Santiago Sierra: 2.068 Teeth, The Maelström, Archive and Black Flag

Helga de Alvear Museum (Cáceres, Spain) is pleased to present Santiago Sierra’s major solo museum exhibition in Spain.

The show highlights the relevance and presence of Santiago Sierra’s production in the Helga de Alvear Collection. It brings together historical works, new works produced especially for the occasion, the archive donated by the artist to the Museum as well as the first and the last work exhibited by Sierra at the Helga de Alvear Gallery (Madrid). With this exhibition Sierra and the museum wants to pay tribute to Helga de Alvear after her passing on February this year.

Santiago Sierra is one of the most significant Spanish conceptual artists in the contemporary art scene. He has dedicated his career of more than three decades to explore and question contemporary socio-political structures through an incisive visual language that generates diverse emotions.

Throughout different media such as black and white photography, video, actions and installation, the artist shows us how the contradictions of capitalism could exacerbate human alienation, transforming the world into a place of violence, injustice and death, and that they break through the entire territory until they penetrate each individual body.

As Sandra Guimaraes, director of Helga de Alvear Museum, highlights: “The exhibition is part of a critical dialogue on the political and social dimensions of contemporary art as a central and contradictory theme that the artist forcefully exposes with such clarity, sharpness, and commitment. At the same time, it celebrates and pays tribute to Helga de Alvear, Sierra´s gallerist, collector and patron. Helga was a visionary leader who had an indelible impact on the artists she worked with and constantly supported the artist throughout his career. This relationship has been fundamental in the development and consolidation of Sierra’s artistic practice, beginning with his first project at the Helga de Alvear Gallery, 100 Hidden People, in 2003, and culminating with 2.068 Teeth, 2022–25, a work in which Santiago Sierra directs his aesthetic attention to the structural discrimination inherent in contemporary migration policies. The archive, donated by the artist to the Museum and presented for the first time as part of the exhibition, records this bonding and some of the milestones of Sierra’s career. With this ambitious project, Helga de Alvear Museum continues its involvement in contemporary artistic research and in promoting artists who are able of stimulating reflection on such urgent issues of our time as inequality, marginalization, and migration as well as continue Helga de Alvear museum’s approach of continuous on-site engagement with local communities.”

As part of the opening program, on May 16 at 6pm, a Helga´s Artist Talk by Santiago Sierra will take place. Sierra will discuss his practice, research and sources of inspiration at the museum. This same night the museum will program the action X Individuals Hidden, specially conceived by the artist for the occasion—with the participation of a group of residents from Cáceres—based on the first work presented at Helga de Alvear Gallery in 2003, and the Museum will host a Helga´s DJ session, turning the museum garden into a dance floor. 

On the occasion of the exhibition, Helga de Alvear Museum and CA2M have published a catalog with a foreword by Sandra Guimarães and Tania Pardo and texts by Alexis Callado, Rosa Martínez, Georg Imdahl, Juan Albarrán, José Luis Corazón, Pilar Villela and Gonzalo Abaha.

Santiago Sierra: 2.068 Teeth, The Maelström, Archive and Black Flag does not seek solutions or idealized visions, but rather makes us question directly on the abusive dynamics of established powers, generating critical thinking of both the responsibility of the artist and the citizen in today’s society. It is one of the projects which anchor the museum program and propose new social, personal and political engagements within the museum and its audiences. The exhibition, curated by Alexis Callado, is organized by Helga de Alvear Museum in collaboration with CA2M. 

Next in the museum program, Helga de Alvear Museum will present the first major anthological exhibition in Europe in 20 years dedicated to the Swiss artist Thomas Hirschhorn, My Atlas # Our Atlas, curated by Sandra Guimarães, from November 2025 to May 2026.

Helga de Alvear Museum in Cáceres, Spain, was created to house Spain’s most significant private collection of international contemporary art developed over 40 years by the leading gallerist and collector, Helga de Alvear. With over 3.000 works of art by more than 500 artists spanning the five continents, it includes artworks by some of the most renown artists such as Francisco de Goya, Vasili Kandinsky, Thomas Hirschhorn, Dominique González-Foerster, Haegue Yang, Pierre Huyghe, Olafur Eliasson, Dora García, Louise Bourgeois or Doris Salcedo among many others. Besides the collection, the museum is developing an ambitious temporary exhibition program as well as community engagement projects. Helga de Alvear Museum is free of charge, accessible and open, and a place for experimentation, research and dissemination, where art is a tool for critical thinking.