The Assault of Illusion presents a reading of art as a tool for producing illusions and deceptions and explores how this, throughout its history, has progressively shaped both our desire and what we understand as “reality”.
The exhibition addresses concepts such as post-truth, power dynamics and the mechanisms that hide behind the hegemonic creation of fictions and illusions. In short, it addresses the techniques behind art’s capacity to generate forms of deception that end up influencing the way we perceive the world.
The exploration of these concepts takes place through a journey in which the audience itself is introduced to the sophistication and opacity of artistic techniques of deception that hide complex power relations. This journey accompanies critical reflection on how the arts have historically played an important role in the creation of these techniques, and raises the thesis of whether today, in a world of deep fakes and artificial intelligence/creation, the role of art should not be precisely to unveil these techniques built over the centuries.
The Assault of Illusion
Mar 18 – Sep 27, 2026
The Santa Mònica
Barcelona, Spain
