| Exhibition
'Flowers for Franco', by Toni Amengual

In Flowers for Franco, Toni Amengual (Mallorca, 1980) reflects on how the social memory of Spain has been built from the voluntary forgetting of the most traumatic episode in its recent history. El Valle de los Caídos (The Valley of the Fallen) is the most complete icon of that hegemonic hisstory that favors stability and consensus over reparation and criticism.

Through a documentary approach to the more prosaic objects and events of the Francoist monument, the artist sheds light on the cracks and fissures that the dominant discourses on the relationship between history and memory run through.

Between 2011 and 2014, Amengual continuously visited the Cuelgamuros mausoleum in order to give an account of the silence that surrounds both the Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship. The project, however, does not aim to describe or represent the monument, but rather, using everyday gestures and details, aims to evoke its fatal atmosphere, made of fear and death.

Its title, Flowers for Franco, is a tribute to Flowers for Hitler, the poetry book by singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen published in 1964 and is part of a trilogy of photobooks on the recent history of Spain.

Guided visits:
June 8, 6:00 p.m. (Catalan)
July 13, 1:00 p.m. (Castilian)

Prior registration:
mediacio@esbaluarg.org