Monica

Monica is the name of the mothers of both artists. This coincidence has fascinated them since the beginning of their relationship. Both Monicas were born in Argentina in the 1950s as daughters of European war refugees and both emigrated to Spain as adults. Monica Lilienfeld (Pablo’s mother) was a painter who died very young, in 1986. Monica Pezdirc (Fede’s mother) posed nude for her husband’s erotic photographs all her life. Mónica Lilienfeld’s ecofeminist paintings and Mónica Pezdirc’s photographs are the starting point of this speculative telenovela.

With Monica, the artists use role-playing as a performative tool to explore diasporic genealogies that are more focused on becoming than on being. Non-heteronormative horizontal relations become as important as patrilineal verticality; the trees of reproductive genealogy merge into a tentacular genealogy of worldly images.