In the manner of Francisco Goya
Spanish, 1746–1828
The Pilgrimage to the Livestream, 2026
Oil on plaster, transferred to canvas
123 × 164 cm
Never painted.
Commissioned for the collection, 2026.
PAB 2026.4.1
Moving, 8-second loop ·
Faces, dozens of them, pressed together in the dark and lit from below by the phones they hold up, mouths open in song or in shouting; it is hard to say which. A woman in a red shawl is caught in the middle of it. Goya painted a pilgrimage on the wall of his house as a march of the singing damned. Whatever they are all singing at is out of frame. It usually is.
The brief
A dense crowd of gaunt faces at night lit only from below by the glow of the phones they hold, mouths open in song or shouting, pressing toward something out of frame. Late Spanish Romantic oil painting from the black-paintings period, near-monochrome browns, blacks and dirty whites with one passage of blood red, figures with gaping mouths and wide eyes emerging from darkness, coarse dragged brushwork and palette-knife smears, unstable composition, grotesque satire and pity in equal measure, muddy matte surface with cracks. Flat frontal reproduction of the painting, the canvas fills the frame edge to edge, even lighting, no frame, no wall, no text.
Written to the house rules. The painter's name does not appear.
Take it home
The painting on this room's wall, at its own proportions, nothing written on it.
