In 1999, Spanish artist SANTIAGO SIERRA paid six unemployed young men in Cuba to take part in one of his installation pieces. The men were offered $30 each to participate, and stripped to their shorts to become a part of its human experiments, this time in the Espacia Aglutinador, Havana’s oldest art space. SANTIAGO SIERRA had the men tattooed – one straight, horizontal line reaching across each of their backs.
“Having a tattoo is normally a personal choice. But when you do it under ’remunerated’ conditions, this gesture becomes something that seems awful, degrading—it perfectly illustrates the tragedy of our social hierarchies. The tattoo is not the problem. The problem is the existence of social conditions that allow me to make this work. You could make this tattooed line a kilometer long, using thousands and thousands of willing people.”
Not surprisingly, his work has been widely controversial!
