The Cultural Center of Spain in Mexico presents the dual exhibition of Eulàlia Rovira and Adrian Schindler. Curated by Rosa Lleó.

The cochineal lives on the leaves of the cactus, an insect from which Mesoamerican peoples have extracted the carmine pigment since ancient times. A more intense and lasting red that became a symbol of power in Europe and a reason for dispute between empires. For three centuries, it was the second source of income for the Spanish Crown, after gold and silver. A time of excessive opulence, as the last enjoyment of a domain that would soon begin to weaken. When Mexico became independent, the Spanish took specimens of cactus and cochineal to the Canary Islands.

Insisting on one color, The Plague, The Profit traces the links between colonialism and Spanish Baroque, not only through representations but also through the modes of production that sustain it. Touring the declining plantations of Lanzarote, the rooms and reserves of the National Museum of Art of Catalonia and those of the Museum of America in Madrid, the artists look at the dying waste of a trade and the wear and tear of a pigment and its value. .

From the slope of the Montjuïc mountain you can see the great merchandise port of the city of Barcelona. Endless containers and cranes dictate the pulse of global trade. The project that gives rise to this exhibition begins in that place, stopping at the plants that touch us when we look towards that horizon. Some nopales, called prickly pears there, affected by a plague. Something that goes unnoticed, that becomes microscopic and yet takes us on a journey that links the displacement of species with colonial extractivism and the history of art.

The cochineal lives on the leaves of the cactus, an insect from which Mesoamerican peoples have extracted the carmine pigment since ancient times. A more intense and lasting red that became a symbol of power in Europe and a reason for dispute between empires. For three centuries, it was the second source of income for the Spanish Crown after gold and silver. A time of excessive opulence, as the last enjoyment of a domain that would soon begin to weaken. When Mexico became independent, the Spanish took specimens of cactus and cochineal to the Canary Islands.

Insisting on one color, The Plague, The Profit traces the links between colonialism and Spanish Baroque, not only through representations but also through the modes of production that sustain it. Touring the declining plantations of Lanzarote, the rooms and reserves of the National Museum of Art of Catalonia and those of the Museum of America in Madrid, the artists look at the dying waste of a trade and the wear and tear of a pigment and its value. . They question whether a myopic approach, attached to things, can generate a counter-image to the dominant narratives.

Using photography, video, collage and words, the artists generate a sequence of forms that contaminate, repeat and wear out, leading us towards hallucination and fatigue. From the last room a hoarse and detached female voice resounds, reminding us of a machine whose engine has been turned off and is still spinning by inertia.

Dyeing is an ancient form of deception.

Make something look like something else.

But red, red is of short splendor.

On the occasion of the itinerant exhibition, initially presented at The Green Parrot (Barcelona), the artists have conceived a publication for the CCEMx in dialogue with the Mexican curator Paulina Ascencio with the desire to measure and perhaps shorten the distance between both contexts.

Eulàlia Rovira (Barcelona, 1985) and Adrian Schindler (Périgueux, 1989) have been working collaboratively since 2013. They have had individual exhibitions at The Green Parrot, Barcelona (2022), Pradiauto, Madrid (2021), Homesession, Barcelona (2019), Musée de Bibracte, Saint-Léger-sur-Beuvray (2018), Espai Dos-Sala Muncunill, Terrassa (2018) and Fireplace, Barcelona (2016); and collectives or screenings at M|A|C, Mataró (2023), Festival Márgenes, Madrid (2022), Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya – LOOP Festival, Barcelona (2022), SOLAR. Cultural Action, Tenerife (2022), FID Marseille (2021), Arts Santa Mònica, Barcelona (2020), ethall, l'Hospitalet (2019), Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna (2018), àngelsbarcelona (2017), CC Montehermoso, Vitoria (2017) and Turf Projects, Croydon (2016).

Rosa Lleó is a curator and editor based in Barcelona. In 2014 she founded the non-profit organization The Green Parrot. Through its different venues, and for eight years, more than 50 artists have exhibited and received support through residencies, workshops, exhibitions, talks and screenings. It was a resident project at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona and currently functions as a nomadic curatorial office. In parallel, some of his independent curators in institutions are YWY, Visiones (2021) by the artist Pedro Neves Marques in 1646 (The Hague) at CA2M (Madrid) and CaixaForum (Barcelona) and he is currently preparing the exhibition Reenchantments at the Ethnographic Museum of Barcelona with interventions by ten visual artists in the collections.

Editorial contributor:

Paulina Ascencio Fuentes (1988, Guadalajara, Mexico) lives and works between Guadalajara and New York. Researcher and curator, she is currently part of the Doctorate in Anthropology at New York University (NYU). She has training in Philosophy and Social Sciences and has a Master's degree in Curatorial Studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), Bard College, New York. Between 2021 and 2022 she carried out a research stay at the Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), Smithsonian Institution, in Washington D.C. Since 2023, he has been part of the ENRICH (Equity for Indigenous Research and Innovation Coordinating Hub) and Local Contexts team, global non-profit initiatives that offer digital repatriation tools for indigenous peoples and Indigenous communities to regain control over their biocultural heritage, knowledge traditional and material production. Her research outlines transdisciplinary modes of production and transmission of knowledge, analyzes cultural exchanges between Mexico and the United States, and approaches museums, archives, and collections as contact zones.

— Centro Cultural de España en México