Fernando Sánchez Castillo

Fernando Sánchez Castillo (1970) is interested in the role that revolution and social unrest play in art and society while exploring their utopian and aesthetic values. Stamped with the irony of decontextualisation, the inscription is detached from its already outdated commemorative function and shines out in flamboyant letters. The students in May 1968 were united under the slogan “we are all undesirables”, but the meaning is re-appropriated here by an artist who mocks solemnity by largely preferring the spontaneity of a popular festival. What could be more celebratory than the opening of this magnificent Eldorado where art officially has the right to be one of the last bastions of truth? A truth which is always politically incorrect, but nonetheless examined, decorticated and sifted by numerous artists and curators, today’s “undesirables”.

In Bird Feeder (2010) Sánchez Castillo displays a less acerbic approach which is full of humor and insolence. He presents the bust of King Philippe V of Spain, who was the Duke of Luxembourg from 1700 to 1712, and undermines its real function as a commemorative monument. “Bird Feeder” promotes the special relationship between birds and public statues through an ingenious internal mechanism involving an Archimedean screw which continuously places seed in a hollow situated on the vertex of the bust. The birds come to land there and feed, discoloring the patina of the bronze and contributing to the fertilization of the gardens and the surrounding area.