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Amen or The Pederasty

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Amen or The Pederasty
ArtistAbel Azcona
Year2015 (2015)
TypePerformance art
LocationPamplona, Madrid

Amen, more commonly known as The Pederasty ("La pederastia" in Spanish), is a conceptual, critical and process artwork by Abel Azcona. Over several months, Azcona (who had received a Catholic education from the age of seven following his adoption) attended Eucharists in churches and parishes that were linked to his childhood. At each Eucharist, he kept the communion wafer rather than eating it. He thus gathered two hundred and forty-two wafers, the number of cases of pederasty reported in the north of Spain during the decade before that. He arranged the wafers into a work that spelled out the word Pederasty. It was first exhibited at a gallery in central Madrid in the summer of 2015.[1]

Exhibition

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At the end of 2015, a section of the work by Abel Azcona was selected to be part of a retrospective exhibition of the artist's works inside the city of Pamplona's Monument to the Fallen in the Spanish Civil War. The work was located on the altar of the old monument, which was formerly the cathedral of Pamplona, but at the time of Azconas' show, it was desacralized. Along with Amen's other critical works about child abuse such as The Shadow was displayed. In The Shadow, he denounced cases of child abuse in a piece in which the survivors are the protagonists. In the work, Azcona presented more than two hundred actual cases of pedophilia in museums and galleries in various cities in Spain. At each show, Azcona gave a live performance from a wooden swing of the experiences of the survivors. A swing was also installed inside the Monument to the Fallen of Pamplona.[1]

Controversy

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The day after the inauguration of the exhibition, multiple demonstrations and demands for its closure occurred.[2][3] The Catholic Church called it the greatest offense to Christian belief on numerous occasions.[4][5] Azcona documented all these situations of confrontation and included them in the exhibitions of the work. The artist endured more than five years of judicial proceedings for complaints about the work at many different courts and judicial entities.[6]

Abel Azcona's work denounces child abuse and has been persecuted and denounced for being critical of the Church in works such as Amen or The Pederasty.[7] This last one was sued three times before the Superior Court of Justice of Navarra for three crimes and alleged desecration and blasphemy. The first one was by the Archbishopric of Pamplona and Tudela, who are representatives of the Catholic Church in the north of Spain.[8][9] The second one, by the Delegation of the Government in Navarra, controlled by the Popular Party at the time, and the third one was by The Asociación Española de Abogados Cristianos (Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers), who also made criminal complaints against Azcona.[10] The lawsuits were won by Azcona,[11][12] however the group took the complaint to the Supreme Court. Whilst awaiting the case being heard by the Supreme Court, the Association of Christian Lawyers, in this instance acting alone, started an action against Spain in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg for not condemning Azcona,[13][14] and according to them, to protect him. Each time the work was shown, the complaint was re-formulated, so Azcona was cited in the Court of Justice of Palma de Mallorca and the High Court of Justice of Catalonia in Barcelona. After five years of judicial proceedings for critical works against the Catholic Church and more specifically, with pedophilia, Azcona declared his " disobedience" in relation to charges, and the complainants included obstruction of justice in their complaints.[15][16][17]

When the High Court of Justice of Catalonia issued a judicial arrest warrant in 2019 after Azcona failed to appear before the court for the third time, Azcona went into exile and settled in Lisbon, Portugal.[18][19][15] This has not prevented him from opening new exhibitions in the Spain and publishing critical works. He defends his artistic ideology and his political ideas, which are supported by certain sectors of the Spanish left-wing.[8][20][21] Conversely, his works are seen as desecrations and sacrileges by the most conservative sector of Spanish and Latin American society.[14][22][23]

Collection

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The work has been exhibited in various museums in Berga, Mallorca, Murcia, Madrid and Lleida, cities of Spain.[24] The latest exhibition in Lleida was presented by art collector Tatxo Benet.[25]

Bibliography

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  • Group FIDEX, Figures of excess and body policies (2018). Technical-conceptual atlas of the Fidex research group: Micropolitics in contemporary research in Fine Arts (in Spanish). Universitas Miguel Hernández. ISBN 978-8416024711.
  • Moya Gómez, Carlos (2016). A vision of gender through performance in today's Spain (PDF) (in Spanish). Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
  • Silva Gómez, Norma Ángelica (2018). Abel Azcona: Of empathy as (im) possibility (in Spanish). Colegio de Saberes de México.
  • Muñoz Clemente, Carolina (2016). El arte contemporáneo para la comprensión crítica del Centro Comercial (PDF) (in Spanish). University Complutense of Madrid.

