Música genética
Solo Exhibition by Alan Sierra – PEANA
Music Is for the Birds
“Son, music is for the birds,” Conlon Nancarrow’s father told him when he confessed that he wanted to devote himself to music. Decades later, Alan Sierra visited the Paul Sacher Stiftung to examine Nancarrow’s correspondence. It was there, while reading his letters, that he found the provocative response.
In a playful move characteristic of his artistic practice, Sierra imagined the possible interpretations of that phrase. These ranged from a rejection of the profession, as though only species lacking intelligence could pursue it, to the idea that only birds, outside our economic order, have the possibility of devoting their lives to the beautiful and the sublime.
This interpretive reading is the starting point for Música genética, an exhibition in which Sierra continues his investigation into inheritance, descent, lineages, and creation as a form of gestation.
The use of the word “genetic” in the title should not be taken to refer to eugenics, since what Sierra shares with us here are notes on artistic labor and the importance of recognizing the work and effort of the family lineage, which open up opportunities for those who come after. In this sense, he proposes that the possibility of being an artist is a freedom built over several generations.
Explorations of work, labor, and artistic creation are recurring themes in Alan Sierra’s work; for example, in Pregnant Fable (2022), the artist explored the idea of male gestation to dismantle the concept of creative genius. Other works woven together by the same thread are those that make up the body of work Escribir un libro, poner un huevo (Writing a Book, Laying an Egg), with Candelero and Candelabro (2025), Silla para huevos (2025), and, later, The Great Clothesline (2026).
It is precisely in Escribir un libro, poner un huevo that Sierra first articulates his “Hen Theory of Artistic Labor.” For him, the exercise of making various observations about a hen’s egg encapsulates his concerns about work, the internal economy, creative genius, and the political and social conditions surrounding him. The domesticated bird represents the models we have created for reproductive exploitation and the care work rendered invisible behind individual authorship or the (re)productive body. Likewise, the egg, with its sculptural character, represents the interstice between life and death, the visible and the invisible.
What material conditions are needed for art to happen? In Música genética, Sierra returns to his childhood to continue his reflections on work. His childhood, surrounded by classical music, becomes a pretext for discussing cultural labor and how conditions of precarity and dependence on patronage have persisted since Mozart’s time.
Sierra’s proposal emerges from the encounter between two types of objects that we associate with different forms of learning: musical instruments and work tools. Both require physical activity, discipline, manual skill, and, often, transmission across generations. Yet culturally, we place them in very different positions: the former represent sensitivity, while the latter are associated with work of lesser value.
This combination gives rise to the silent chamber orchestra. Comprising Allegro, Adagio, Piano and Andante (2026), these tool-instruments, made from tools salvaged from antiques markets, are positioned on a sand-colored stage. The pickaxe, the mason’s trowel, the hacksaw, and the millet broom are reconfigured with parts of musical instruments: the handle is replaced by scrolls—the traditional ornament on some string instruments—and the hacksaw blade is replaced by horsehair for a violin bow. By combining them, Sierra destabilizes the distinction between them. None of the tool-instruments properly fulfills its functions, although each retains the memory of both objects. Their uselessness forces us to look again at objects we normally recognize by what they do. Sierra also suggests that unskilled labor demands the skill and care of the so-called fine arts.
This juxtaposition of tools and instruments highlights the origins of the materials that make their existence possible. These materials often come from colonized countries: precious woods from Brazil; metals from Mongolia; or ivory from animals on the African continent, which is transported to Austria or Italy before returning in the form of an instrument such as the piano. These material cycles also reveal the dynamics of exploitation. From the sand-colored stage, the instruments become characters usually unrecognized within the orchestra. Silence thus becomes apparent: the invisible language that is also part of music.
Another group of pieces consists of three cases: the containers used to store instruments. Traditionally rigid and covered in leather, these objects seek to protect and preserve the object inside. Each piece is complemented by the name Sierra has chosen for it from the vocabulary of opera, whose echoes complement the idea it holds.
