PSJM: American Democracy

In the year marking the 250th anniversary of the independence of the USA, PSJM—consisting of Cynthia Viera (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1973) and Pablo San José (Asturias, 1969)—are presenting American Democracy at Casa de América, Madrid. The exhibition brings together two key projects within their artistic methodology called “social geometry,” through which the duo produces minimalist compositions based on statistical data or electoral results. This project is their first institutional solo exhibition in Madrid and includes pieces from both public and private collections.

The exhibition unfolds on two floors of the Galería Casa de América-ABANCA. On the ground floor (Guayasamín Gallery), American Colors (2009–2010) is a series that marked the beginning of their “social geometry” line of work during the years they spent in Berlin. The pieces employ the five colors conventionally associated with the different races, with compositions determined by statistical percentages—by ethnicity—of census population, prison population, and poverty rates in the US. Statistics thus dictate the proportion of each color, resulting in pieces where infographics and the tradition of American color field painting intersect with sociological analysis to come up with a critical reflection. The titles—such as USA population by race or USA prison population by race—guide viewers towards a reading that diverges from the initial visual impression of these objects, whose formica-on-wood surfaces recall the finishes of lifestyle design. Pieces from this series are held in collections such as the Spanish Ministry of Culture, ArtNexus (Miami), and Casa de Colón (Gran Canaria) and they were presented for the first time at the Lucas Carrieri Gallery in Berlin and the Blanca Soto Gallery in Madrid.

On the first floor (Torres García Gallery), the exhibition presents American Democracy (2022), the work which the exhibition is named after. It has previously been shown at the Building Bridges Art Exchange (Santa Monica, Los Angeles) and at the Cultural Office of Spain in Washington, DC. The piece, part of the collection of the Atlantic Center of Modern Art (CAAM in Spanish) in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, is a large-scale installation composed of 59 paintings depicting the results of the US Presidential Elections from 1789 to 2020. Continuing their “social geometry,” the project is based on an exhaustive study of presidential election results throughout history in the US: a nation founded and sustained as a democracy with no interruption, providing a continuous temporal framework that takes the form of an installation tracing the fluctuations of its political system.

Founded in Madrid in 2003 by Cynthia Viera and Pablo San José, PSJM is an artistic team working in art production, theory and cultural management. They have been listed among the most representative artists of international social art in publications such as Art & Agenda: Political Art and Activism (Gestalten, 2011), Younger than Jesus. Artist Directory (Phaidon/New Museum, 2009) and Come Together: The Rise of Cooperative Art and Design (Princeton Architectural Press, 2014). Their work has been exhibited at institutions including MoMA PS1 (New York) and the Hirshhorn Museum (Washington, DC), as well as in the context of the Venice Biennial, and is held in major private collections in the United States and Europe. At the same time, they pursue active theoretical, educational, and curatorial practice, collaborating with institutions such as the Sorbonne (Paris), the Maryland Institute College of Art (Baltimore) and the Westminster School of Arts (London), and curating transdisciplinary projects on ecology, gender and democracy.

Casa de América
Galería Casa de América-ABANCA / Guayasamín and Torres García Galleries
Plaza de la Cibeles, s/n, 28014 Madrid
Entrance via C/ Marqués del Duero, 2
Open: Monday to Saturday (including public holidays) 11am–7pm. Closed on Sundays.