Fear is a social product. The circulation of discourse is essential to its creation. Fear spreads through images, stories, stereotypes, and fake newsThere is no fear without stories. The cultivation of fear depends on the imagination, especially on those who create prejudices. We think of racism and the creation of images of an always dangerous "other." Let's think of misogynistic discourses and the many fears they fuel. This association of symbolism and fear is inseparable from the institutions that have the power to articulate public discourse. Religious groups have always played a special role in the manipulation of fear. The same is true of newspapers, radio, and television and their participation in the creation of moral panics and fear of crime. However, today social media has taken the generation of fear to new dimensions. Rumors and gossip have reached unprecedented levels, while fake news New fears are spread and fueled. Countering fear also depends on stories, which will break or invalidate the narratives that proliferate fear.

The ARA has a clear commitment to art and artists, and therefore, periodically collaborates to provide a different perspective on the day's news, fostering a critical dialogue between journalism and art. This Sunday, we present another special artist edition that you will find at the newsstand. We do so in collaboration with Antoni Muntadas (Barcelona, ​​​​1942), one of the most important creators in our country, who has chosen it as the guiding thread and theme of the dossier. The construction of fear.

Probably Muntadas' oldest project, and the one that has had the longest life, is not any of his most arduous and recognizable series, some of them still open today, such as Political advertisements, started with Marshall Reese in 1984; On Translation, which started three decades ago, or Between the Frames, which ran from 1983 to 1993. Possibly the largest project undertaken by Muntadas is the construction of a network of interlocutors that grew exponentially as his proposals were developed in diverse contexts across a sociopolitical geography that, seen today, seems unattainable.

Every representative artist contributes a unique and distinct quality through their language. In the dominant corrua of visual and philological artists with progressive roots, ideologically constructed in Catalonia during the long dictatorship, each one contributed a poetics of theuniversal ultralocal made of identifiable signs in what is personal and yet also collective. The specificity of a Miró or a Tàpies is explained because, starting from anonymous iconographic gestures, their own sign makes them identifiable.

Fear is a universal, deep, and essential emotion directly linked to survival. At some point, we've all heard a pressure in our chest, a sudden muscle tension, a shiver on our skin, or a racing heartbeat that heralds imminent danger. But what exactly is fear? Why is it so necessary for us, and how do we manage it? And what does it reveal about us, as a species and as individuals?

Antoni Muntadas' project On Translation: Fear It confronts us with what the artist calls "invisible mechanisms." It highlights how these mechanisms serve to politically exploit the media and how those in power use them to control citizens around a specific ideology or discourse.

This Sunday, you'll find an artist's diary at the newsstand, this time from Antoni Muntadas, one of Catalonia's most important artists. His work addresses political and social issues, with a particular focus on the role of the media and the way public space is being transformed. You'll also find a dossier on fear, with articles and reports on what scares us right now, and also on how fear works in the brain and on social media, among other things.

The first time we talked about creating the special artist diary that you can find at newsstands this Sunday, September 28th, was back in April. Antoni Muntadas (Barcelona, ​​​​1942) had just returned from São Paulo, where he had opened the exhibition Public Place at the SESC Pompéia cultural center. But over the course of these months of discussions, he returned to Brazil and went to Madrid—where he presented the exhibition. About Asia at the Casa de la Moneda–, has passed through Lisbon –where in May he opened an exhibition at the Cristina Guerra gallery– and has also made trips to Pamplona –where in October he opens Other fears– and in Shanghai, where he will present an exhibition at the Museu del Vidre in November. Of course, he's been making stops in Barcelona; he's just returned from New York, and he'll soon be off to Valencia, where on November 25th he'll receive an honorary degree from the University of Valencia and the following day he'll inaugurate an exhibition at the Escuela Superior de Arquitectura. Arguably, these are his two most stable bases, although talking about stability for a nomadic artist like him is complicated. We had our last conversation while he was resting for a few weeks in Cadaqués, a place that is part of his history and to which he keeps returning. And the first long conversation took place at his premises in Hospitalet de Llobregat, a former industrial building where he has set up his archive-warehouse. This interview is an edited summary of the various conversations.

Looking is one thing, seeing is another, and perceiving is another. These are three stages that determine how we interpret what is before us. Antoni Muntadas (Barcelona, ​​1942) always encourages the public to reach the third stage because this perception, which leads to the discovery of something new that was not apparently visible, is what allows us to enjoy knowledge and action, what gives us tools to interpret the world around us, and what also opens up new paths of creativity and knowledge. That's why we wanted to begin this supplement with two images that reflect the artist's desire to "make the invisible visible." On the left, the "Look, see, perceive"; above, the "Attention, perception requires involvement", a phrase he began using in 1999 on all kinds of media - stickers, posters, postcards, signs, billboards... - and which he has presented to dozens of cities around the world with their corresponding translation. Which is not always easy. In fact, it is a work that is part of the On Translation series, started in 1995: to translate, to interpret, in short, to understand each other, even beyond languages and cultures. And, for that very reason, the phrase is above all a call to the viewer to get involved, to make an effort to understand and participate. Just as to understand a physics or biology text you have to study a little, in art too you have to be interested and look for where things come from. In all things, whatever they may be, if you want to know more you have to get involved."

Cadaqués leaves a deep mark, both on those it seduces and those it fails to captivate. The artist Antoni Muntadas first arrived in 1956, invited by some classmates. He stayed in a house owned by Coderch and Correa & Milà, before the emergence of the modern house phenomenon of Lanfranco Bombelli. "I came from Barcelona, ​​and it was a huge shock," Muntadas recalls. "I was struck by the fact that Cadaqués was a very different way of life, very transparent, above all cosmopolitan. The people I knew there were Belgian, French... Many have sold their houses to people from Barcelona, ​​and all this has changed." So Muntadas continued going despite all the difficulties, such as the winding roads, the north winds, the stony beaches and cold water, and the wine that turned sour. And together with others touched by Cadaqués, they began to popularize the term "Sadomasoqués."

Antoni Muntadas (Barcelona, ​​​​1942) has always worked all over the world, as if he were a nomad. He has often defined himself as a outsider who arrives at a place and makes it his own by "listening, speaking and dialoguing," as Muntadas himself says on the occasion of the exhibition that the Museo Casa de la Moneda in Madrid is dedicating to him until September 28. With the title About Asia, the exhibition includes the projects that he has developed in China, Japan, South Korea and the Philippines since 2004. And how he develops the works in situ with local teams, the exhibition also means an "exercise of contextualization" of projects among which is Asian protocols: What are your concerns? The contextualization also extends to the installation, the work of architect Juan Herreros. "It all started because I was curious. It was a continent I didn't know, and one I wanted to know more about," says the artist.