Visual Regime

Installation at Rencontres d'Arles 2015 for Discovery Prize. Nomination and curated by Fannie Escoulen. Julian Barón is one of the most active and commited figures of the new Spanish photographic scene. The installation presented at the Rencontres d’Arles brings together for the first time three of his recent projects, produced in Spain since 2011: 'C.E.N.S.U.R.A', 'Tauromaquia', and 'Los últimos días vistos del rey'. Deeply concerned by the political, economic, and social issues of a country in unprecedented crisis, he uses outrageously manipulated and twisted images in a dialectic of the representation of power, institutions, and the political class. Fannie Escoulen. In order to create a world favorable to themselves, the representatives of power stimulate the public by means of visual marketing techniques. They configure ‘seeing’ through political hegemony, institutional execution, urban advertising, and the use of mass media; agents infiltrating our homes. We find ourselves submerged in a technological era where we absorb and re-project images like signal repeaters. The photographs and videos that we consume and create makes us a part of the regime. We are witnesses to and extras in the image of our time. While 'C.E.N.S.U.R.A'. is a visual variation across the Spanish political landscape, 'Tauromaquia' explores the mechanisms of social control in motion, whereby authoritarianism is legitimized by use of police demonstration. The third and related work, 'Los últimos días vistos del rey', is a description of the political caste that, with almost unchanging rituals, has dominated Spain for the last forty years. Julián Barón