“When the people shall have nothing more to eat, they will eat the rich.”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Artistic collective DEMOCRACIA (Pablo España and Iván López) premiere their expansive new operatic work ORDER at Rua Red Gallery, Dublin. Based in Madrid, DEMOCRACIA collaborate on large-scale interventions, politicising spaces and situations through the apparatus of propaganda.

Filmed between Dublin, Houston and London, ORDER moves between out-of-town shopping malls, open-carry demonstrations and lavish dinners, to present in its melodrama the historic antagonisms of the oppressors and the oppressed.

Presented as film and installation, ORDER is a three part opera that seeks to radically critique the conventions and injustices of capitalism. The artwork presents in its three acts – Eat the Rich/Kill the Poor; Jeremiah; and Dinner at the Dorchester – dramaticised analogues of our reality through carefully engineered interventions in public and private spaces.

By shifting the production away from the constrictions of the theatrical medium and its bourgeois environment – ORDER violently disrupts the cultural grammar of opera. DEMOCRACIA use this art form as a tool with which the ruling classes may be pilloried, lambasted and held to account.

The libretto of ORDER is inspired by Hesiod’s didactic poem Works & Days, in particular, its telling of the Myth of Five Ages. Believed to have been written during the Ancient Greek agrarian crisis, a time of colonial expansion, debt-slavery and class war, Works & Days bears stark correlations to our present context. In this passage, Hesiod details the “race of iron”, an age where “men never rest from labour and sorrow by day, and from perishing by night”; an age in which “men will praise the evil-doer and his violent dealing”. DEMOCRACIA seize the central premise of Hesiod’s poem and transform it into a scathing discourse on the ills of contemporary society.

Opening Reception RSVP

Artists

DEMOCRACIA

DEMOCRACIA is an artistic collective comprised of Iván López & Pablo España based in Madrid, Spain. Formed in 2001, their collaboration seeks to centre artistic production on collectivity, discourse, dissensus and conflict. DEMOCRACIA’s work is characterised by their ambitious and provocative social interventions, superlative production, contemporary agitprop punk aesthetic and emancipatory content.

Their projects reflect concerns with so-called progressive societies; visible in the increasing importance of the image and in the gradual incorporation of simulacrum into different realms of daily life. These concerns are expressed through forms subverting and repositioning the aesthetic material and textual rhetoric of Western political cultures. In so doing, their practise presents a radical critique of societal/political/economic institutions, systems and conventions.

DEMOCRACIA have exhibited their work internationally at institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, Malaga, Spain (2018); MUCEM,Marseille, France (2017); Kunstverein Freidberg, Germany (2016); Station Museum of Contemporary Art, USA (2014) Hirshhorn Museum,Washington DC, USA (2012); Tapei Biennial, Taiwan (2008); & Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweeden (2007).

Facebook

Partners

a/political

a/political is a not-for-profit organisation, collaborating with socio-political artists. a/political initiate, produce and tour large-scale projects world-wide. With offices based in London, a/political opened The Foundry in Maubourguet as an experimental art space, producing ambitious projects outside the controls of the contemporary art market. In addition, a/politicalacquires artworks for permanent installation at The Foundry to compliment the collection currently located in London. Recent collaborations include ‘Torture’ with Andres Serrano, ‘FORWARD’ with Erik Bulatov and ‘Black Flag’ with Santiago Sierra.

Facebook

Instagram

Station Museum of Contemporary Art

Station Museum of Contemporary Art is a Houston based exhibition forum for local, national, and international artists, with
an emphasis on fine arts that reflects the cultural diversity of Houston’s communities. The museum has held comprehensive
exhibitions from Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Congo, South Africa, Czech Republic, Austria, Palestine, Iraq, India,
Afghanistan, and Russia. As an institution that supports local and Texas art, the Station has organized significant solo
exhibitions by Mel Chin, James Drake, Dick Wray, Jesse Lott, George Smith, and group exhibitions that bring Texas artists
together with national and international artists.

Facebook

Instagram