Carles Congost

Un Mystique Determinado, 2003, 17 min 25 s, colour, sound
Courtesy of the artist

Carles Congost works with different media on the processes of creating and producing art works and the way in which they are interwoven with everyday life. His work analyses the meetings between high and low culture in artistic expressions ranging from design to music and from the fashion of youth subcultures to the advertising industry. Un Mystique Determinado has been described as ‘a small rock opera, made up of songs by the group Astrud’. From the start there is a reference to the musical format, which in this case serves to reveal an existential drama marked by the identity crisis of a sportsman/artist. A football player suddenly feels the calling of artistic inspiration, of what he calls mystique, and decides to give up his career in sport. The work serves to explore and critique stereotypes on art and artists that circulate in our societies and the various hierarchies and ideologies that operate within this context. Values that are heir to the romantic idea of the artist as inspiration, originality, authorship, are light-heartedly reviewed from the point of view of a video-artist. A likeness of the artist himself? The work includes a brilliant performance by Pablo Rivero, who is well known for his appearances in very popular television series and who has become a talismanic actor for Carles Congost.