Aesthetics
Online ISSN : 2424-1164
Print ISSN : 0520-0962
ISSN-L : 0520-0962
Santiago Sierra’s Practical Work and Torturous Play : Distinguishing between Labors and Workers in the “Remunerated Actions”
Rui FUJIMOTO
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2025 Volume 75 Issue 2 Pages 61-72

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Abstract
Santiago Sierra, a Spanish contemporary artist born in 1966, is renowned for his work called “remunerated actions,” which often involve the exploitative manipulation of the human body. The actions are performed by remunerating the participants. In previous research, Sierra’s works have been considered to provoke racial and economic disparities between participants and audiences through their structural devices, leading to “friction, awkwardness, and discomfort.” In contrast, this paper analyzes how Sierra’s representative work 160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People (2000) is reflected as “torture” to present an alternative interpretation of the discomfort. So, I focus on assistants’ behaviors that have not received attention in previous research by distinguishing between “labors,” the human labor force employed for the work, and “workers,” assistants executing the work’s intent. And I argues the worker’s two aspects through referencing the documents of torture Abu Ghraib Photography: worker quietly executes tattooing as a practical work, but becomes this action as a torturous play by smiling with the camera. However, Sierra assumes responsibility for these actions of the labors and workers in this work as an artist. This approach critiques the ambiguity of responsibility for its actions in the case of Abu Ghraib photography.
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© 2025 The Japanese Society for Aesthetics
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