ES CAPITAL

Cristina Lucas has chosen the former cold room at Legazpi slaughterhouse as the venue for a context-specific work analysing some of the key uncertainties, paradoxes and challenges of the current capitalist system. Es Capital is curated by Manuela Villa and encompasses four new works created in co-production with AC/E, in collaboration with Centro Galego de Arte Contemporáneo and Museo Patio Herreriano de Valladolid and sponsored by DKV.   Plusvalía documents the investigation undertaken by the artist to understand the value of Capital, written by Karl Marx in the late 19th century and one of the most influential critiques of political economy of our times. In this manuscript, Marx popularises the term "surplus value", which he defines as the profit created by the workers and appropriated by the capitalist. “Without such profit, there would be no capitalist society”, he warns.   The relationship between value in use and exchange value within a society governed by the rules of financial capitalism is also the basis of the work entitled Montaña de oro (Mountain of Gold), two photographs showing the amount of gold that is stored at the Bank of Spain. It is worth remembering that, while the Gold Standard prevailed, this precious metal set the value of a country's monetary unit.   The series of interviews entitled Capitalismo filosófico (Philosophical Capitalism) is an attempt to understand the relationship that exists between the philosophical concepts traded by companies and their business activity. What does Death represent for an undertaker's? What does Beauty represent for a cosmetic surgery clinic? What does Truth represent for a notary public's office?   In El superbien común (The Super Common Good), the artist analyses one of the key paradoxes of the capitalist system: the shortage of resources and our planet's inability to generate sufficient wealth if the entire population aspires to a lifestyle based on an unlimited consumption of goods and services.   A production of:



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