Artists Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson are based in Berlin and Rotterdam and have been working together since 1997. For the 2012 Biennial, Libia Castro and Ólafur Ólafsson launched anew project and campaign entitled ThE riGHt tO RighT, with two iterations: a flashing neon sign that illuminates the City from the south facade of St George's Hall, a symbolic landmark of Liverpool; and a free newspaper, distributed throughout the Biennial venues, in city libraries, cafes, bookshops, as an insert in the Liverpool Post and online.
2012 Biennial Year Find out more
The neon sign reads alternately ThE riGHt tO RighT and ThE riGHt tO WrOnG, and also introduces a new unspeakable word
that blends RighT and WrOnG together. The newspaper features a newly commissioned text from British writer and philosopher
Nina Power on ThE riGHt tO RighT/WrOnG, in dialogue with the artists.
This text addresses the subject of ThE riGHt tO RighT and current global political unrest in a reflective and satirical manner, also confronting us with the paradoxes of a document such as The Universal Declaration of Human Rights by presenting us with The Partial Declaration of Human Wrongs.
Through this campaign, the artists assert that this fundamental right to right is the first step towards a real and communal socio-political emancipation: above and beyond the multitude of international conventions, declarations, protocols and constitutions that specify and regulate the rights that nation-states and transnational agencies have made available to, or withhold from, citizens.
Previous solo exhibitions include Under Deconstruction (54th Venice Biennale, Icelandic Pavilion, Venice, Italy, 2011), and Tu país no existe (CAAC Seville, Spain, 2011-12).
Nina Power is a writer and academic who lives and works in London, U.K. Her books include One Dimensional Woman (Zero Books, 2009) and On Beckett (co-edited with Alain Badiou, Clinamen Press, 2002). She is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Roehampton University.
ThE riGHt tO RighT, 2012
Mixed media intervention
Commissioned by Liverpool Biennial 2012
Exhibited at St George’s Hall