In this performance, the artist poses 30,000 times for a camera over eight hours, replicating a complicated image of police brutality. The image that is recreated is based on the photograph Manifestacío per les Llibertats, Barcelona 1 Febrer 1976 [Demonstration for Freedoms, Barcelona 1 February, 1976] by Manel Armengol. However, this image is widely misattributed as evidence of police brutality in various Latin American countries, including Argentina, Mexico, Guatemala and Chile, which is how Tálamo first encountered it. As its correct title suggests, it records the state violence in the wake of the Spanish revolution. While its misattribution is perhaps unsurprising, given the prevalence of misinformation on the Internet, provocative images are difficult to erase and extract from the visual mythology that has developed around them. In re-working a central mis-memory, Tálamo encounters the multiple fields and directions with which contemporary memories are mobilised.
Action
30,000 Shots, 107 Gallery, Sydney (2020)
Photographs
#530, #9508, #19858, #23916, #26175, #26247, #27590
This work was presented with support from the 107 Creative Call Out program and under the supervision of Dr Bryoni Trezise.
