Public Art Program 2023 x Las Rozas Village

Yann Leto (1979, Bordeaux) is a French artist based in Spain since 2007. His painting is dense and detailed, has a clear approach to socio-political criticism and works as a collage where various typographic elements coexist with classical and modern elements. The encounters between the elements of the work are so clear that the gaps and the "unpainted" planes of the painting disappear. The approach without rules of the protagonists makes possible an emotional visual circle that repositions the human being in a society marked by malaise. Almost like an unhealthy collector, Leto stores a large amount of Google images and press clippings on several hard drives, a visual archive from which he draws to create his own universe.

The work of Avelino Sala (1972) has led him to question the cultural and social reality with a critical and uncomfortable look in a continuous exploration of the social and political imaginary. His projects exploit the capacity of art to generate spaces for experimentation that give rise to new realities. Sala is one of the Spanish referents of art as political resistance. In his production is present a kind of poetics that contains a reflection on state powers and the control they exercise. His forceful aesthetic adds strength to a discourse as necessary as it is powerful. 

Since the 2000s Sala has been working in the global context of contemporary art, exhibiting and participating in Biennials and institutions such as the Caracas Biennial of Fire (2006), VideoZone V Biennial of Video Art of Tel Aviv (2010), Nightcomers, 10 Istanbul Biennial (2007), Biennial of the End of the World (2011), Biennial of Central American Isthmus of Guatemala (2014) or the South Biennial, Together Apart (2019). His work is presented in 2020 in a big project at the Centre del Carmen in Valencia where the themes he has been working on for years are developed: migrations, contemporary dislocation, environmental crisis and the paradoxes of capitalism.
 

His work is based on an intentional and ironic naivety that manages to dismantle the perverse structures of reality. He has quickly developed his own identifiable style, in which he applies the codes of popular culture, comics, illustration and a meditated naive aesthetic that hides a precise treatment of the themes he explores. His work denies "l'art pour l'art" and understands that, being as it is a means of expression, art is eminently communicative and must always be based on an ideology. For all these reasons, rather than speaking of 'artistic creation' we should speak of 'artistic reaction'. Painting, drawing, intervention, installation, performance and sound are the media he uses to develop the discourse of his narratives. 

In recent years, he has also participated in exhibitions such as "Recent Works" at MAC/Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Lissone, "Teoría de la alegría" at MACE/Museo de Arte Contemporáneo Eivissa, "Visto y no visto. Nuevo coleccionismo en Baleares" at Matadero Madrid, "On rau la realitat?" at Es Baluard Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, "Lost in Chaos" at Palazzo delle Stelline and "Proud to be a painter" at Galleria Allegra Ravizza.