Pedro G. Romero

Pedro G. Romero (Aracena, 1964) even confuses art experts, which is why when speaking of his work, a single word comes to mind: unclassifiable. During this talk, Pedro himself offers an alternative: “I like the contraposition between multidisciplinary artist and undisciplined artist.” And there’s no better person than him to position himself... Or not, because even he jokes about it: “Really, I only work on a single thing... I’m just not sure exactly what it is.” The jury who gave him the National Award for Plastic Arts last September for “dealing with, recovering, and reinserting popular culture in its most ungovernable expressions into the public sphere, by researching the genealogical aesthetic and symbolic manifestations of communities who were not granted a space of representation” were onto something though. Proof of this are his acclaimed studies on flamenco. “The fact that flamenco and flamenco artists have ended up representing Spanish culture around the world is a bit of a paradox given that they were always persecuted,” he reflects. Now, alongside the Alarcón Criado gallery, he lands in ARCOmadrid—art fair sponsored by Iberia—with a piece (Banderizas) closely connected to this world: “It consists of the portraits of three flamenco, gypsy and activist friends (María Cabral, Pastora Filigrana, and Lorena Padilla) made with flags that they gave me themselves and that speak of how they build their imagination.”

Last September you received the National Award for Plastic Arts. After letting the dust settle, how do you feel?
I’ve never been a fan of this kind of recognition, but I’ve taken it well. Since working a lot with flamenco artists, who have known how to step into the institutional realm and, at the same time, stay on the side-lines, I’ve learnt a lot. So, for now, I cannot complain, all I’ve received is congratulations and I haven't perceived that institutionalisation. In short, I haven’t seen the writing on the wall.

Researcher, curator, performer, writer, filmmaker, teacher... Does Pedro G. Romero rest? Which role do you feel most comfortable playing?
I must admit that I don’t sleep much. My art is expressed in many forms and that’s why I wear so many hats, but I only work around a series of obsessions that are related to popular culture and building an imagination; whether that’s expressed through research, an exhibition, a film, or a conference is just the means. I don’t distinguish between the artist or the curator when I present an exhibition, in fact, I think blending those lines is one of my distinguishing traits.

“When people at school used to ask my daughter what her father did, she didn’t know what to answer. That people don’t know what my job is tells me I’m on the right path”

People also say you’re an unclassifiable artist.
I work with everyday, popular things in an extremely broad, democratic, and horizontal sense. Perhaps that’s the weird thing in a field like plastic arts, which is why they don’t know which box to put me in. When people at school used to ask my daughter what her father did, she didn’t know what to answer. “Dad, what do you do?” she’d ask me. That people don’t know what my job is tells me I’m on the right path. It’s nice and I’m proud of this.

'La mesa que baila’, an exhibition by Pedro G. Romero at the Alarcón Criado gallery. © Nicolas Grospierre © Nicolas Grospierre

Flamenco is one of your main fields of research and many artists (Israel Galván, Rocío Márquez, Niño de Elche, or Rosalía, among others) have come to you. What do you think they are looking for?
I started working on flamenco as a passion project and it was Israel Galván who forced me to take it seriously. I had certain ideas and visions about flamenco but wasn’t intending on making it my main focus. In the end, I was taken over by the passion of the studio. My idea of flamenco is a lot broader than that of traditional scholars and perhaps that’s why I’ve ended up working with so many artists. For me, passion is the main construct of flamenco. Flamenco is its artists, but above all it’s its audience, and defending that has always seemed important to me.

Flamenco sparks a great deal of interest abroad and some of the best festivals are held overseas. Do we have an inferiority complex about flamenco in Spain?
Yes, the relationship we have in Spain with flamenco is problematic and ultimately it is misunderstood. The festivals with the clearest, most cohesive, and convincing flamenco programme are the one in Nîmes (France) and in the Netherlands. Whereas Spanish festivals do everything from soup to nuts. Then there are stereotypes about whether flamenco is only Andalusian and that weakens the understanding that flamenco is a sensitive art that goes beyond our borders. Flamenco has been of cultural importance in the south of France, the south of Portugal, and northern Africa and people forget that.

“Passion is the main construct of flamenco. Flamenco is its artists, but above all it’s its audience, and defending that has always seemed important to me”

In your youth, you were called Punky Pedro. When did this transformation occur?
I went to live in Arahal (Seville), and they started to call me that because I dressed weird. I’d wear passé waistcoats or trench coats; details that make you stand out in a village. But I had little to do with punk, I liked more experimental groups, like The Residents or Bauhaus. Funnily enough, where I found my scene was in the world of flamenco, and that’s where I started rubbing shoulders with flamenco artists who shared their wisdom with me. Working with Israel Galván, Enrique Morente, Carmen Linares, Tomás de Perrate, Bobote, or Caracafé is incredible. A gift.

Pedro G. Romero during a visit to the ‘Popular’ exhibition at IVAM (Valencian Institute of Modern Art). © Archivo Alarcón Criado

In 2021, the Museo Reina Sofía dedicated a retrospective exhibition to you and finding your works became a daunting task. Don’t you feel sad about leaving your art behind or is it a way of understanding it?
It bothers me. Now, in Germany, they are preparing an exhibition related to the climate and are studying photos of a series of pieces I made in Brazil at the turn of the 1990s that anticipated many of the problems that eco-art deals with today. Due to the ineptitude of the galleries I worked with, those pieces ended up lost in customs. I’m a bit sad, but not dramatically so. The transitive and performative nature of things is also an important part of my work, so many things are made and lost along the way.

“Everyone is talented, but not everyone is lucky enough to be able to exercise that talent. Having that privilege depends on the kind of tools society gives you”

“In art, work depends on more factors and not just on the inspiration of a single person,” you declared in a different interview. What did you mean by this?
Inspiration is like breathing, first you have to take a breath in to then let it out. Understanding something is a way of letting something move through you and the work of artists like me is part of that. Even Picasso said that inspiration has to find you working. Inspiration has nothing to do with the myth of the romantic artist enlightened by muses, but rather with taking our knowledge and sensibilities to the limit and letting yourself be captivated by something new.

And on the subject of talent, what reflections does it awaken in you?
I think everyone is talented, but not everyone is lucky enough to be able to exercise that talent. Having that privilege depends on the kind of tools society gives you. Developing talent has a lot to do with time, with freeing yourself from the shackles of work that life often forces upon us. I remember my grandmother... When the doctor told her she had cataracts, she asked my father to buy her oil paints, and she started painting. She’d never had time for it, but she was afraid of losing her eyesight and she didn’t stop painting until she died. She was talented all right.