Adrian Melis Open Screen. Works from the MACBA Collection
Thursday 18 June, from 10 am – available for 24 hours
Adrian Melis
1. Elaboración de cuarenta piezas rectangulares para la construcción de un piso (The Making of Fourty Rectangular Pieces for a Floor Construction)
2008
Length: 5 min 20 s
2. El valor de la ausencia: excusas para ausentarse de su centro laboral (The Value of Absence: Excuses to Absent Oneself from One's Place of Work)
2009-2010
Length: 8 min
Melis reflects on the productive system in his country of origin, Cuba. In the first of these two works, he records a working day at a state construction plant, a place where materials are often lacking and the workers spend hours doing nothing. Melis asked them to gutturally reproduce, over a period of one full working day, the sounds that can be heard when production is going on. In the second work, the artist focuses on the excuses that workers give for not going to work. In exchange for paying some workers an amount equivalent to the wages that they would not get by not working, Melis asked them to record the conversations they had with their employers when absenting themselves from their places of work.
