Painting is Easy. Do It Yourself! is an exhibition of works from the “la Caixa” Contemporary Art Collection, conceived by João Maria Gusmão, on the alienation of labor power, the contemporary leisure-time economy, and its relation to self-reflexive poetics.

The exhibition begins with a 1989 photograph by Antoni Muntadas that shows the advertisement of a hardware store painted on its own façade. In it, we see a paint bucket and the following slogan: ‘¡Pintar es fácil! Hágalo usted mismo.’

Muntadas’s work introduces the paradox in question. If, in theory, each person is a singular agent within a post-productive utopia that would fulfil Joseph Beuys’s idealized maxim of a creative ‘social sculpture’ – ‘Every human being is an artist’ – we find that, under present circumstances, it is the narcissistic drive of the contemporary subject that is transacted as a liberalization of subjectivities. This paradox reflects a relatively recent shift in the traditional concepts of factory, product, and consumer. We now witness the transversal circulation of these concepts: society itself is the factory.

In a culture that has naturalized self-entrepreneurship and the attention economy, the value and persistence of the artistic object become uncertain within contemporary worldviews.

The exhibition observes the transition of poetic modes that negotiate, in their productive, material, and conceptual qualities, the prescience of this perception, establishing a relation with experimental and critical practices from the last 50 years. A critical assessment on the value of art within the collective imagination in the current historical frame.

Guillermo Mora has recently been awarded a grant by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation (New York). For over three decades, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation has supported active artists on an international scale. Established in 1985 through the generosity of Lee Krasner—one of the leading painters of American Abstract Expressionism in the 20th century—the Foundation is a leader in providing resources to both emerging and established artists. To date, the Pollock-Krasner Foundation has awarded more than 5,200 grants to professional artists and organizations in 80 countries, totaling over $ 93 million.

Through its individual artist grants, the Foundation provides financial support to enable artists to create new work, purchase materials, rent studio space, prepare exhibitions, attend residencies, and cover living expenses—allowing them to better dedicate themselves to their art. The Foundation also offers grants to organizations that work directly with artists, such as museums and galleries, funding exhibitions and artist residency programs. In addition, the Foundation supports exhibitions and research related to the works of Krasner and Pollock.

The series SÍ PERO NO [YES BUT NO] consists of a group of site-specific paintings created using A4 sheets of paper stapled to a wall and subsequently partially torn away. The artist attaches the sheets to the wall with staples according to a predefined protocol and then tears them off, leaving behind traces of the action and incorporating the physical gesture into the final work.

The artwork is delivered as a kit containing all the necessary materials and an instruction manual, allowing anyone to create it. Through this “Do It Yourself” system, SÍ PERO NO questions the notion of authorship and advocates for the possibility of continuing to paint without relying on conventional, hegemonic painting.