PSJM

Capitalist Penetration in the Amazon from 1988 to 2019

In this piece, part of PSJM’s “Social Geometry” series and their “Natural History” sub-series, the artists from the Canary Islands use a mural based on statistical data to show how deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has evolved between 1988 and 2019. The piece uses two colours – a common graphic code for statistics – and the symbolic coding that associates green with life, nature and the female sex, as well as white as an absence. On the other hand, PSJM proposes a reading based on the title as an essential discourse for the work to be constituted as such. This enables a diachronic reading of the work, making it possible to understand that, beyond political or even sexual differences, there is an evolution over time of a collusion between state and private actors to exploit the Amazonian territory.

PSJM (Cynthia Viera, Las Palmas G.C., 1973; Pablo San José, Mieres, 1969)

PSJM is a team of creation, theory and management formed by Cynthia Viera (Las Palmas G.C., 1973) and Pablo San José (Mieres, 1969). PSJM present themselves as an «art brand», thus appropriating the procedures and strategies of advanced capitalism to subvert their symbolic structures.

The team-brand has been included among the 100 most representative artists of International Political Art in Art & Agenda: Political Art and Activism, (Berlin: Gestalten, 2011). They have also been included in Younger than Jesus. Artist Directory. The essential handbook to the future of art (New York: Phaidon-New Museum, 2009) and Come Together: The Rise of Cooperative Art and Design (New York: Princeton Architectural Press N.Y., 2014), among others.Their work has been shown in numerous international exhibitions such as Personal Structures in the context of 58th Venice Biennale (2015), Beyond the Tropics, in the context of 56th Venice Biennale (2015), Hic et Nunc, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington D.C. (2014), One Shot!, Museu Brasileiro da Escultura, São Paulo (2014), Off Street, A Foundation, London (2009), The Real Royal Trip… by the Arts, PS1-MoMA, New York (2003, in collaboration with El Perro y Aitor Méndez), and others in Spain: Prophetia, Fundación Miró, Barcelona (2015) or PIGS, Artium, Vitoria (2016).

In the theoretical area, it is important to point out some of their latest publications: Arte y procesos democráticos (TEA, Tenerife, 2017) Fuego amigo (CENDEAC, Murcia, 2015), and the article «Marcuse y el lema de la CIA» in Revista de Occidente (Madrid, 2016). Among their works of cultural management are curatorial, coordination and design of:  It´s Personal (Gabinete Literario, Las Palmas GC, 2019), Biotopias (Gabinete Literario, Las Palmas GC, 2018),  Arte y Participación Ciudadana (Las Palmas GC, 2016) and the coordination and design of World is Work, curated by José María Durán (Kwadrat, Berlin, 2010). Their intense activity extends to didactics, where it is relevant their presence as guest professors at Washington State University or in the summer workshops PSJM•Workshop at the Cervantes Institute in Berlin (2012-2015) and Gabinete Literario of Las Palmas GC (2018-2019).

https://psjm.es/