Santiago Sierra (b. 1966)

This performance took place in the physical location of the Spanish Pavilion interior, with no audience, on 1 May 2003. For an hour, a woman wearing a black hood remained seated, still and in silence. This work, which the artist documented in photographs and on video, dwelt on the idea of labour as a technology of domination and punishment, bearing witness to the violence of disciplinary processes and the objectualising power of money. The iconographic connections with Goya's works, and with torture by the Inquisition, link up with many other contemporary iconological references.