抄録
Santiago Sierra, a Spanish contemporary artist born in 1966, is renowned for his
work called “remunerated actions,” which often involve the exploitative manipulation
of the human body. The actions are performed by remunerating the participants.
In previous research, Sierra’s works have been considered to provoke racial and
economic disparities between participants and audiences through their structural
devices, leading to “friction, awkwardness, and discomfort.” In contrast, this paper
analyzes how Sierra’s representative work 160 cm Line Tattooed on 4 People (2000)
is reflected as “torture” to present an alternative interpretation of the discomfort. So,
I focus on assistants’ behaviors that have not received attention in previous research
by distinguishing between “labors,” the human labor force employed for the work, and
“workers,” assistants executing the work’s intent. And I argues the worker’s two aspects
through referencing the documents of torture Abu Ghraib Photography: worker quietly
executes tattooing as a practical work, but becomes this action as a torturous play by
smiling with the camera. However, Sierra assumes responsibility for these actions of the
labors and workers in this work as an artist. This approach critiques the ambiguity of
responsibility for its actions in the case of Abu Ghraib photography.
