{"id":18725,"date":"2026-04-09T11:08:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T09:08:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/?post_type=sight-projects&#038;p=18725"},"modified":"2026-04-09T12:01:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T10:01:29","slug":"on-performativity-capture-and-resistance-wu-tsang-in-conversation-with-enrique-fuenteblanca","status":"publish","type":"sight-projects","link":"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/projects\/on-performativity-capture-and-resistance-wu-tsang-in-conversation-with-enrique-fuenteblanca\/","title":{"rendered":"On performativity, capture, and resistance. Wu Tsang in conversation with Enrique Fuenteblanca"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns are-vertically-aligned-top cnvs-block-core-columns-1715708275137 is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-top is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:70%\">\n<div class=\"cs-entry__post-meta \">\n<div class=\"cs-meta-category\">\n<ul class=\"post-categories\">\n\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/online\/\" rel=\"category tag\">ONLINE<\/a><\/li>\n\t<li>CONVERSATIONS<\/li><\/ul><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\" style=\"font-size:2.4rem;line-height:1.2\"><span>On performativity, capture, and resistance. Wu Tsang in conversation with Enrique Fuenteblanca <\/span><\/h1>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-vertically-aligned-top share-linea cnvs-block-core-column-1715708275130 is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:50%\"><div class=\"cnvs-block-share-buttons cnvs-block-share-buttons-1715708275122 cnvs-block-share-buttons-layout-simple is-style-pk-share-buttons-simple-light\" >\t\t<div class=\"pk-share-buttons-wrap pk-share-buttons-layout-simple pk-share-buttons-scheme-gutenberg-block pk-share-buttons-mode-php pk-share-buttons-mode-rest\" data-post-id=\"18725\" data-share-url=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/projects\/on-performativity-capture-and-resistance-wu-tsang-in-conversation-with-enrique-fuenteblanca\/\" >\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<div class=\"pk-share-buttons-items\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"pk-share-buttons-item pk-share-buttons-twitter pk-share-buttons-no-count\" data-id=\"twitter\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a 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class=\"pk-share-buttons-link\" target=\"_blank\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<i class=\"pk-share-buttons-icon pk-icon pk-icon-facebook\"><\/i>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"pk-share-buttons-item pk-share-buttons-linkedin pk-share-buttons-no-count\" data-id=\"linkedin\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&#038;url=https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/projects\/on-performativity-capture-and-resistance-wu-tsang-in-conversation-with-enrique-fuenteblanca\/\" class=\"pk-share-buttons-link\" target=\"_blank\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<i class=\"pk-share-buttons-icon pk-icon pk-icon-linkedin\"><\/i>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div class=\"cnvs-block-contributors cnvs-block-contributors-1715708518428\" >\t\t<div class=\"widget-body\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"pk-widget-contributors\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"pk-author-item\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"pk-author-avatar\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/author\/enrique-fuenteblanca\/\" rel=\"author\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img alt='' src='https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/avatar-author_E.jpg' srcset='https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/avatar-author_E.jpg 2x' class='avatar avatar-80 photo avatar-default' height='80' width='80' \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"pk-author-data\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h6 class=\"author-name\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/author\/enrique-fuenteblanca\/\" rel=\"author\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEnrique Fuenteblanca\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h6>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"author-description pk-color-secondary\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tEnrique Fuenteblanca articula escritura, comisariado, investigaci\u00f3n y&hellip;\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"pk-author-item\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"pk-author-avatar\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/author\/wu-tsang\/\" rel=\"author\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img alt='' src='https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/avatar-author_W.jpg' srcset='https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/avatar-author_W.jpg 2x' class='avatar avatar-80 photo avatar-default' height='80' width='80' \/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"pk-author-data\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h6 class=\"author-name\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/author\/wu-tsang\/\" rel=\"author\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWu Tsang\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h6>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"author-description pk-color-secondary\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tWu Tsang es cineasta y artista visual. Su trabajo atraviesa el cine&hellip;\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n<p><em>Over the past few years, Wu Tsang and Enrique Fuenteblanca have collaborated on projects that explore the figures of Bizet\u2019s Carmen, Picasso, bullfighting, and flamenco\u2014and the institutional dispositifs that reinscribe them. Their interest in these figures is shaped by an idea of performativity that participates in the construction of a certain imagination of the European \u201cSouth,\u201d in close relation to colonial imaginaries, tourism, and the like, yet also exceeds those frames.