The piece lined with blue felt and titled Coro a bocca chiusa (2026), or “Humming Chorus”—a title taken from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly—is also an egg holder. The references to his “hen theory” are quite evident: the egg holder is a nod to creative work. Another case is Parsifal (2026). Lined with red felt and a chessboard, this piece symbolizes a battle. Drawing on the story of Wagner’s opera, in which Parsifal experiences a profound sense of disconnection during his quest for the Holy Grail, this piece adds nuance to the idea of competition. Here, the act of laying an egg or laying down a piece refers to the various forms of reading: reading music or literature, artistic creations to which Sierra often refers.
Reina de la noche o La venganza del infierno arde en mi corazón (He dado mi canto a las estrellas, que brillaban tan radiantes) [“Queen of the Night, or “Hell’s Vengeance Burns in My Heart (I Have Given My Song to the Stars, Which Shone So Radiantly)] (2026), refers to Mozart’s The Magic Flute. This double bass case, lined with black velvet and aluminum stars intended to represent the constellations, symbolizes the night sky. In astronomy, it is understood that there are no generic skies: each night is unique because the stars are constantly changing. Here, the celestial vault we witness is that of the night the artist’s father died.
Teatro para huevos (Theater for Eggs) or La Fenice (2026), is a piece that takes as its starting point the theater of the same name in Venice, The Phoenix, considered one of the most important venues for opera. Sierra revisits the typology of the space and how it defines the audience. In Theater for Eggs, the spectators are eggs. For the artist, this gesture redirects attention from the stage to the audience. Likewise, the egg audience in his phoenix theater once again brings allegories of life, death, and silence to the table.
Eggs appear again in Träumerei (2026), an aluminum egg basket. The title refers to Schumann’s piece, whose opening fragments appear in the hen’s wire structure like a three-dimensional score. Sierra evokes mornings and eggs for breakfast. From this image, the artist asks who has access to classical music. Despite an aura of privilege, the hen here reminds us that music is interwoven with the history of humanity. Beyond being a space of exclusion, it is a universal language that responds to everyday life.
In Música genética, Sierra turns to other birds that we can find in the exhibition in the form of drawings. In Nessun dorma (2026), a stork carries a hammer instead of a baby. The multiplication of the labor force, as well as the encouragement of reproduction, points precisely to the creation of more workers. Sierra turns to birds that symbolize life in the popular imagination and uses them to emphasize the work behind reproduction.
In Leyes de Mendel (2026), we see a pea plant with musical symbols inside. Gregor Mendel studied and developed his knowledge of genetics through pea plants. This leguminous plant embodies the seed: in place of a family tree, the image of a climbing plant is proposed, in which the family’s descendants are represented by small musical notes. In Trauermarsch (2026), whose translation means “funeral march,” we see a snail carrying an instrument case in place of its shell. The title suggests that what it carries is a coffin.
Finally, Die Forelle (2026) refers to Schubert’s piece. During his childhood, Sierra heard the story behind this work several times: it tells of a trout leaping splendidly in the water. Unable to catch it, the fisherman decides to poison the entire lake. The musical notes in the drawing are part of the melody and visually represent the trout’s magnificent leap.
You’ll Have Music to Keep You Company
Alan Sierra grew up in a family whose work depended on music. His mother was an opera singer and choral instructor; his father, a piano tuner. Both were music workers. Unlike the rejection recounted by Nancarrow, Alan grew up with the freedom to learn music and to think of art as a life’s work. This was made possible by the chain of family labor. With this exhibition, Sierra emphasizes that the genetics of art is structured by the accumulation of capital—economic, cultural, social—that allows it to happen. Unlike Nancarrow’s father, Sierra’s mother once told him: “You’re not going to learn to play the piano to become a performer, but you’ll have music to keep you company when you’re alone.”
If birds can devote themselves to music, we can surround ourselves with it, with its beauty. Sierra suggests once again seeing art as the possibility of making worlds of our own, despite the traditionalist, violent languages that impose hierarchies and give rise to it. For Sierra, music and art are an exercise in imagination, an opportunity to use it and make a world of one’s own. And this joy is owed to our ancestors, to our family composition, since one person’s harmony is never separate from that of others.
Genealogy is the invisible code behind our steps; here, upbringing is understood as all the work that surrounds us, floating like musical notes. Música genética gives form to the silent melody of the people around us, the company that never leaves us alone.
Text by Eva Posas
