Folklore #1

Patricia Esquivias

Caracas, Venezuela, 1979
  • Series: 
    Folklore
  • Date: 
    2006
  • Edition/serial number: 
    4/5
  • Media description: 
    Video (MiniDV and DVD)
  • Duration: 
    15 min.
  • Colour: 
    Colour
  • Sound: 
    Sound
  • Category: 
    Video
  • Entry date: 
    2008
  • Register number: 
    AD04896

In this work, Patricia Esquivias looks at the relationship between the History and the histories of the second half of the 20th century in Spain through two figures selected from that context: Francisco Franco and Jesús Gil. The first, the dictator who casts a long shadow over most of the 20th century in Spain; the second, a property developer, mayor and populist politician who embodied many of the ambiguities and contradictions of desarrollismo, the policies of economic development that would theoretically lead, at the end of Franco’s regime, to a prosperous democratic Spain. The starting point for this unique narrative is a written outline that serves as a kind of script, made up of information (not always completely accurate) that the artist has remembered or taken from Internet about the two personalities. Esquivias narrates the story with humour, showing photographs of stereotypical and traditional things identified with Spanish culture, such as fried eggs, the Valencian fiesta (connected to paella and kitsch Lladró figurines) and Madrid’s movida of the late 70s/early80s.
This video is the first of the Folklore series, which gathers documentary works about events of slight importance that nevertheless remain in the collective memory, and enable the artist to present a reading of major historic events that is loaded with irony and humour.

Cristina Cámara Bello

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