Santiago Sierra is an artist whose well-received exhibitions and performances of recent years (i.e. P.S.1, New York, Kunst-Werke, Berlin and the Venice Biennale) take a stand on the political and social questions of an increasingly globalized world. The artist, who was born in Madrid in 1966 and now lives in Mexico City, focuses on situations in which people are willing to take part in his unusual activities for a small payment. For example, he pays unemployed people or prostitutes to have a line tattooed on their backs, or he pays impoverished immigrants a minimum wage so that they would execute heavy labour tasks, such as moving extremely heavy concrete blocks and carrying them around aimlessly in an exhibition room. Frequently, the artist’s works mistreat the human dignity or the body integrity of the volunteers. Frequently, Santiago Sierra is being criticised for his artistic strategy. But the artist’s laconic answer to such accusations is: ”These are the conditions of your life, which you don’t want to see.”