"Anti-fascist meeting": Unusual football match - replica of Frank's head instead of a ball

The avant-garde Ex Abrupto festival in Barcelona opened today with an unusual football match in which, instead of a ball, there was a replica of the head of former Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, designed by artist Euhenio Merino and the "Indecline" collective.

The performance is called the "Generalissimo Cup" after one of the main football competitions during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939-1975), who died 50 years ago.

This "anti-fascist encounter", in which several players faced each other, was held in Moja, a town about 50 kilometers north of Barcelona, ​​on a field near the former trenches occupied by the Republicans at the end of the Civil War (1936-1939), which they lost to Franco's forces.

A hyper-realistic dictator's head made by Eugenio Merino, whose work often focused on the figure of dictatorship and the oppression of the regime, served as the ball.

The artist already became famous about ten years ago with the work "Always Franco", which depicts the dictator in life-size inside a refrigerator, which caused controversy at the ARCO contemporary art fair in Madrid in 2012.

Merino was again noticed with the work "Hitting Franco", by placing the dictator's head on a punching bag.

Both works were the subject of lawsuits filed by the Francisco Franco Foundation, but were dismissed by the court.

"This year is the 50th anniversary of Frank's death and I felt it was necessary to commemorate his death," Merino said.

The match, which was only able to be attended by a very small audience, was recorded for screening on Friday and Saturday in a village bar as part of the Ex Abrupto festival program.

The head will also be on display at the city museum in the coming days.

This is not the first time that Merino has carried out an action of this kind with the art and activist collective Indecline.

Together they have already filmed other matches near the wall separating the United States (US) and Mexico, in this case using a replica of Donald Trump's head as a ball, or in Brazil, with a replica of President Jair Bolsonaro's head.