As far as I know, no king has ever brought back from the other world the blood spilled in his name. Neither red nor blue.

Despising the Wednesday’s leftover stew with a golden fork can be as cruel to the eyes of a poor person as abandoning the abyssal gaze of empty plates under the sun. That stain of spilled wine on the fine, gilded tablecloth will turn purple and enigmatic after twilight’s abandonment: a canvas of deliriums created by necessity and chance. Such is art.

There is something intense, amusing, and voracious in the process of an artist when confronting the need to express oneself. That happened to me when “Sangre Azul” (“Blue Blood”) sprouted. A few crumbs of humor and love comfort the dead time and relieve me from the daily horror. A diversion. The echoes of Ouka Leele still resonate in my mind, saying: “Martín, your laughter could unscrew all the bolts of the universe!” If only blood had the precious color of love and the iridescence of contagious laughter!

Around 2008, we were going through the bubble crisis, and I, in front of the screen, was trying to understand what was happening. I don’t mean just the crisis, but also my personal situation, which had some resemblance to the inflammatory process that had led us to collapse. I thought that, just as a family’s dirty laundry is washed at home (or, rather, hidden at home), there was something murky about the real estate deals in Spain, particularly those of the great father’s son-in-law. I recalled a documentary where he told his children: “Kids, I have no money… I have no money… What did you think, that just because I’m the king…?” (My father told us the same: “The cow only has one udder, and here come the incompatibilities…”). When the son-in-law’s dealings started to come to light, I thought: “He’s messing it up. Why don’t they just give them a proper house and stop with the shady deals! Poor royals!” Then, the countless stumbles and missteps came to light: the elephant in the china shop, and so on. All as predictable as the crisis we had to endure. Before signing the Constitution, they should have read it carefully, paying special attention to Article 47, regarding housing, and Article 20, on freedom of expression. Also, the fine print of the invisible article number “sex”: “There’s no amendment for screwing.”

The thing is, in mid-May 2011, due to a lack of cash, I found myself shopping with my El Corte Inglés credit card. It wasn’t yet May 15. On my way back, under the equestrian statue of Charles III, I stumbled upon a swarm of people protesting. The imposing crowd, expressing itself and reorganizing the system, along with the dead weight of my bags filled with food bought on credit, infected me with an excitement as intense as the feeling of indignation that would unite us from that rebellious moment in Puerta del Sol.

Unprecedented, perhaps historic. I ran home for my camera. From then on, I went down every day to listen to them and take photos, which for a while became common to all eyes, cameras, phones, social networks, and media. There we met friends and people we hadn’t seen in a long time. There was a sense of complicity in finding solutions to the debacle that the developers, politicians, and bankers had plotted on a global level. Apparently, the State and the municipalities were supporting a starving economy that was nourished by taxes generated by real estate transactions, allowing the price escalation to benefit interests, capital gains, administrative and fiscal commissions, all oblivious to the already predicted downfall. A speculative operation inflated with the volatile gas of evictions, debt, intervention, and bailout. The same went for institutionalized corruption. For a political organization to pocket 3%, you just had to turn a blind eye while they danced the mysterious waltz of money. These are the things forgiven to the father, the ones learned at home: the white lie, guilt, domination, debt, submission, evasion, original sin. Our daily bread. Bread for today, hunger for tomorrow.

Patriarchy is a legacy that survives through a strange genetics of impositions, privileges, and obsolete concepts, harmful even to the ecosystem. Greed, envy: no one ever has enough. It’s not enough to have more; you must have more than your neighbor to be someone. But as far as I know, no king has taken to the other world the blood spilled in his name. Neither red nor blue. The same goes for bills, commissions, and bricks.

Every day, after my nightly walks through Sol, I began developing these images that told the love story of an exemplary family: the royal family. In 2013, amid the events and uncertainties, I published the first video with the images built in 3D, beyond the official narrative. Sometimes, anonymous complaints blocked my social media accounts for showing a breast or other trivialities. I was also excluded from some exhibitions. I was moving on the fringes of photography, what they now call post-photography, post-truth, artificial intelligence. While working, I recited a simple mantra: “They may screw my life, but the present belongs to me.” That’s how I earned the title of outsider in the orthodox church of officialdom. Suddenly, the new Citizen Security Law (Gag Law) defined new limits on freedom of expression. It occurred to me that it might be wise to withdraw the videos and images. Perhaps show them in the future when they could be appreciated with perspective.

Admiring the recent creation of the exemplary “Gallery of Royal Collections” museum, now that we live immersed in the fake world, surrounded by memes, subjected to the daily narrative, it doesn’t seem that my images could be offensive. Beyond the amusement, they are the artistic expression of that time I lived, a tribute to a divine and human family, so structured and unstructured, real and unreal, as imposed as yours and mine.

Who knows if the necessary adjustments to the Gag Law will return full freedom of expression to us? Or will the mysterious barrier between intelligences be the key to a new schism that punishes the natural intelligence of the arts?

“Crisis? What Crisis?” responded UK Prime Minister James Callaghan to the press in the 1970s upon returning from his Caribbean vacation. Hence came the title of Supertramp’s memorable album, which I now listen to on vinyl. Meanwhile, I add the final touches to this text… and contemplate a golden rose, fire-colored, honey-colored, skin-colored, that speaks to me of my grandmother Rosa. And, with no other laughter, apparently, I try to assimilate the uncomfortable reality that the color of blood is none other than the color of money, by the grace of Saint Perpetual Crisis, Saint Chronic Debt, and their flowery cloaks of broken promises.

Meanwhile…

Health and Libertud!

Martïn Sampedro