“In Spain there is a very strong criminal organization: the Catholic Church.” Pamplona artist Abel Azcona is going strong. There is nervous, complicit laughter. He uttered the phrase in the performance held last Thursday at the Museu de l’Art Prohibit, in Barcelona. The event was born as a need to close something opened 9 years ago by the same artist with his work Amen (2015). Censored and many times denounced – more than 7 -, the piece, also known as La pederastia, consists of an installation of 242 consecrated hosts on a wooden panel measuring 133 x 609 cm. To prepare it, Azcona dedicated himself to religiously collecting 242 hosts in different parishes in Navarra: one for each of the cases of sexual abuse of children by members of the Church in northern Spain until 2015. He was one of the affected.
“Long live Christ the king! Long live! Long live! Long live!” The screams of the angry masses echoed in the darkness of the room as it was projected. On the screen, a Capuchin monk followed by a mass of faithful shouted in front of the Monument to the Fallen in Pamplona where the work was exhibited in 2015. They threw holy water, prayed against blasphemy. “They are better performers than me,” Azcona commented mockingly. “Some told me that if I had hired them, that was a meta performance,” she added. It only took 3 minutes of footage from his video-essay to realize the seriousness, almost parody, of the matter.
The beginning of the event was simple: chairs, many chairs, a presentation screen and a table with a glass of water next to an armchair where the man from Pamplona, ??dressed in black and with a high collar, sat down. But comfort was not exactly his strong suit, nor did he intend it to be. The public was not comfortable either. Azcona, “son of a woman who practiced prostitution and polydrug addiction,” in his own words, is known for the controversy aroused by his artistic proposals with a marked autobiographical dimension. “The only gestures of love my mother gave me were her abortion attempts.”
“La Salle parish of Catalonia de Rosario Cádiz, 2005, a raped child,” Azcona proclaimed. “Amen,” the audience responded. The second part of the performance was performed in front of the work where, while Azcona mentioned out loud, one by one, the 242 cases of abuse, the audience shouted “Amen.” He began with his tattooed hand and many of the attendees ended by indicating with their hands what abuse corresponded to each host. The hosts, light, with each “amen”, gained weight.
The public got involved. They cried and became indignant with each “Amen.” There was no longer humor, no mockery, no satire. The air in the room took on density, the density of something sacred: a communion denunciation, a freedom exorcised forever and ever… amen.
