JOAN MOREY
Mallorca, Spain, 1972
Received the Fundación Botín Art Grant in 2019

LA INFLUYENTE. The Body as Prison, 2022
Three-channel synchronized video installation.
HD video, colour, stereo sound. Duration 14:37 min., looped.
Videos displayed on 65" vertical screens mounted on black stands.
Edition: 1/3
Acquired in 2023

LA INFLUYENTE. The Body as Instrument, 2022
Poster. Giclée print, clips and aluminium supports.
120 × 80 × 5 cm
Edition 1/3
Acquired in 2023

LA INFLUYENTE. The Incorporeal Body, 2022
Curtain made from reused plastic used in the original performance, chrome-plated steel support bar, stainless steel hooks and chains.
Dimensions: 600 × 150 × 3 cm Ø (curtain extended: 920 × 340 cm)
Unique piece
Acquired in 2023

LA INFLUYENTE. The Body as Object, 2019–2022
Working materials, photographs and remnants of the performance displayed in an iron, glass and LED-lit vitrine.
Vitrine dimensions: 200 × 70 × 145 cm
Object dimensions: various
Unique piece
Acquired in 2023

LA INFLUYENTE (2019–2022) consists on a series of works derived from the eponymous artistic research and creation project examining the mechanisms by which the body is converted into symbolic capital, a speculative element, and an object of veneration. Taking as its starting point the first-class relics of Saint Teresa of Jesus, the project aims to analyse the influence a body can exert through both pre-modern and technological mediation devices, as well as its capacity to form communities of faith or communities of users.

Does a community of faith form in the same way as a community of users? How does the sense of community persist in relation to the symbolic body? In what ways does the body continue to activate mechanisms of veneration? What is the function of Catholic reliquaries today? Are not the screens of our smartphones the reliquaries of the 21st century? Does a body-object have the same impact as a body-image?

These and other questions permeate the project, building speculative bridges between devices and communities to explore intertextuality, the experience of the contemporary subject on pilgrimage, and the analysis of communities moved by faith or caught in hyperconnectivity. LA INFLUYENTE triggered an expanded performance for screens (as spectral devices) and bodies (as image) in an allegorical re-signification of the fragmentation and dispersion of Saint Teresa’s body and the reliquaries that mask the corruption of the flesh, placing in dialogue faith communities not necessarily of a religious nature.