A social gathering without words, completely muted. An exploration of silence as a dialectical presence which unsettles yet at the same time legitimates itself in a world cluttered with words. A celebration of its creator, Tres. A celebration of the three years of his absence.

La Virreina Centre de la Imatge hosts the 11th Silent Cocktail, a social and creative event held in silence, conceived by Tres (1956-2016) as part of his exploration of silence and its presence. The first was held on the third day of the third month of 1993 in the artist’s studio; since then there have been several cocktails, at venues such as the CCCB, the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, and Plaça Sant Felip Neri; this one, activated by Eduard Escoffet following the indications of the artist, will be the first to be organised after his death. The event is also intended as a commemoration, marking three years of the artist’s absence. Together with the exhibition held in 2017 and the book that will appear next year, it also forms part of a long-term programme designed as a review of Tres’s development in terms of both art and thought.

At the Silent Cocktail, the visitor, freed from the social imposition of the word, finds herself in a situation in which seeing, hearing and remaining silent, and – more to the point – “being”, are activities that are rediscovered mostly with surprise and enormous pleasure. Abundantly doused with wine of silence, labelled specially for each occasion, the Silent Cocktail is like no other social gathering. Its silence places it within a definitively futuristic sphere that is difficult to forget: the staging of a utopia that offers the possibility of exercising the right to remain silent in society.