Torres
Find Munich based artist Torres online
On Instagram: @histheshit and @studiohistheshit1
Some of the actions by Torres titled “CCTV “. The artist often works in public spaces. These actions took place in Iceland, Croatia and Poland. In several works, like these actions, he included the surveillance of public spaces by CCTV. He is a founding member and curator of the munich artist collective @studiohistheshit1 .
When Torres started travelling more often, it was no longer possible to set a scene for his works, as he did before in his work. Instead he started thinking about public spaces differently, searching for already existing scenes within it. This resulted in actions like the ones shown in this post. The artist plays with abstract sculptures in the public space, tourist photography and his own body, “wanting to break the monumental aspect of the sculptures.” The poses were not held for a prolonged period of time, they were only executed once for the picture. .
“Let’s Take A Trip I” and “Let’s Take A Trip II”. Two video installations showing infinite paths of the in between space of escalators at metro stations.
The escalators are not always empty, you can see people using them. You can hear the rhythmic sounds of the escalators as well. On entering the video installation, the viewers are “taking a trip” into a completely different space, as the artist Torres says.
In the performance-work “ALLES FUSS” (’all foot’) the artist Torres, who is a trained masseur as well, massages the feet of volunteering viewers. In exchange they let him make a plaster-cast of their big toe which will be labelled with their name and put on display. With this performance the artist wants to enable the volunteering viewers to feel and linger in the moment, not constantly thinking about past and future. He wants to decelerate the seemingly constantly accelerating pace of contemporary every day life.
In “Dieses Arschloch Wird Videoüberwacht” (’This asshole is being surveilled’) and “Badass On CCTV” Torres performs the provocative gesture of showing his bare ass in a public space - the metro station - aiming it towards a surveillance camera.
In the performance featured in this post Torres gets the word “Terremoto” (’Earthquake’) tattooed on his lower lip. In this work he processes an earthquake in his hometown in Ecuador, where a large part of his family lives.