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>In this conversation, they approach performativity in a double sense: on the one hand, as the way in which narratives and images become bound up with race, gender, and class, shaping how we perceive the world. On the other, as the way these myths come to assert themselves not only as \u201cuniversals,\u201d but as forces that intervene in real lives and cultural fields: institutions, tourist economies, art scenes, and specific communities.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>How did Picasso build his own image to the point of influencing our modern idea of the artist, and on what figures of \u201cotherness\u201d did he rely? How does the mythic identity of Carmen affect a particular projection of the \u201cSouth\u201d of Europe\u2014or the very idea of \u201cfemininity\u201d? How does a supposed flamenco identity coexist with the performativity an interpreter deploys before a participatory audience? And, ultimately, how are these fundamental crossings between poetics and politics produced? What follows is their exploration of these questions through work that remains in progress.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>EF: Our collaboration began with your trip to Seville to visit the places where the myth of <em>Carmen<\/em> is set. Since 2023 we\u2019ve been researching together how the myth is constructed and how it saturates\u2014consciously or unconsciously\u2014an almost ungraspable imaginary. But when you arrived in Seville you had already begun this process long before. When did your research start, and in what context?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WT:<\/strong> I began researching in 2018, and one of our early performances was already playing with orientalist elements of the opera. Later, when I started working on a larger project on <em>Carmen<\/em> for the Schauspielhaus Z\u00fcrich at the beginning of 2023, I travelled to Seville, where the story is set. That\u2019s where I connected with BNV Producciones, the collective you work with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>EF: You\u2019ve told me your interest began after a conversation you had with Fred Moten\u2014how did that happen, exactly?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WT:<\/strong> Yes. I remember asking him\u2014about eight years ago now\u2014if you could work on an opera, which one would it be? I was surprised when he mentioned <em>Carmen<\/em>, because it\u2019s so popular and so mainstream. He talked about the music, about the non-Western influences in it, about how sounds come through from the other side of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. That planted a curiosity, because I love working with questions of fluidity, especially in musical and dance forms.<br>I\u2019m curious: when we first met, what was your (and BNV\u00b4s) reaction to my project \u2014given your work with flamenco?<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1078\" height=\"732\" src=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Vistas-de-Wu-Tsang.-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-en-el-MACBA-Foto-Miquel-Coll-2024-MACBA-Museu-dArt-Contemporani-de-Barcelona-1078x732.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18718\" srcset=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Vistas-de-Wu-Tsang.-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-en-el-MACBA-Foto-Miquel-Coll-2024-MACBA-Museu-dArt-Contemporani-de-Barcelona-1078x732.jpeg 1078w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Vistas-de-Wu-Tsang.-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-en-el-MACBA-Foto-Miquel-Coll-2024-MACBA-Museu-dArt-Contemporani-de-Barcelona-768x521.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Vistas-de-Wu-Tsang.-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-en-el-MACBA-Foto-Miquel-Coll-2024-MACBA-Museu-dArt-Contemporani-de-Barcelona-380x258.jpeg 380w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Vistas-de-Wu-Tsang.-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-en-el-MACBA-Foto-Miquel-Coll-2024-MACBA-Museu-dArt-Contemporani-de-Barcelona-800x543.jpeg 800w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Vistas-de-Wu-Tsang.-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-en-el-MACBA-Foto-Miquel-Coll-2024-MACBA-Museu-dArt-Contemporani-de-Barcelona-1160x788.jpeg 1160w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Vistas-de-Wu-Tsang.-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-en-el-MACBA-Foto-Miquel-Coll-2024-MACBA-Museu-dArt-Contemporani-de-Barcelona.jpeg 1171w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1078px) 100vw, 1078px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>La gran mentira de la muerte<\/em>, MACBA, Barcelona, 2024. Photo: Miquel Coll.