El corto burgués, 2013
Stop motion, 1’43”
Still of 'El corto burgués'. Courtesy of the artist
A "bourgeois" couple visits what seems to be a contemporary art museum, recognisable through the grid-like plan that transmits the elementary architecture of the celebrated white cube. The two chatter away, one imagines without a lot of idea.
Through this simple action, animated in minutely calculated stop motion, Misha Bies Golas (Lalín, Pontevedra, 1977) prompts a whole chain of visual and textual references embracing everything from minimalist sets to kitsch sculpture, though in the foreground, clearly out of place, there is the continual presence of the plasticity of a turd.
The technique used connects with other mediums like film, enhanced by an elementary soundtrack that alludes to the mechanism and theatricality of the mise en scene. Layer upon layer of meanings are piled on top of the literalness of the title that is open to manifold interpretations. After all, a “burgués corto” (dumb bourgeois) is not the same as a “corto burgués” (bourgeois short), playing with the double meaning of corto in Spanish.
