RETURN POLICIES María Minera on Early Memories and Recent Reappearances of Santiago Sierra in Mexico City
Just before the turn of the millennium, Santiago Sierra’s career – which began with urban interventions characterized by minimalism – turned into a prime example of what Claire Bishop once dubbed “delegated performance.” While critics initially complained above all that Sierra’s projects denounced the ills of globalized capitalism while he himself often “outsourced” those same ills to Central and South Americans at the disadvantaged end of globalization, thus repeating the very injustices his work addressed, Sierra has since also been criticized for repeating a program that has long become a sort of brand itself. Our columnist María Minera, who observed the artist’s development in the 1990s when he lived and worked in her hometown of Mexico City, believes that it was precisely this local context, witnessing the abuses in the low-wage sector, that politicized Sierra and motivated him to create the controversial projects that made him famous. Thus she was disappointed when he recently returned to Mexico City with – of all things – an exhibition documenting his collaboration with the brand Balenciaga.
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