This work by Avelino Sala, produced in 2013, is a piece of blue neon bearing the letters SOS “Si Opus Sit” (if necessary). Coinciding with the Nit del Art of that same year, it was installed on top of the old city wall of Palma above Es Baluard, right at the entrance to the cultural complex. Sala uses neon as a medium and support, a luminous material, so that it does not go unnoticed, and a direct message that everyone understands: the letters of the international distress signal, SOS.

Through this luminous piece, he denounces the situation of artists and the art world in general; he calls for a transformation in the world of economics, culture and specifically, of artistic practice. The place designed to receive the piece was not randomly chosen – the location on the wall of the museum, in the space where visitors can contemplate artists’ creations, where the future of contemporary art flows. Avelino Sala also condemns the fact that contemporary art centres have turned into venues of shows, and proposes that artists escape from conformism and the domination of the system through the artwork, a situation that can be extrapolated to the economic system.

R.E./S.H.