From the dictatorship to the republic up to the Roman Empire, it persists the idea of a top power, a Machiavellian princeps who in order to obtain respect and submission, needs to invest in their own image, to build a social mask, to become an icon. Politics plays cards, raises its own models and heroes to emulate as for the myth, working to the incarnation of credibility.
Kepa Garraza with its black and white posters, in a technically impeccable work, graded and polished in the use of the pastel, plays with perspective and chiaroscuro. We are "forced" in a front view from the bottom to the top, crushed by the emblematic monumental character of the figures. The artist starts from busts or marble sculptures dotted in energetic diagonals. The effigies of Augusto, Napoleon, Lenin, Stalin, Putin, the beautiful bronze bust of Charles V preserved at Prado, the complicity of Bush family, father and son, the security emanated by Abraham Lincoln sitting on his head, with the hands almost hitting the surface, the light that affects the proud chest and the serious but good-looking admonishing and disciplined look.
Alberto Di Fabio, Galassie+Nebulose, 2011, acrylic on canvas, 60x60cm.