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>EF: Returning to <em>Carmen<\/em> means returning to a huge archive we\u2019d already been working with for some time. And for me the important thing is this: to explore the concept of representation, not only the opera itself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><em>Carmen<\/em> and flamenco are distinct \u201cfields of meaning,\u201d but their histories are intertwined. Both are built through a double tension: they\u2019re perceived as symbols of national identity and yet neither could have been conceived without an external gaze that shaped them into myths. And those constructions, in turn, produce reality. You were especially interested in how the myth is built, and I think that\u2019s at the base of everything we\u2019ve done together. I remember you describing how, when you visited the \u201cCarmen sites\u201d in Seville, you felt the story was told as if she had truly existed. In that \u201cbecoming real,\u201d you saw something performative, tied to identity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WT:<\/strong> What struck me most was how real the myth felt in Seville\u2014which makes sense if we think about tourism. On a \u201cCarmen tour,\u201d a local guide showed us places around the city where the story is supposed to unfold, and I was fascinated by his reenactment: of course those events weren\u2019t real, but he was so invested in the narrative that, for him, it became real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For me, that revealed another layer of meaning: the way we construct mythology is always done from the present, always through our renarrations and our desires. And in flamenco there seems to be a parallel process: playing with constructions of tradition is also charged with mythology.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"586\" height=\"732\" src=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Carmen-in-The-Mounta.-Foto-de-Ines-Manai-\u00a9Cloud_Castle_4.jpg-586x732.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18722\" srcset=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Carmen-in-The-Mounta.-Foto-de-Ines-Manai-\u00a9Cloud_Castle_4.jpg-586x732.jpg 586w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Carmen-in-The-Mounta.-Foto-de-Ines-Manai-\u00a9Cloud_Castle_4.jpg-768x960.jpg 768w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Carmen-in-The-Mounta.-Foto-de-Ines-Manai-\u00a9Cloud_Castle_4.jpg-380x475.jpg 380w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Carmen-in-The-Mounta.-Foto-de-Ines-Manai-\u00a9Cloud_Castle_4.jpg-800x1000.jpg 800w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Carmen-in-The-Mounta.-Foto-de-Ines-Manai-\u00a9Cloud_Castle_4.jpg.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 586px) 100vw, 586px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Carmen in the Mountains, Kunsthaus Z\u00fcrich, 2025. Photo: In\u00e8s Manai \u00a9 Cloud Castle<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>EF: Exactly. When we met we were immersed in work around <em>pie.fmc<\/em>, a platform conceived by Pedro G. Romero from which we think flamenco as a cultural field, not only as a set of songs or dances. And here \u201cpopular\u201d is a complicated word. In Spanish, <em>popular<\/em> is not the same as <em>folkloric<\/em>: it\u2019s tied to the construction of the nation, of \u201cthe people,\u201d but it also carries a pejorative connotation, as if it were the culture of dispossessed people, of the foreign, of the marginal. \u201cFlamencos\u201d were used as a national emblem at the same time that they belonged to a marginalized community.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>We presented a phase of the project at De Balie in Amsterdam titled <em>Carmen and Freedom<\/em>. There we explored how the construction of the flamenco cultural field intertwines with the myth of <em>Carmen<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Both crystallized into their recognizable forms when Spain\u2014though still a colonial power in the Americas\u2014was in \u201cdecline\u201d and beginning to be culturally colonized by Northern Europe through commerce and the exoticism of the Grand Tour. That is the Spain that inspired M\u00e9rim\u00e9e and Bizet; and that is why, in both flamenco and <em>Carmen<\/em>, we can trace archives of resistance and alterity, but also a strong mythologization.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WT:<\/strong> I\u2019m still new to learning flamenco, but I\u2019m fascinated that both seem to play with clich\u00e9s and with \u201ctradition.\u201d There can be no <em>Carmen<\/em> without clich\u00e9s: the mantilla, the fan, the cigarette, the flower\u2026 The audience is drawn to the reenactment of its fantasy, to the otherness she represents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But you can also use the very same tools that present that fantasy in order to destroy it. That is, ultimately, what <em>Carmen<\/em> means to me: she\u2019s a condensation of clich\u00e9s and fantasies, but she escapes being that thing. If it\u2019s done well, she remains ungraspable. Flamenco, it seems to me, works in a similar way: tradition itself is like a myth, and the performer plays with the audience\u2019s expectations by offering it, showing it, withdrawing it\u2014destroying it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>EF: In that regard, Moten wrote a phrase that haunts us: \u201cCarmen isn\u2019t going to give you space. Every time she dies, she comes back in another way.