The edition for Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst is based on a work that Santiago Sierra realized for GAK in Bremen in 2005. In the video of the same name, La Visita, Sierra documents the visit of a man who for almost twenty years has been trying to earn his living in a wealthy quarter of Mexico City with various services on the street. He is a typical representative of those shadow economies that have developed in societies with no or insufficient social security systems. With the rough aesthetics of a b/w handheld camera, Sierra documented, without adding comments, first the situation of the visitor – who remains nameless – on the streets of Mexico City, then the transatlantic journey and the short stay in the Hanseatic city. The reason for the visit was a tour of the Daimler Chrysler plant, the largest employer in the city. On a guided tour, the man in the wheelchair visited the production of the status symbols that ensure his improvised subsistence in Mexico, for example as a parking attendant or car cleaner. The film ends with passing the passport controls at Bremen airport for the return flight. The neutral observation without verbal statements of the protagonists does not judge.
The edition shows a text-image montage of a b/w video still typical for Sierra’s work.
Santiago Sierra was born in Madrid in 1966, studied in Madrid and Hamburg and has lived in Mexico City since 1995. Besides numerous solo and group exhibitions, he represented Spain at the Biennale di Venezia in 2003, and in 2005 he participated in the exhibition “A Lucky Strike. Art finds city” of GAK.