Lot 45: ALICIA FRAMIS

ALICIA FRAMIS SPANISH B.1967 GUANTANAMO MUSEUM THE LIST 2008 approx. 800 x 800 x 40 cm / 315 x 315 x 16"

Some recent solo exhibitions
Santa Monica Art Center, Barcelona 2008, 'Guantanamo Museum'
Annet Gelink Gallery, Amsterdam 2007, 'From China with Love'
Palais de Tokyo, Paris 2002, 'Anti-dog'

Some recent group exhibitions
Chelsea Art Museum, New York 2007, 'The Philosophy of the Bedroom'
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam 2004, 'We are the World'

Selected publications
200 jaar Prix de Rome, Amsterdam: Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten/Nieuw Amsterdam 2008
Framis Alicia Framis (works 1995-2003), Artimo, Amsterdam 2003

Selected public and corporate collections
Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich, CH • SMAK, Ghent, BE • MUSAC, Léon, ES

donated by the artist

The work of Alicia Framis deals with loneliness, the need for protection, insecurity, strength and other elementary human characteristics. Feelings often interconnected with the instinct to survive. The work about Guantanamo Bay detention camp can be seen and interpreted against this background.

Framis decided to come forward, basing her ideas about aesthetics on the future of Guantanamo. The detention camp is a United States military prison in Cuba where – since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan – 775 detainees were sent, without trial, and are kept in small mesh-sided cells, and subjected to acts of torture. Framis assures us that, in the not too distant future, Guantanamo Prison will be transformed into a museum. She explores the legacy of horror of places such as Auschwitz or Alcatraz and analyses the historic process, of sites with such a terrible past, if they can become a tourist attraction.

The List is an installation of 274 motorcycle helmets, displayed on a huge platform. Framis used the helmets as to represent the 274 prisoners who are still held in Guantanamo; she intervened by making an angular, sharp and forceful cut in the crown, turning what is intended to be a protective object into the opposite. To symbolize the legal insecurity and vulnerability undoubtedly felt by people who become a prisoner of the fractured laws of the Bush administration. It's the representation of a present of tortures and uncertainty. The installation is completed by a sound and light: a voice incessantly repeats the prisoners' names while the lights within the room change constantly. The light intensifies or softens, depending on the tone of the voice.

Alicia Framis was resident artist at the Rijksakademie in 1995-1996.
She won the 1997 Prix de Rome (NL).

www.aliciaframis.com