El Muro: Alberto de Torres. Debajo del Sombrero
This year IDEM, the International Performing Arts Festival, welcomes the work of Alberto de Torres (Madrid, 1974). The artist is a member of Debajo del Sombrero, an art platform modelled on European and American “supported studios”, where artists with mental disabilities are able to work with assistance.
Rather than maintaining its own venue, Debajo del Sombrero organises workshops at different spaces, including, since 2008, La Casa Encendida. This interactive modus operandi is a key ingredient in the unique experience of this project, putting it in contact with the latest models of solidarity and the arts to show that different approaches can coexist and be mutually enriched.
El Muro [The Wall] features selected works by artist Alberto de Torres: “Every week, Alberto’s appearance at the workshop is a fresh surprise. His arrival is always conspicuous, because he knows how to make an entrance and command attention, having already turned the place into a stage. And so Alberto appears, makes his presence known. His appearance is a performance that takes us all by surprise, as the unwitting audience to his stage entrance. His improvised and ambiguous attire is rather disconcerting. Elegant one day and extravagant the next, the game of showing up and appearing has, over time, become an increasingly deliberate dress rehearsal, running through a cast of unsettling characters who strike poses, sometimes peeping out from behind a mask, recreating a stolen moment or, lately, going undercover without warning in an audience that suddenly realises there’s an odd figure in their midst, though no one knows exactly what he’s doing there.”