\u201d Another key aspect is her multiplicity. If you tried to gather all the images of <em>Carmen<\/em>, it would be impossible\u2014her representation is saturated\u2014and that becomes central in the film version you\u2019re developing as part of a new opera.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Joaqu\u00edn V\u00e1zquez\u2014who, from BNV, also participated in the research\u2014kept insisting on a touchstone: <em>Carmen<\/em> is made of too many identities, to the point that they even rub against each other. When we talk about the political dimension of <em>Carmen<\/em>, we approach it through different simultaneous forms of \u201csubalternity\u201d: she is a woman among men, a Spanish Roma among <em>payos<\/em>, a marginal figure who disrupts military order\u2014and yet she also betrays the Roma in the mountains. Always \u201cother.\u201d She condenses all these aspects, and they collide at the moment of a possible emancipation.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>It\u2019s curious that, in an apparently opposite sense, this same multiplicity appeared when we began working on <em>Theatre Picasso<\/em>, the exhibition Tate Modern commissioned from us. There we tried to apply these same ideas through performativity in Pablo Picasso. In a way, thinking the saturation of <em>Carmen<\/em> helped us think another saturation: that of \u201cgenius\u201d as a constructed and projected character, and the museum as a stage where that character is rewritten.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WT:<\/strong> Being invited as artists\u2014and being conscious that our role is not that of curators or art historians\u2014our starting point was the idea that what the public and the institution expect from us is a creative gesture, not a conventional exhibition. That\u2019s why it felt appropriate to make a gesture that, rather than establishing new hegemonic discourses about Picasso, allows a multiplicity of voices and approaches to emerge\u2014voices capable of responding to that complexity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Approaching Picasso, the first thing we thought was to understand how these two concepts operate in him. We believe his use of performativity as a tool, and his constant attention to different forms of subalternity\u2014Blackness, the sexualized, androgyny, the popular, bullfighting, circus performers, to name just a few\u2014define to a great extent the relevance and contemporaneity of his work. And at the same time there was something that interested us a lot: that will to produce tension, even discomfort, through popular imaginaries of otherness. That raises problems\u2014because those imaginaries are charged\u2014but it also reflects an era and therefore becomes an untimely point of reference for thinking about how \u201cthe universal\u201d is made.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"976\" height=\"732\" src=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Theatre-Picasso-installation-view-Tate-Modern-976x732.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18715\" srcset=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Theatre-Picasso-installation-view-Tate-Modern-976x732.jpeg 976w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Theatre-Picasso-installation-view-Tate-Modern-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Theatre-Picasso-installation-view-Tate-Modern-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Theatre-Picasso-installation-view-Tate-Modern-380x285.jpeg 380w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Theatre-Picasso-installation-view-Tate-Modern-800x600.jpeg 800w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Theatre-Picasso-installation-view-Tate-Modern-1160x870.jpeg 1160w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Theatre-Picasso-installation-view-Tate-Modern-1200x900.jpeg 1200w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Theatre-Picasso-installation-view-Tate-Modern.jpeg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 976px) 100vw, 976px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Theatre Picasso<\/em>, Tate Modern, Londres, 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>EF: In that sense\u2014and precisely because it\u2019s an \u201contologically soft\u201d concept\u2014performativity has been central for us. On the one hand, performativity as theatricality: the capacity to situate gestures in time and space, to \u201cstage\u201d them, to cultivate a persona. On the other, performativity in the sense of \u201cdoing things with words\u201d and with acts: that which not only represents, but produces world. And also\u2014as Diana Taylor would say\u2014as attention to a network of reiterated behaviors that configure archives of resistance of subaltern bodies.