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  • Poéticas de la oposición: Política y obra cultural en la España actual by Jonathan Snyder
  • Douglas LaPrade
Snyder, Jonathan. Poéticas de la oposición: Política y obra cultural en la España actual. Brumaria, 2018. Pp. 380. ISBN 978-8-49492-470-5.

This translation into Spanish of Jonathan Snyder’s book analyzes artistic responses to Spain’s 15-M Movement, the social revolution named for the mass demonstrations in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol on May 15, 2011. Snyder establishes a context for the 15-M Movement with references to the May 1968 protests in Paris, to the Arab Spring of 2010, and to Iceland’s financial crisis after 2008. Snyder also cites Stéphane Hessel’s book entitled Indignez-vous! The title of this book, published in 2010, leant its name to Spain’s protestors, the Indignados. The 15-M Movement was the Spanish public’s response to the global economic crisis of 2008, when the American subprime mortgage market collapsed. Spain’s economy suffered greatly after 2008, and unemployment rates worsened.

Poéticas de la oposición: Política y obra cultural en la España actual’s success is a result of the author’s astute selection process in choosing works of art that illustrate the 15-M Movement. In his preface, Snyder discusses an unconventional performance/exhibit by Fran Mohíno at the Matadero, Madrid’s former slaughterhouse, which was converted into a cultural center in 2007 to feature experimental art not found in traditional museums. As the Indignados protest Spain’s political, social, and economic institutions, Spanish artists produce works suggesting how they have been disenfranchised by traditional cultural institutions.

The book’s first chapter analyzes poetry by Gregorio Apesteguía that has appeared in literary fanzines rather than in conventional publications. Like the Matadero, the fanzine is [End Page 131] for art produced outside the mainstream. Snyder chooses to analyze poems by Apesteguía that allude to Spain’s proud poetic heritage, thus lamenting its demise. For example, Apesteguía has published a series of poems entitled “Coplas a la muerte de Europa,” a clear allusion to Jorge Manrique’s fifteenth-century classic, Coplas por la muerte de su padre. The title of Apesteguía’s poem parodies Spain’s traditions and suggests that the European Union has failed to help Spain adjust to the modern era. Another poem by Apesteguía quotes a famous poem by San Juan de la Cruz—“En una noche oscura”—but drowns out the mystic poet’s meditations with the sound of a passing commuter train.

The second chapter features an example of performance art that defies categorization according to genre or medium. On August 15, 2012, Santiago Sierra and Jorge Galindo filmed a simulated motorcade on Madrid’s Gran Vía. The performance was called Los encargados (The Ones in Charge). The procession consisted of seven apparently official cars, each of which transported on its roof an upside-down portrait of one of Spain’s leaders since the Transition. The first car bore the image of King Juan Carlos I, and the subsequent cars transported the portraits of the presidents from Adolfo Suárez to Mariano Rajoy. The event was a parody designed to ridicule the solemnity and dignity of official motorcades. The organizers Sierra and Galindo thereby staged an event designed to reclaim or appropriate the Gran Vía from the official leaders.

The third chapter discusses a photography exhibit entitled El último verano (Last Summer) by members of Nophoto, a collective of artists whose work documents the summer of 2012. One of the most representative photographs, by Paco Gómez, features a woman lying on the railroad in a small town in Extremadura. Because of economic hardship, the train will no longer pass through this town, which is on the track connecting Madrid and Lisbon. Without the train, the small town’s economy will suffer even further. The woman lying on the railroad in the photograph is not in danger of being run over by the cancelled train, but the town’s economy will surely die.

The fourth chapter discusses plays by Abril Zamora, notably Temporada...

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