In the Great City. A workshop with Rogelio López Cuenca and Elo Vega

In Spain there exists a paradox which arose from the fledgling establishment of something not dissimilar to a precarious society of wellbeing coinciding with the decline of industrial capitalism and the demands of its progressive dismantling via policies to privatise property and public services, among others, and culture, which plays second fiddle to economic profitability. At the same time, this entails a McDonaldization of culture, characterised, in broad strokes, by predictability, uniformity and automation. As in other, similar cities, Málaga has been dragged into the restructuring of this new economy, its elites determined to make it an object of cultural tourism. This operation is largely developed from the monumentalisation of the birth of the renowned painter Pablo Picasso, and the compulsive opening of museum-related establishments.

In this workshop, held on 26 March 2017 inside the seminar Picasso in the Monster Institution. Art, the Culture Industry and the Right to the City in La Casa Invisible in Málaga, and organised jointly between the Museo Reina Sofía and eipcp (the European Institute for Progressive Cultural Policies), artists Rogelio López Cuenca and Elo Vega reflect on this situation, focusing directly on the intervention in Málaga's local environment, in accordance with the dynamics arising from the collaboration with participants from the workshop.