Tres

His real name was never made public. Despite his numerous exhibitions, he managed to hide behind the name of Tres, the number of the day he was born. Tres was a multidisciplinary artist and sound researcher (as a youngster he had played with the avant-garde band Klamm). His main interest was the subject of silence. Through paintings, sculptures, collages and videos, he focused on silence as the unifying element in his work. With a heterodox spirit, together with a large dose of agitprop, his was a radical art close to Dadaism. In 1985, while taking part in a pseudo-Dadaist show dedicated to Francis Picabia, he had a disturbing experience that prompted him to work anonymously from then on. During his silent period, he organised various actions, from silent concerts or cocktail parties, to blackouts in emblematic buildings or performances with his face covered, always with political undertones. Tres used silence as a strategy towards a rhetorical and productive void: to fight against a hyper-productive world, or to suspend all physical and mental activity. Among his influences are artists such as James Lee-Byars, John Cage and Joseph Beuys, and writers such as Susan Sontag and William S. Burroughs.