Silo. Archivo F.X.
A Project by Pedro G. Romero

This exhibition covers all Spanish geography and stops at the events of the Semana Trágica (Tragic Week) in Barcelona (from 26 to 31 July 1909, abundantly documented) and the Civil War, especially in the summer of 1936 with photographs of temples and devotional images being devastated. One of the most striking pieces is the reconstruction of the Checa, psychological torture site installed in 1938 in the church on Calle Vallmajor in Barcelona. This is a 2 metre high and one and a half metre wide room, some two by two and a half metres wide, with floors covered in oblique bricks. The cell was built by the Communists to detain Trotskyists and anarchists, it also consisted of two seats angled to prevent rest and was decorated with geometric patterns reminiscent of some works of European art between the wars.
In Romero’s archive, available online, political and propaganda details of these images are narrated; they include the literature, pamphlets, fantasies and mythologies that these documents have generated and philosophical, aesthetic or scientific reflection are offered that have served both to justify and question these actions. The origins of the name of his archive may refer to "File X", an archive that holds the unclassifiable, the unknown but also has connotations of special effects and even of f(x), the function of "x" as a complex, open archive that becomes a tool, useful for knowledge.
Artists
Organised by
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía
Image gallery

