Alejandro
2017
Solo show at WTA.
Alejandro is a project centered around the life of the public figure Alejandro Cao de Benos, a Catalan sympathizer of the DPRK that is supposedly working for the regime since decades. Besides his work in North Korea, he promotes the country in western medias and organizes guided touristic tours there, with the Korean Friendship Association (KFA) that he founded. Coming from a once-wealthy catalan aristocratic family, ACDB carries pluri-identities feelings, as he self-identifies equally half Spanish and Catalan and half North Korean.
The installation is a portrait of Alejandro, using datas from his extravagant biography to translate the ambiguities of a man who, like the regime he's working for, likes to play with imitations and familiar appearances to mix up real and fake versions.
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Alejandro exhibition view, WTA, Barcelona, 2017.
Pyongyang Aventura, video, color, mute, loop, projection, 01'25''.
Passport, painting on plexiglas,150 x 100 cm.
Forecast June 14, 2016, video, loop, 11'39''.
Family album, painting on transparent polystyrene, 297 x 420 mm each.
You, audio piece (english and spanish), loop, 10'00''.
(ES) Alejandro es un proyecto que se centra en la vida de la figura pública de Alejandro Cao de Benós, un catalán conocido por simpatizar con la República Popular Democrática de Corea (RPDC) que supuestamente trabaja desde hace décadas para este régimen comunista. Además de realizar tareas en Corea del Norte, Cao de Benós promueve el país asiático en los medios de comunicación occidentales y organiza visitas guiadas para turistas mediante la Korean Friendship Association, organización que él mismo fundó. Procedente de una familia aristócrata catalana venida a menos, Alejandro Cao de Benós alberga sentimientos de pluriidentidad ya que se autodefine como medio español/catalán y medio coreano.
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Crowned, video, color, mute, loop, mobile phone, 01'17’'.