Social critique and a sustained engagement with socioeconomic conditions in a world shaped by neoliberal ideologies serve as the starting point for Santiago Sierra’s multidisciplinary practice. Through provocative actions, large-scale installations, and text-based works, the artist exposes systemic inequalities and their historical and political roots. His contribution to the Spanish Pavilion at the 2003 Venice Biennale addressed questions of belonging in a supposedly globalized world: he blocked off the pavilion’s main entrance with a wall, stationed guards, and admitted only visitors with Spanish passports. Another seminal work, NO, Global Tour (2009), featured a truck carrying the monumental word sculpture NO through the streets of cities worldwide. With his new text-based work KLASSENKAMPF (class struggle), Sierra raises questions about class relations and the systemic roots of contemporary social conflicts.

Sierra (*1966 in Madrid, lives and works in Madrid) has exhibited widely in solo presentations at Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (2024/2025); Dundee Contemporary Arts (2018); Deichtorhallen Hamburg (2013); Reykjavik Art Museum (2012); Museo Madre, Naples (2009); Tate Modern, London (2008); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2004); and Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2002). Group exhibitions include Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz (2023); K20, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf (2021); Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2020). Santiago Sierra represented Spain at the Venice Biennale (2003) and was a participant in the Istanbul Biennial (2013).