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WT:<\/strong> For the exhibition, we generated a display in which the works contained in the museum\u2019s expanded collection are shown and interrogated from the present. That display takes the form of a theatre. The idea was to think of Picasso as a \u201cperformer,\u201d attending to how he constructed his own image. And there was a second aim: to explore how collections that need to interrogate themselves might be shown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The theatricality we proposed\u2014and which, in a way, we took from Picasso himself and from his stage designs for the Ballets Russes, with particular attention to <em>Cuadro flamenco<\/em>\u2014produces an effect of visuality over what it shows. But at the same time it makes the audience a participant and draws the public into the mechanism. The impact was precisely that: to point out that we, too, are part of the theatre that Picasso helped, without a doubt, to build. And from there, to show the complexities of Picasso as a fundamental piece for understanding the construction of contemporary arts and their different receptions over time: sublimations, rejections, appropriations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>EF: Exactly. And then there are his masks: it was important to understand what it meant for him to assume or represent the figures of the harlequin and the acrobat, the bullfighter and the musician; the one who wants to seem younger or older; the one who presents himself to the public as a genius or a fool, a dreamer or a destroyer.<\/strong> <strong>That\u2019s why we wanted to give a special place to <em>The Mystery of Picasso<\/em>. And also to insist on those constructions\u2014so present in his painting\u2014that seep into the popular and reconfigure it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The idea was that Clouzot\u2019s soundtrack would contaminate the way of seeing, attending to what Fred puts so precisely when he says that, sometimes, \u201csound gives back what ocularcentrism has repressed.\u201d If the museum is a theatre of the gaze, sound displaces that theatre: it reorganizes what can appear and what remains outside.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This is where flamenco and jazz figures reappear throughout Picasso\u2019s work. The relationship is deeper than a merely thematic question. And there was also avant-garde music, generating a field of tensions that allowed us to understand better how Picasso always situates himself between \u201chigh\u201d and \u201clow\u201d culture. In fact, Clouzot\u2019s own music already rests on that avant-garde gaze toward the popular.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1098\" height=\"732\" src=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Wu-Tsang-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-2024.-Photo-LNDWstudio-1098x732.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-18720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Wu-Tsang-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-2024.-Photo-LNDWstudio-1098x732.jpg 1098w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Wu-Tsang-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-2024.-Photo-LNDWstudio-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Wu-Tsang-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-2024.-Photo-LNDWstudio-380x253.jpg 380w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Wu-Tsang-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-2024.-Photo-LNDWstudio-800x533.jpg 800w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Wu-Tsang-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-2024.-Photo-LNDWstudio-1160x773.jpg 1160w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Wu-Tsang-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-2024.-Photo-LNDWstudio-1200x800.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Wu-Tsang-La-gran-mentira-de-la-muerte-2024.-Photo-LNDWstudio.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1098px) 100vw, 1098px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>La gran mentira de la muerte<\/em>, MACBA, Barcelona, 2024. Photo: Miquel Coll.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><strong>WT:<\/strong> Yes, and for that it was important that Nathaniel Mackey\u2019s text <em>Cante moro<\/em> be included in the exhibition catalogue. In <em>Cante moro<\/em>, Mackey approaches the porous, heterogeneous roots of flamenco. In one passage, he returns to the expression \u201ccante moro\u201d through a recording of Manitas de Plata where you hear: \u201cThat\u2019s cante moro.\u201d That phrase\u2014spoken by Jos\u00e9 Reyes\u2014opens for him a way of listening to flamenco as a hybrid archive, traversed by historical and diasporic presences. In this way he unfolds an archive of shared longing among Spanish Roma and Arab, Jewish, and Black diasporic communities, starting from the legacy of the poet Federico Garc\u00eda Lorca.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>EF: Yes. Mackey offers a singular reading of Lorca\u2019s concept of <em>duende<\/em>, finding certain parallels with a form of performativity present in jazz and blues. He interprets <em>duende<\/em> as a troubling agent that breaks in and problematizes, and that is connected to Black sounds and musics. It\u2019s interesting how, for him, <em>duende<\/em> also appears as something that resists capture, marked by its \u201cmercuriality,\u201d connected to nomadism and the spirit of fugitivity.