On January 26, with the title "Circuitos Cerrados" [Closed Circuits], la Fundación Telefónica presents three new installations by Francesc Torres, one of the most innovative and internationally renowned Spanish artists. In this exhibit the artist metaphorically reproduces closed contexts in which he dissects individual, social and political situations.

In these three pieces Torres delves into a creative path in which the metaphoric intentionality is supported by an extraordinary expressive capacity, achieved through various materials and technologies. The Catalonian artist (residing in the United States since the early ‘70s) takes this occasion to critically reflect on certain topics with clear individual and public significance, such as the reasons or senselessness behind certain human behaviors or the ritualization of the practice of politics in current democracies.

PERDER LA CABEZA (Lose One’s Head) This makes reference to the more or less temporary mental derangement necessary in all transcendent acts, those things that would be impossible in a state of absolute rationality: changing the world, falling in love, dying for an ideal or for a god, robbing a bank or making art. Put another way, in order to carry out an act that transcends daily reality, undertakings that are almost or totally doomed to fail, it is necessary to believe in the impossible and make it possible in one’s internal universe. Afterward, one can externalize it and make it real. Although this usually draws with it harmful consequences for the health of those involved, it is absolutely necessary if life as experience is to be all that it can be, regardless of the pain. Rilke said that he didn’t want to be freed of his demons because with them his angels would also part. He clearly knew what he was talking about. EL SOLILOQUIO DE LA FELICIDAD (Soliloquy of Happiness) This is a commentary on the current state of politics, and on the transmutation of the idea of representative democracy into democracy of representing (theater). In the latter, each plays his/her role in order to simultaneously ensure and camouflage the fact that power continues to be in the hands of the same, not in the hands of the citizenry. It is a commentary on the ideological dismantling of politics as art of the possible –understood as a means to positively transform the world- into a pure management of economic interests that are not always those of the majority. To do this, political discourse must be stripped of its content, leaving a few tactical bits and pieces for the audience. Basically, this piece comments on the regrettable fact that the political class is rarely up to the level of its citizenry. The original version of the project consists in a live sound connection in real time with the Parliament. The sound of the sessions activates the fluctuation of light in the room (also in real time). Due to demands of the election schedule, the exhibit coincides with the closure of parliament’s session and the initiation of the election campaign. This circumstance dictates that the sound activating the piece be a pre-recorded compendium of sessions held prior to the period of legislature elections. The electronic activation system is the same as that to be used with live sound in real time. EL ACELERADOR DE PARTÍCULAS ENSIMISMADAS (Deep Particle Accelerator) This is a subjective immersion into the defining features of the twentieth century (the century past): the acceleration of biological speed through mechanical and technological prosthesis; that is, the gradual but rapid dissolution of physical space, of the time spent in traversing it, and therefore, of history itself. It also incorporates the areas where the spectacles of ritualized speed take place: car and motorcycle racing circuits. The photographic material that accompanies the text (produced by the artist and anonymous photographers of the period) is from the extraordinary Terramar track, in Sitges, province of Barcelona. It was built in 1923 amidst peculiar circumstances and had a very short life, being abandoned and silenced fully intact. It stands like a futuristic monument in a land brushed past by modernity while it was looking the other way.

Born in Barcelona in 1948. In 1967 he moves to Paris where he lives and works until 1969. In 1972 he moves to the United States (Chicago), later moving to New York, where he has lived since 1974, except for two years in Berlin from ‘86-’88.

INSTITUTIONS WHICH HAVE PRESENTED HIS WORK INCLUDE: Whitney Museum of American Arts (New York) Museum of Modern Art –MOMA- (New York) Museum of Art, Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institute (Washington) Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam) Russian State Museum (St. Petersburg) Rudolfinum Gallery (Prague) National Museum, Reina Sofía Art Center (Madrid) Museum of Contemporary Art –MOCA- (Los Angeles) Guggenheim (Bilbao) List Center for Visual Arts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology –MIT- (Cambridge, Mass.) Kunstforum National Gallery (Berlin) San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art (San Diego)

THE FOLLOWING INSTITUTIONS (AMONG OTHERS) HAVE SUPPORTED HIS WORK: National Endowment for the Arts (Washington) (1982-88-93) Massachusetts Council for the Arts and Humanities (1986) New York State Council of the Arts (1986) DAAD Berliner Kunstleprogramm (1986) National Prize for Fine Arts, Autonomy of Catalunya (1991)

Conversation Francesc Torres & Hugh Davies

The self-absorved particle accelerator