References

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  1. ^ a b Talegón, Beatriz (November 25, 2019). "Abel Azcona: 'Calling me "son of a whore" is fine with me. The real insult should be "son of a john".'". Diario 16. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  2. ^ Naiz (November 25, 2015). "Opening of the exhibition of Abel Azcona". Naiz. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  3. ^ Fernández, Eva. "The exhibition by Azcona continues with the controversial part but without the sacred forms". Diario de Navarra. No. November 25, 2015. Retrieved January 2, 2020.
  4. ^ Iglesia, Navarra. "Desecrating Jesus Eucharist is a very grave sacrilege". Iglesia Navarra. Retrieved January 2, 2020.
  5. ^ Anarte, Enrique (November 24, 2015). "Abel Azcona pisses off the Christian ultras by writing "pederasty" with consecrated hosts". Vice. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  6. ^ "They again investigate Abel Azcona for drawing with hosts the word 'pederasty'". El Diario. No. December 21, 2018. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  7. ^ Europa, Press (24 November 2015). "The Archbishopric of Pamplona-Tudela mobilizes against the exhibition of Abel Azcona". Europa Press. Retrieved December 24, 2019.
  8. ^ a b Dani Domínguez (June 26, 2018). "Abel Azcona: "I prefer artists in prisons than silent artists in their studio"". La Marea. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  9. ^ Peio H. Riaño (April 9, 2017). "Abel Azcona: "Tattooing Donald Trump in the anus doesn't transform anything"". El Español. Retrieved September 22, 2018.
  10. ^ M.B. (December 21, 2018). "Abel Azcona charged again for using consecrated hosts for a performance". El Español.
  11. ^ "La Audiencia de Navarra confirma el archivo de la causa contra la exposición blasfema de Abel Azcona". ABC. 5 May 2017. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
  12. ^ EFE (7 May 2017). "Archivado el caso contra el artista Abel Azcona por utilizar hostias en una obra". Público. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
  13. ^ Redacción (8 October 2019). "Estrasburgo admite una querella contra España por la exposición de Azcona". Eitb Euskal Telebista. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
  14. ^ a b Redacción (8 August 2019). "Strasbourg handles the demand for Christian Lawyers for the exhibition of Abel Azcona with consecrated forms". La Vanguardia. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
  15. ^ a b Group FIDEX 2018, p. 96.
  16. ^ H. Riaño, Peio (5 February 2019). "The artist Abel Azcona plants the judge who investigates him for writing "pederasty" with consecrated hosts". El País. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
  17. ^ Eitb Cultura (5 February 2019). "Abel Azcona does not attend a judicial summons in Barcelona and declares himself disobedient". Eitb Euskal Telebista. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
  18. ^ La Sexta (10 May 2019). "The exile of the artist Abel Azcona in Portugal". La Sexta. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
  19. ^ Redacción (7 May 2019). "L'artista Abel Azcona s'exilia a Portugal per la persecució judicial de la seva obra". VilaWeb. Retrieved 24 December 2019.
  20. ^ Mopez, Victor (29 July 2019). "Abel Azcona: "Si Franco despertara mañana, estaría contento de cómo está España"". Los Replicantes (in Spanish). España. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  21. ^ Group FIDEX 2018.
  22. ^ de Cárdena, Nicolás (8 October 2019). "El montaje con hostias consagradas de Abel Azcona llega al Tribunal Europeo de Derechos Humanos". Actual (in Spanish). España. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
  23. ^ Martín, Cristina (16 November 2016). "El profanador Abel Azcona absuelto: el sacrilegio saldrá barato". Hispanidad (in Spanish). España. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
  24. ^ Rodriguez Oroz, Amaia (December 17, 2019). "'Amen', by Abel Azcona, will be exhibited in Barcelona in June next year". Noticias de Navarra. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
  25. ^ Peleo, Lidia (January 10, 2020). ""Censored", an art collection to defend freedom of speech". Público. Retrieved January 14, 2020.
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