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Fernando Sánchez Castillo

Sánchez Castillo has had solo exhibitions in Spain, Mexico, Germany, Austria and other countries. His works are included in the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou, the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, the Dutch Central Bank and other institutions.
Among Sánchez Castillo’s most famous projects is “Expanded Memorial”, a series of interactive installations in which visitors can take home a small plastic figure of a protester or freedom fighter and leave a message in the exhibition space. Like collectible superhero figurines, these small sculptures help their owners express themselves, reminding them of how they see themselves — the emotional connection to them is stronger than to large street monuments.

In late 2021, months before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the New Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow opened the exhibition

“Diversity United”, the last major international art exhibition before the country’s cultural isolation. One of the most memorable exhibits was Sánchez Castillo’s monument to August Landmesser, a German worker known from a historic photograph in which he is the only one in a crowd not raising his arm in a Nazi salute. At least two participants in the documentary part of the exhibition “No” took figurines of Landmesser with them into exile.

Specifically for the “No” exhibition, Sánchez Castillo created a sculpture of the politician Alexey Navalny, who remained Vladimir Putin’s main opponent until he was killed in a Russian prison in 2024. The work is the first monument of its kind to Navalny.