Suite
Smile, You are in Spain
Suite
Smile, You are in Spain
Luís Lázaro Matos
This is the final fantastical universe carefully crafted by Luís Lázaro Matos, telling yet another thought provoking story. ‘Smile! You Are in Spain’ is the slogan of a well-known, five year-long advertising campaign launched in 2004 to promote tourism in Spain, using photographs of young people enjoying Spain, surrounded by sunny landscapes, at unspoiled beaches or in front of iconic monuments.
Yet Spain was badly affected by the global financial crisis of 2008; while promoting such an ideally positive take of Spain under Juan Miró’s sunny emblem, the country was inwardly succumbing to a profound and severe economic downturn. Luís Lázaro Matos uses this well-known campaign to inform a project which intends to look at how clichés on countries and their culture become promotional commodities and how landscape, traditions, populations and art are rendered simple and ready to use by the consumer.
In room
Artworks
Hay Que Venir Al Sur
- Luís Lázaro Matos
Smile you are in Spain STUDIO (Shrimp)
- Luís Lázaro Matos
- , 2017
Under the Sun I
- Luís Lázaro Matos
- , 2017
Luís Lázaro Matos
Luís Lázaro Matos was born in Évora, Portugal, in 1987. He currently lives and works in Bruxelles. The art practice of Luis Lazaro Matos is mostly expressed through drawing, sculpture, animation and installation, inherently diluting the frontiers between disciplines such as design and fine art. Luis’ work often presents itself through architectural counter-proposals, reflecting his interest in drawing as a critical and satirical tool through which modernist and post-modernist utopian visions may be analyzed and reinterpreted.