“Once during the pandemic, I witnessed a moment on an Instagram Live. I saw a woman making the sign of the cross in front of her phone as an expression of faith.
Simultaneously, on the other end of the live broadcast, an employee of the Prado Museum in Madrid was displaying to her a replica of Velázquez’s ‘Christ Crucified’.”
Andrés Murillo
The term ‘meme’ primarily refers to the concept coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his book ‘The Selfish Gene,’ where he sought a cultural analogy to the biological gene. He defined a meme as a cultural unit of transmission that moves from one brain to another through various means such as literary texts, gestures, behaviors, speech, and other imitable phenomena, much like a gene. While Murillo acknowledges this origin, his current exhibition delves into the visual and persuasive potency of memes as an internet phenomenon, exploring their communicative capacity. The meme serves as the outermost layer of this exploration.
The exhibition’s title corresponds to an essay by Umberto Eco found in his posthumous book ‘From Stupidity to Insanity,’ sharing the same name. In this essay, Eco contemplates an idea he had discussed with the writer Javier Marías regarding the pursuit of notoriety. He observes how individuals are willing to undertake any actions to appear on the small screen, regardless of how foolish their behaviors may be (Eco, 2016, p.35). There exists a yearning among people to be discovered and attain fame as an immediate consequence of no longer believing in God—the all-seeing, all-knowing God who once bestowed meaning upon existence. This absence of recognition has propelled humanity toward a precipice, compelling them to seek visibility within a societal phenomenon. It’s this phenomenon that Murillo has harnessed as a driving force to sustain a dialogue with the viewers of his artwork. This dialogue is the one that we continue in deCERCA.
The artworks in this exhibition seamlessly blend religious iconography with the phenomenon of memes, encompassing their proliferation, viral nature, and the figures that have achieved notoriety through social media. The pivotal piece of this exhibition is the artist’s own rendition of Juan de Juanes’ ‘The Last Supper.’ Murillo intentionally places himself in the spotlight to elevate the discourse surrounding the phenomenon of notoriety, a phenomenon from which he himself is not exempt. Within this artwork, Murillo also brings into focus the discussion of authorship, considering both the perspective of memes and the artwork itself. Memes, owing to their expansiveness, exist within the medium without a clear originator. They resemble a kind of virus, disseminating as jokes, satirical commentary, or playful nods. Memes persist over time, much like the motif of God and, specifically, ‘The Last Supper,’ which recurs throughout the history of art.
