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Yours, KOW

8 PEOPLE PAID TO REMAIN INSIDE CARDBOARD BOXES, 1999

G & T building. Guatemala City, 1999

GermanEnglish

On the top floor of a semi-occupied office building, situated in the industrial zone of Guatemala City, eight boxes of residual cardboard were made and installed, separated from each other at equal distances. Eight chairs were placed next to these boxes.

A public offer for work was then made, asking for people willing to remain seated inside the boxes for four hours, receiving 100 quetyals, about $9. After receiving a considerable response from the workers, they werer placed in the boxes at noon and came out at three o’clock, an hour earlier than the planned schedule due to the excruciating heat. The public was unable to see the workers when they were placed in the boxes.

Im obersten Stockwerk eines halb besetzten Bürogebäudes in der Industriezone von Guatemala-Stadt wurden acht Kartons aus Pappresten zusammengebaut und in gleicher Entfernung voneinander aufgestellt. Daneben wurden acht Stühle platziert.

Dann wurde ein Arbeitsangebot veröffentlicht: Gesucht wurden Personen, die bereit waren, für 100 Quetzal, als etwa 9 US-Dollar, vier Stunden lang in den Kartons zuzubringen. Die Reaktion war beträchtlich, und die Arbeiter wurden zu Mittag in die Kartons gesetzt. Sie verließen diese aufgrund der unerträglichen Hitze allerdings bereits um 15.00 Uhr, eine Stunde früher als geplant. Das Publikum bekam die Arbeiter nicht zu Gesicht, als diese in die Kartons stiegen.

Santiago Sierra, 8 People Paid to remain Inside Cardboard Boxes, G & T building. Guatemala City, 1999, protocol work

protocol work

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Santiago Sierra

THE MAELSTRÖM. Serrekunda, The Gambia. May 2023, 2023 (photo)
THE MAELSTRÖM. Serrekunda, The Gambia. May 2023, 2023 (video)
2 EXERCISES SEQUENCES FOR A POPULAR GYMNASTICS. Madrid, Spain. May 2023, 2023
46 PLAYERS OF THE TAILLINDING UNITED FOOTBALL TEAM, 2023. Serrekunda, The Gambia. May 2023
National Coat of Arms of Spain Stamped with Blood, 2022
National Flag Of Spain Submerged In Blood, 2021
Pigs Devouring The Italic Peninsula, 2012
Destroyed Word, 2012
World’s Largest Graffiti, 2012
Franz Erhard Walther and Santiago Sierra Demonstrating No. 46 From Walthers First Workset, 2011
NO Projected Above The Pope, 2011
War Veterans Facing The Corner, 2011 - Ongoing
Person Obstructing a Line of Containers, 2009
Attempt to Build Four 100x100 cm Sand Cubes, 2009
Teeth of the Last Gipsies of Ponticelli, 2008
THE PENETRATED (box), 2008
Burned Buildings (Found Scene), 2008
89 Huichols, 2006
Doorplate, 2006
245 m³, 2006
House in Mud, 2005
Hooded Woman Seated Facing The Wall, 2003
Hiring and Arrangement of 30 Workers in Relation to Their Skin Color, 2002
Person Saying a Phrase, 2002
3 Cubes of 100 cm on Each Side Moved 700 cm, 2002
PERSON PAID TO REMAIN TIED DOWN TO A WOODEN BLOCK, 2001
20 WORKERS IN A SHIPS HOLD, 2001
Object measuring 600 x 57 x 52 cm Constructed to be Held Horizontally to a Wall, 2001
10 Inch Line Shaved on The Heads of Two Junkies Who Received a Shot of Heroin as Payment, 2000
Obstruction of a road with different objects, 2000
The Wall of a Gallery Pulled Out, Inclined 60 Degrees From the Ground and Sustained by 5 People, 2000
8 PEOPLE PAID TO REMAIN INSIDE CARDBOARD BOXES, 1999
Obstruction of a Freeway With a Truck‘s Trailer, 1998
Gallery Burned With Gasoline, 1997
Footbridge Obstructed with Wrapping Tape, 1996
50 liters of gasoline in an abandoned field, 1994
50 kg of Plaster in the Street, 1994
2 Cylinders Each Measuring 250 × 250 cm, Composed of Posters That Have Been Torn Down, 1994
20 Pieces of Road Measuring 100 × 100 cm Pulled Up From the Ground, 1992
Geometric Postcards, 1990
Walks, 1990
Mountains, 1990
Prism, 1990

Santiago Sierra's oeuvre stands out from the art history of the past 30 years like a massive black monolith. The Spaniard, who was born in 1966 and also lived in Latin America, knows like no other how to use the established forms and rules of contemporary art to give the violence and injustice of Western modernity a face - a face that is our own. The formal language of minimalism, in its distanced, cool way, is particularly suited to being short-circuited with the abstract economic and institutional apparatuses that bind people into the dehumanized conditions of production, migration, (self-)exploitation, and stigmatization. Those conditions, in other words, that guarantee the privileges of most of the viewers to whom Sierra's work addresses itself in the art world. Not everyone likes that. Sierra is the living shadow in the repressed bad conscience of power and money, with which people rule over people. His work has been honored institutionally many times, and in 2003 he represented Spain at the Venice Biennale.



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