Canción de Pedro Costa, conceived for La Virreina Centre de la Imatge, is an exhibition of Pedro Costa’s work, approached from a specific perspective. The exhibition revolves around the face, the voice and the song as signs of what is most particular to each person, but also as a response to the combined pressure of History and the history of an individual, a response to trauma and to what is missing.
The exhibition is divided into ten works, with titles alluding to the idea of song: Casa de lava – cuaderno (artist's book, 1994) and Cancionero de Fogo (documentary video to visualise the contents of the notebook), Balar de Balibar (projection, 2009), Canción de Ventura (projection, 2014), Nuestras voces no cantarán más (set of three independent works projected in different rooms of the exhibition, 2022), Canto de piedra (five photographs on paper, 2015), Morna de sombras (installation with five projections on screens suspended from the ceiling and soundtrack, 1994-2022) and Canciones para evitar el suicidio (installation comprising the works Acerca del suicidio and A la pequeña radio, both from 2022).
The five independent works that are brought together in Canciones para evitar el suicidio and Nuestras voces no cantarán más have been produced specifically for the exhibition. Morna de sombras presents significant variations in regards to previous versions. Balar de Balibar, the fragment from the film Ne change rien, is presented in this form for the first time.
The exhibition is accompanied by the publication of an essay also entitled Canción de Pedro Costa, written by the curator of the exhibition, Javier Codesal.