Bienal de Pontevedra

Fritzia Irizar establishes a direct dialogue with Picasso's Guernica and reflects on the violence of war, civilian suffering and historical memory. The work portrays the bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War, when German and Italian troops attacked the town to support the rebel side. Through this reference, the work connects this historical episode with present-day war tragedies in order to build a bridge between the past and the present. It replicates Picasso's original painting on a 1:1 scale, a symbol of peace that Irizar updates with each presentation of this work. In her first installation, the artist fired confetti made with images of the civilian victims of the Russian bombing of Aleppo. In a new performance, she added images of other territories devastated by war, such as Ukraine, Palestine and Syria. In this new performative act, the confetti are fired from a cannon and stuck to the painting using a slow-drying glue to create an atmosphere somewhere between festivity and tragedy. The work reflects on the trivialisation of violence in contemporary visual culture and stresses the urgency of not forgetting the lessons of the past.