Verónica Ruth Frías

Verónica Ruth Frías uses disguise, makeup and camouflage to acquire different identities, and to carry out a body of performative work that falls into an acid and frontal criticism of gender issues. We have seen her as Little Red Hood, The Daughter of God at the Last Supper, as a Super Heroine, as a kidnapper and, through all these characters and many more, Frías tells us what worries her, what outrages her, and that makes us question the roles of women in today's society, reaffirming their position in a world of men and, in the world of art. In her works there is always a touch of irreverent humor.

She works mainly with performance and uses video and photography to record the ephemeral actions she performs.

Pink Power It is an installation made up of a two-dimensional pieces and a video that documents a collective performance by the artist, carried out at the ARCO Fair in February 2018, at the stand of the Rafael Botí Provincial Foundation of Plastic Arts, in Córdoba, under the title of I Am a Woman. In this action, a series of women, from different fields, ages and contexts, mainly art, each selected a phrase with which they wanted to define and identify themselves, as a plural and diverse empowered self-affirmation, which was printed by the artist in texts white on pink backgrounds, and with which each woman wandered, in a row one by one, carrying them, and touring an entire Pavilion of the Fair.

To create this piece that could be seen for the first time at ARCO 2018, the artist requested, a priori, other women to write or say phrases with which they wanted to identify themselves and to start with I Am, from there come some such as : I am an artist, I am your sister, I am trans, I am lesbian, I am feminist, I am fire, I am a writer, among others, that make visible a variety of ways of being women in society and to live and feel, breaking the clichés of femininity and the clichéd unidirectional behaviors that integrate it. Composing with all of them a two-dimensional wall piece, surrounding a central one with the colors in reverse, with a white background and pink text, with the significant statement I am a woman. A forceful piece full of strength and sorority, in which the artist states that all these different women, so different, are all women, taking up, and making that feminist translation, the phrase of the Black Power movement I am a man. -Margarita Aizpuru-

I AM A WOMAN I AM A WOMAN arises from one of the critical principles of current feminism, the inversion of gender roles as a tool for analysis and a channel for female empowerment. Long before Verónica Ruth Frías took this sentence to the category of a work of art, the artist Glenn Ligon did the same from his condition as a black and homosexual man starting from the words I AM A MAN, a simple proclamation that nevertheless had a long meaning as it came from the claim of some Afro-American strikers in Memphis (1968). Glenn Ligon brought the banner to canvas with no more stylistic concerns than the black-on-white typeface of the original.

Verónica traces the principles of the artistic corpus I AM A WOMAN as a direct consequence of those assumptions, this time (half a century later) to assert that it is necessary to speak from the condition of a woman. In all areas of life, of course, but particularly in the art world, where women hardly have access to shares of power in management, as well as in curatorial selections of museums and exhibitions, or in the rigorous filter specialized books and art reviews. It is precisely the written word that has ignored the female gender, favoring masculine pseudonyms or simply invisibility and oblivion, one of the most effective barriers to which female creators of any era have been subjected and continue to be subjected. - Pedro Alarcón-

The Womanhouse installation is made up of a photograph and an object made up of books that simulates a house, where the artist emphasizes the importance of the knowledge acquired throughout our lives, and how words and words are transcendental for women. writing.

Books are transmitters of knowledge, both for training and information, and to have the intellectual and analytical tools, to reflect, to build and reconstruct the knowledge learned and History and its leading subjects. In the photograph, in a performative way, the artist sits at a table covered with books, mainly feminists and biographical books on women, to cover her head one by one, wrapping them and holding them with transparent plastic rolls, forming a kind of habitat or knowledge space. An own space, as a mental "own room" that is also formulated in the form of an object, which can be seen in the installation.

BIO Verónica Ruth Frías(España, 1978)

Verónica Ruth Frías has worked with curators such as Mariana Hormaechea, Nerea Ubieto, Adonay Bermúdez, Fernando Gómez de la Cuesta, Semiramis Gonzales, Margarita Aizpuru, Javier Díaz Guardiola, Juan Ramón Barbancho and Ángel Luis Pérez Villén.

For two years now, she has been the curator and manager of the Rara Residencia project.

There are numerous collective exhibitions in which she has participated since 2003 in international video festivals and art galleries, in Spain in various cities such as in all the provinces of Andalusia, Palma de Mallorca, Badajoz, the Basque Country, Catalonia, Bolivia, Venezuela, Cuba, Brazil and in Europe in France, Germany, also in New York, Dakar.

She has had numerous individual exhibitions including: “ FORGET THE PRINCESS CALL ME PRESIDENT”, Galería Lucia Due- ñas ,Oviedo, España (2022); “Always Pink” , RARA Residencia, Villanueva del Rosario, Málaga, Es- paña. 2020 “ FORGET THE PRINCESS CALL ME PRESIDENT” , Sala del Rectorado de la Universidad de Málaga, Málaga, España (2021); ” A 153 cm sobre el mar ”, Casa del Almirante, Tudela, España (2019); “ Yo se quien soy” , Festival del MAF, la Caja Blanca, Málaga, España (2018); Performance “La Última Cena” dentro del programa “Violencia Zero- Mulleres en Accción”, comisaria Paula Cabaleiro , Marco de Vigo, Pontevedra. España (2017); “ Leche de artista”. Casa Sostoa, Málaga, España (2014); “Súper M”, ECCO Cadiz, Espacio de Cración Contemporanea de Cadiz, España (2013); “Yo quiero”, Instituto Andaluz de la Juventud, Huelva, España (2010); among others.

Her work is part of numerous collections, including: Colección INICIARTE, CAAC, Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla; Fundación Pepe Espaliú, Córdoba, España; Colección Desencaja, Instituto Andaluz de la Juventud, Junta de Andalucía; Colección de Arte Contemporáneo Ayuntamiento de Utrera, Sevilla, Málaga; Ayuntamiento de d’Arts Plàstiques de Pollença, Palma de Mallorca, España; Sierra Centro de Arte, Huelva, España; Colección Ayuntamiento de Doña Mencía, Córdoba, España; Colección de Arte Rafael Botí, Córdoba, España; Ayuntamiento de Málaga, España; among others.