LONDON.- This September the Hayward Gallery Project Space presents an exhibition of works by the Uruguayan artist Martin Sastre, his first exhibition in a major UK institution.

Sastre’s videos combine a love of trashy pop culture with witty meditations on global politics. He is fascinated by the notion of rewriting and re-depicting reality through cover versions or remakes, and describes his work as existing ‘on the frontier between reality and fiction’.

Making its debut at the Project Space is Sastre’s latest work, Ride with Obama (2009). The film depicts the artist visiting a Madrid theme park in the company of a man who bears an uncanny resemblance to President Barack Obama. The two men from the Americas explore the rides and inhabit the theme park, which represents a place in Europe where artifice dominates and authenticity has slipped out of sight.

In the animated video KIM X LIZ (2008), viewers see the flowering of an unexpected love affair between Hollywood actress Elizabeth Taylor and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, who is a well-known fan of Taylor’s. Sastre is fascinated by these two figures, whom he sees as fictional characters created by societies driven by the cult of celebrity and the cult of personality.