of the neon work "No More dystopia", which in addition to wanting to overcome this pessimistic message, aims to encourage hope even in catastrophic situations.

Catastrophes such as the one experienced in 2021 by Talavera's studio, whose work was flooded after the storm Lola. In shock and with his paintings waterlogged, Talavera explained that he began to paint one by one the empty seats of his work "Reinventing the show", inspired by the Český Krumlov auditorium (Czech Republic). Thanks to that catharsis and the personal and professional events that happened to him during those years, Hauntopolis: Theater of the End of the World returns with a new meaning: unearthing ghosts such as those of the climate challenge or the impact of social networks that haunt contemporary cities.

What is real in the dystopia that keeps us so hooked? A self-performance exhibition where after being installed and remaining empty for months, it invites not only us but also our most childish curiosity; that which believes in a better world where imagination and nostalgia can exist separately.

Laura Mateos Alonso

The report has been created by the photography company Campo Visible.