Room 002.05
Opposite the obliging nature the Universal Exhibition of Seville had acquired, some of the figures involved took a more critical stance encompassing concerns that the city’s art scene had been exploring in greater depth. These demonstrations of discord represent not only early institutional critique and a resurgence of the colonial subconsciousness Expo ‘92 triggered, but also the art system’s new focus on public space, collaborative practices, the break-up of authorship and the rupture of the division between high culture and popular culture.
These, contemplated largely in dialogue with the urban environment, have been moved today to the Museo’s institutional space under the title Plus Ultra, referring to the project that was a paradigm of this paradox: the decentralised proposal of contemporary art which questioned the Expo event both inside and beyond its site. Conceived by curator Mar Villaespesa and the cultural production company BNV for the Andalusia Pavilion at Expo ‘92, Plus Ultra spread to different locations in the city, as indicated by its appropriation of the imperialist slogan “further beyond”, also alluding to the expansion of new postmedia art towards public space and, as a result, the political and social reality.
The project was directed at a critical reading of Expo ‘92’s aspiration to elevate itself as a celebration of an undefined “multiculturalism”, joining the first debates on cultural identity and representation of the other, rereading Andalusian monuments tied to the history of the Conquest and activating the critical voice of the city inside the Universal Exhibition.
All works exhibited in this room are part of the Plus Ultra project.