Helena Almeida: 'Seduzir' [To Seduce, 2002] (detail)

Collection

La cámara del tesoro. Perspectiva II [The Treasure Vault Perspective II]

Image caption
CRISTINA LUCAS

La cámara del tesoro. Perspectiva II [The Treasure Vault Perspective II]

  • 2014
  • Chromogenic print on paper
  • 180 x 256 cm
  • Cat. F_169
  • Acquired in 2014
By:
Isabel Tejeda

The two photos entitled The Treasure Vault (2014) formed part of the exhibition 'ES CAPITAL' ['It's Capital'] by Cristina Lucas (b. Jaén, 1973), which was shown at the Matadero (Madrid), the Patio Herreriano Museum (Valladolid) and the Centre for Contemporary Art of Galicia (Santiago de Compostela). It consisted of a tale of capitalism in four chapters which the artist herself described as 'historical and subjective' for its time. Chapter one analysed the current exchange value of the original manuscript and first editions of Das Kapital by Karl Marx, under the title Plusvalía ['Capital Gain']. With heavy irony, it evidenced how capitalism had swallowed up the cornerstone of Marxist theory. Chapter two was Capitalismo filosófico ['Philosophical Capitalism']. It comprised a number of interviews seeking to clarify the links between certain concepts, such as death, art, beauty and truth, and the market. El superbien común ['The Common Super-Good'] focused on one of the paradoxes of capitalism: ever-increasing production in a world of finite natural resources and the utopian idea that access to wealth can be universal.

The Treasure Vault comprises two photos taken in the reserve vault of the Banco de España. This was the first time that an artist had been allowed to take pictures there. The reserve vault is a secure chamber 35 m below ground level at the Banco de España headquarters building in Madrid. It was opened in 1936, and holds 7400 gold ingots, comprising one third of Spain's gold reserves (the rest is held in Fort Knox and in London) plus a large quantity of gold coins, all arranged neatly on shelves with glass doors designed by Eiffel. These ingots are relics from a bygone age. The gold standard ceased to be used as a measure of the value of a country's currency (and therefore of its wealth) in the years between the two world wars. Its place was taken by financial capitalism based on speculation. However, gold has lost none of its symbolic value and its price is quoted on the srock exchange in real time.

This project concerned with gold vaults continued with Netherlands Gold, which Lucas produced in 2016 and which has recently been acquired for the Collection. In this case there are six photos of the Dutch National Bank or Nederlandsche Bank, which were exhibited in the same year in which they were taken, at the OK Offenes Kulturhaus in Linz (Austria), at a retrospective of Cristina Lucas's work. By contrast with the impressive image given by the historical and symbolic value of the gold shown at the Banco de España, the Dutch vault is surprising for its simplicity and for the bare, unadorned feeling conveyed by the shelving on which the countless ingots are neatly stacked. There are so many that it took six photos to show them all.

These two series are to be followed in future by further pictures taken at gold vaults around the world.

Isabel Tejeda

 
By:
Isabel Tejeda
Cristina Lucas
Jaén 1973

Cristina Lucas obtained a degree in Fine Arts at the Complutense University in Madrid (1998) and a Master's Degree at the University of California in Irvine (2000). From the outset, she has worked in performative art. However she tends to eschew stage appearances and rather records her actions in the form of photos and videos. She works in installations, drawing, animation, painting, photography and performance art, depending on what she has to say on each occasion, though these areas tend to overlap with action art, which is her most characteristic genre.

She reflects in an essentially critical fashion on images and established icons of renowned, mythical importance and on concepts that can be seen as assumptions. She seeks to help end structural inequalities, and the patriarchy is a major bone of contention for her (if not the only one). She holds an active political opinion on the role of art, though she does not deny its poetic side. She applies her subtle sense of humour to elements that go beyond rhetoric. Like Ortega y Gasset, she defends the idea that human beings do not have a nature but a history. Accordingly, she analyses the birth of the idea of the state and of citizens, and the point at which they turned into consumers; she looks at citizenship and wonders whether there is any such thing; at the current role of the church, etc. In this she sometimes uses animated maps that give her works an undeniable educational value, as in the case of Pantone (from -500 to 2007) (2007). This sense of incorporating the viewer becomes stronger when people from a particular context take part in her actions and take them on as their own, carrying out symbolic, cathartic, collective acts as in the videos Rousseau and Sophie (2007) and Touch and Go (2012).

Solo exhibitions of her work have been staged at the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (the Netherlands, 2005), the Dos de Mayo Art Centre (Móstoles, Madrid, 2009), the Carrillo Gil Museum (Mexico City, 2010), the Kunstraum Innsbruck (Austria, 2014), the Centre for Contemporary Art of Galicia (Santiago de Compostela, 2014) and the Santa Mónica Art Centre (Barcelona, 2015). She won the Ojo Crítico ['Critical Eye'] Award for Plastic Arts in 2009 and the Women in Visual Arts award in 2014.

Isabel Tejeda

 
«Patterns», Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Helga de Alvear (Cáceres, 2022).
Vv.Aa. Colección Banco de España. Catálogo razonado, Madrid, Banco de España, 2019, vol. 3.