Bienal de Pontevedra

Francesc Torres addresses, with his distinctive critical tone, the increasing rhetoric of the far right linked to anarcho-capitalism ideology. This trend, which advocates unrestricted capitalism and minimal state control, has become the basis for many discourses dominating contemporary politics. Torres' work is an exercise of visual subversion that uses reproductions of Frederic Remington's paintings, reinterpreted by Chinese copyists, to question the founding myth of the United States. The artist unveils how anarcho-capitalism, like colonialism, is based on a vision of the world in which individual liberties are defended at the expense of dispossessing and exploiting the most vulnerable people. In the centre of the installation, a Colt revolver, symbol of the violent conquest of the West, appears as a key piece that, next to a copy of Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, stands as the totem of an economic thought that denies any form of state intervention. Torres reveals the contradictions inherent in this ideology and shows how, under its appearance of freedom, a domination project is hidden. This work also questions the idea that capitalism without limits can solve social problems, as eliminating the welfare state will lead us to new forms of dependency and control.