Santos V (Saints V)

Pepe Espaliú is a key figure in the aesthetics of mourning and body politics
that developed in Spanish culture around the AIDS pandemic. From the
1980s onwards, he was linked to the Seville magazine Figura, where he
worked as a correspondent in Paris.
The Santos were produced between 1987 and 1988, just before
his diagnosis confirming him as HIV-positive, which would shape his
subsequent production. Numbered as a series from I to XII, they recall
the apostles or prophets. They are made of leather, the most familiar
material in his native Córdoba, by Seville saddlers from the company El
Caballo. The design of a riding uniform and animal harness reference
the sadomasochistic fetishes of desire proliferating in the gay liberation
movement since the 1970s.
The artist explained that they were inspired by a visit to the British
Museum: ‘I was overwhelmed by the statuary rooms of the Congo, Ivory
Coast, Nigeria and so on. I started some drawings based on that, emphasising
that idea — very museum-like — of a mask resting on a horizontal surface.’
When laid flat, they negate their status as faces and reference human
remains, the decapitated heads of martyrs, John the Baptist ... in short,
death. Espaliú said: ‘For me, every mask, like every garment, is a language
of concealment.’ The Santos are nominal screens for a void, indicative of an
incessant desire for meaning that is never satisfied, always deposed