Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

By interacting with a series of installations - some of which are activated daily by performers - visitors will be confronted with their own reactions and emotions in the exhibition - Photo gallery - Pavilion of Modern Art (PAC)

Milan, November 26 2021 – From 27 November 2021 to 13 February 2022 the PAC Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan presents "The truth, at the expense of the world", the first solo exhibition in Italy by Tania Bruguera (1968 La Havana, Cuba), one of the most influential on the global stage, whose performances and installations examine political power structures and their effect on society's most vulnerable people.

Artist and activist, Tania Bruguera has challenged strong powers with her often provocative actions which have become the object of attention from international newspapers such as the New York Times, Le Monde, Newsweek, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times.

Awarded with awards such as the Robert Rauschenberg Prize, the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Prince Claus Fund Laureate and the most recent Velázquez Prize, she has exhibited in institutions around the world, including the Tate moderndern, the MoMA, the Venice Biennale and documents 11 His works are found in the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the MoMA, the Van Abbemuseum, the Tate and the Museo nacional de Bellas artes de La Habana. Since 2021 she has been a senior lecturer in media & performance at Harvard's Faculty of Theatre, Dance and Media.

Promoted by the Municipality of Milan - Culture and produced by PAC with Silvana editorial, the exhibition is curated by Diego Sileo and presents a selection of the artist's most significant actions and new works designed specifically for the Milanese space, including a work created in collaboration with the National Association of former deportees to Nazi camps (ANED).

The title of the exhibition is a quote from Hannah Arendt, an essential point of reference for Tania Bruguera's research. In a legendary interview on the television of the Federal Republic of Germany, conducted by Günter Gaus on 28 October 1964, when asked whether she considered it her duty to publish everything she learned about or there were valid reasons for keeping quiet about certain things, Hannah Arendt replied with the Latin quote fiat veritas et pereat mundus: let the truth be told even to the detriment of the world.

Tania Bruguera also absolutely embraces the need for truth, linking it to the vital dimension of necessity. On several occasions the artist spoke about her experiences of imprisonment in Cuba and how they distanced her from her illusions, bringing her back to perceiving the authentic human condition. It is in the concrete, corporeal and material experience of the world, of human relationships, that necessity generates true knowledge. The truth is not found by evidence, but by exploration, it is always experimental.

"Tania Bruguera's artistic work highlights some urgencies of our time, legacies of the past or injustices of the present. Using above all the tools of performance and installation, she brings to the surface behaviors and situations that trigger in the spectator the need for a more profound, finally leading him to the discovery of a truth. A useful art, as the artist herself defines it, which wants to contribute to a real political and social change with respect to some important themes, which still influence our lives - declared the councilor to Culture Tommaso Sacchi -. The PAC confirms itself as a place of exploration and experimentation of the most contemporary international languages, where the physical experience and emotion of the visitor/spectator are never ends in themselves, but induce a reflection on the distortions of our world and engage a real desire for change".

The public at the PAC will be called to "explore" the truth through a series of installations and actions - some of which are activated daily by performers - centered on the concepts developed by the artist to define his practice, as "behavioural art" (arte de conducta ) which places emphasis on the limits of language and the body in relation to the reaction of spectators, and "useful art" (arte útil) aimed at achieving a real transformation of some political and legal aspects of society.

Blinded by strong lights or completely in the dark, induced to cry or walk unsteadily on floors constructed with precarious materials, visitors will be confronted with their own reactions in the exhibition, going through a wide range of emotions ranging from fear to empathy and experiencing a total involvement.

On display, a 30-metre visual biography traces the artist's entire career in a time line where his personal history - studies, awards, countries in which he lived, mentors, works, teaching, publications – intersects the key concepts of his research and the events of collective history that have profoundly marked his work. 
 
The bilingual catalogue, published by Silvana editorial, will be the first complete monograph dedicated to Tania Bruguera with contributions by Tanya Barson, Fernanda Brenner, Cecilia Fajardo Hill, Tom Finkelpearl, Alistair Hudson, André Lepecki, Roberto Pinto, Gabriela Rangel, Rafael Rojas, Suset Sanchez, Lucia Sanroma, Alain Vanier, Catherine Wood, as well as the text by the curator Diego Sileo and a long interview with the artist. The exhibition is organized thanks to the support of Tod's, sponsor of the PAC's annual activity, and with the support of Vulcano .

WORKS ON EXHIBITION 
 
With the work "Where your ideas become civic actions. 100 hours reading The origin of totalitarianism" (2015-2021) Bruguera presents the power of Hannah Arendt's words at the PAC, leaving visitors the task of expressing them through the reading of The origins of totalitarianism.

"Plusvalía" (2010) faithfully replicates the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign stolen in 2009 from the entrance gate of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Polished for the entire duration of the exhibition and transformed over time, the reproduction invites a reflection on the added value achieved by an object that achieves economic value not for its quality, but for its historical, political and moral significance.

In "Sin Título" (Kassel, 2002-2021), an action created for documenta 11, the artist works on memory and evokes the military environment of the munitions factory located right near the German city during the Second World War: surrounded by light blinding and evocative noises, the audience experiences a vulnerability that urges the exploration of historical and political consciousness lived as a personal experience, as a physical sensation.

The darkness, the strong smells and the voices of the performers contribute to creating an inhospitable atmosphere also in "Sin título" (Habana, 2000), an updated version of the famous installation created for the Havana Biennial and censored by the Cuban government: the artist presents it again at the PAC to denounce the incarcerations following the protests due to insufficient health resources against Covid-19 for the defense of freedom of expression in Cuba.

From the acclaimed project for the Turbine hall of the Tate modern in 2018, Bruguera brings to the PAC a new version of his "Crying Room" installation which, through specific devices, induces the visitor to cry, arousing a "forced empathy" in the face of the drama of migrations and evoking a necessary, but not to be taken for granted, sensitivity.

The injustices against migrants are also the protagonists of the new work "The poor treatment of migrant today will be our dishonor tomorrow" (2021) created in collaboration with the National Association of former deportees to Nazi camps (ANED). Here the artist adopts a historical parallel: a barbed wire, hand-sewn for the exhibition by survivors and descendants of deportees during the Second World War, unites the stars of the European flag.

"Tabla de salvación" (1994) is also a monument to the theme of the diaspora, that of the thousands of Cubans who clandestinely left over the years on makeshift boats in an attempt to reach Florida. The work reflects on the insular condition and the sea, a place where opposites coexist: openness and closure, life and death.

In "Sin Título" (Palestine, 2009-2021), Bruguera instead creates an almost decontextualising scenario by placing the white of the environment in contrast with the chaos and destruction of conflicts, but immediately takes us back to the consequences by positioning two black coffins as the only element sculptural.

After almost thirty years of being unavailable, the work "Estadística" (1996-1998) is once again exhibited to the public, in its imposing visual strength. A flag sewn with hair donated by Cuban citizens, a demonstration of union and at the same time a gesture that investigates the aesthetics of power and the symbolic reappropriation of it by a people.