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>This interests me especially, since I can see that the relation between the filmic medium as an apparatus of capture and the image that resists\u2014always in the process of fleeing\u2014is one of the strongest constants in your work. That is where a particularly operative entanglement between poetics and politics takes place, one that allows us to pose an important question: how do we film a spirit of resistance without capturing it? How do we preserve what \u201ctouches us\u201d in lived experience on video? I think all your films take special care in trying not to \u201charm\u201d those images\u2014and those who generate them.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WT: <\/strong>For a long time I\u2019ve been obsessed with the idea of the image that can\u2019t be captured. I think that\u2019s what pushes me to make cinema: that impossibility in tension with the desire to see ourselves and be seen by others. That\u2019s what drew me to flamenco from the beginning, and to performative arts in general.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a flamenco performance there\u2019s always something that escapes the camera\u2014especially in the sound and in the way <em>comp\u00e1s<\/em> can stretch our experience of time. As our collaborator Yinka Esi Graves says, you can\u2019t understand flamenco unless, as an audience, you\u2019re able to \u201cget inside\u201d: it\u2019s not enough to witness it or consume it. You can\u2019t understand it from the outside; you have to be inside. And I love how that problematizes the presence of the camera: can a camera \u201cget inside\u201d? It\u2019s an exhilarating challenge to film while keeping those questions in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>EF: Since we\u2019re continuing to work on new projects around <em>Carmen<\/em>, we could return to where the conversation began. We\u2019ve tried to \u201cgrasp\u201d her in so many ways\u2014opera, installation, film, compositions\u2014and yet she resists. I\u2019d say you\u2019re playful with those mechanisms of capture: you let the work drift beyond fixed disciplines, you look for <em>Carmen<\/em> in blurry spaces. And yet we keep trying to seize her, even as we feel she chooses to die before being captured and losing her freedom.<\/strong> <strong>Is it possible to establish a parallel between <em>Carmen<\/em>\u2019s \u201cungraspability\u201d and her constant death, and the history of her representation\u2014and thus repetition? In your works, in one way or another, the loop is always present.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>WT:<\/strong> For me, the opera, the film, and the installation were the first attempts to understand. But they were also excuses to sustain an investigation as a form of relationship: to keep working together, to keep talking with you and with BNV, with the collective Moved by the Motion, with Fred, and with more and more collaborators entering the constellation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And maybe that\u2019s what interests me most about the myths we work with: it\u2019s true that <em>Carmen<\/em>\u2014as with Picasso\u2014never fully resolves; it doesn\u2019t close. Every time she seems to be fixed, she comes back from another angle. And she forces us to return too\u2014not to repeat the myth, but to listen to what the myth is doing\u2014to whom it is touching, whom it is erasing, whom it is igniting\u2014in the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Bibliographical notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" id=\"_ftn1\"><sup>[1]<\/sup><\/a> The following projects are mentioned throughout the conversation: <em>Carmen<\/em> (opera, Schauspielhaus Z\u00fcrich); <em>La gran mentira de la muerte<\/em> (audiovisual installation, MACBA); <em>Carmen and Carmen<\/em> (multidisciplinar project, de Balie); <em>Carmen in the Mountains<\/em> (sound piece, Kunsthaus Z\u00fcrich); <em>Theatre Picasso<\/em> (exhibition, Tate Modern); and a new opera under development (title to be determined).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:100px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer esp_bottom_enlinea\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Over the past few years, Wu Tsang and Enrique Fuenteblanca have collaborated on projects that explore the figures of Bizet\u2019s Carmen, Picasso, bullfighting, and flamenco\u2014and the institutional dispositifs that reinscribe them. Their interest in these figures is shaped by an idea of performativity that participates in the construction of a certain imagination of the European \u201cSouth,\u201d in&#8230; \n","protected":false},"author":828,"featured_media":18707,"menu_order":0,"template":"","meta":{"sight_post_video_url":"","sight_post_video_bg_start_time":0,"sight_post_video_bg_end_time":0},"sight-categories":[572,128],"ppma_author":[714,713],"class_list":{"0":"post-18725","1":"sight-projects","2":"type-sight-projects","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"cs-entry","7":"cs-video-wrap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sight-projects\/18725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sight-projects"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sight-projects"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/828"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"sight-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sight-categories?post=18725"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/editorialconcreta.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=18725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}