Destroyed Piano with Photograph

Carles Santos began his career as a pianist specialising in contemporary experimental music. Starting from the mid-1960s, Santos worked with film, video, photography and installations, where he continued to make music the main theme of his artistic production. Marked by a deconstructive approach and conceptual austerity, the artist’s genre-defying work also extended his musical ideas into other media.

With his installation "Destroyed Piano with Photograph", Santos criticises the historical burden and meaning of the piano. While breaking down the magnificent integrity of the musical instrument, he fiercely challenges the traditional techniques of making music. Santos questions musical ideas and concepts with his performances, and also through his photographs, videos, and installations; and here, in his "Destroyed Piano with Photograph", he displays a photograph of a whole piano in a field, together with the unidentifiable wreckage of a shattered piano. Through the implications and connotations arising from the immovability of the photographic image, the artist indicates that the body of the piano is open to other possibilities, including destruction.