Sergio Caballero is the co-director and art director of Sónar, festival of music, creativity & technology. His creativity and artistic restlessness has manifested itself across many creative fields, such as the composition of electronic music, visual arts and conceptual art, cinema and has found its platform across the media in the ever controversial and powerful Sónar advertising campaigns.
Sónar is the festival for advanced music and new media art that held in Barcelona for the past 24 years and in other cities across the world since 2002 (Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Cape Town, New York, Chicago, Buenos Aires, Seoul, London, Hamburg, Rome, Frankfurt...). A pioneer, and unique in format and content, the festival combines entertainment with art, delving into new trends in advanced music and its inter-reactions with other genres in music and artistic disciplines. It is a meeting point for influencers and trendsetting cool hunter audience, looking for contemporary artistic manifestations and new forms of cultural expression. Along with Enric Palau and Ricard Robles, Sergio Caballero is founder, codirector, and responsible for the festivals image.
Sergio Caballero, along with Marcel·lí Antúnez and Pau Nubiola, founded the artistic group, “Los Rinos” (1985-1992), whose prime objectives focused on the graffiti circle. Later their activity extended itself to other formats, from painting actions to video performance, concerts and wall installations. As an example of the latter, Rinodigestió (1987, Digestion of a Rhino) comes to mind, a system of wooden and glass boxes connected together and containing organic matter in a state of decomposition.
In 2018 Sonar celebrated its 25th anniversary with the exhibition "Ni Flyers, ni posters: 25 años de imagen Sónar", an experiential journey through the image of the festival at the Centre d'Art Tecla Sala in L'Hospitalet del Llobregat.
Along with Enric Palau he created the group “Jumo”, which was solidly linked to the Barcelona electronic music scene of the 1990’s. From their recording studio, “Jumolándia” came many collaborations with other artists or groups such as; Victor Nubla, La Fura dels Baus, Zush o Peanut Pie, among others. Since 2004 Sergio Caballero works in conjunction with the composer Pedro Alcalde, with whom he has created a series of musical pieces for the ‘Compañía Nacional de Danza’ directed by the choreographer Nacho Duato. Erde is the most recent piece composed for the Berlin Staatsballet, premiered in 2017.
In the field of visual arts, he has various individual exhibitions to his name, such as; “Sergio Caballero Famoso en el Mundo Entero” (Sergio Caballero, Famous the World Over) or “El Clamor de la Humanidad me Oprime por su Tumulto me Veo Privado del Sueño” (“Humanity’s Clamour Opresses Me With It’s Uproar that ICan’t See Myself Sleeping”) at Fundación “La Caixa”. All exhibitions are of incorruptible daring and clear will to question. His most recent exhibition in 2010, at the gallery ‘Mutt’ Barcelona, entitled “Abstracción en el establo” (Abstraction In The Stable) is a re-take on academic, abstract expressionism in painting, in this case sharing authorship of the works with a Dutch purebred (horse).
“Finisterrae” was his first full-length feature film, in which he uses a style completely personal to himself, filtering his inspirations, his obsessions and his particular sense of humor. The film was awarded the “Tiger Award” at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), at the “Ars Independent” of Katowice, Poland, and selected in more than 60 festivals the world over. In 2014 he released his second feature film entitled "La Distancia", which premiered at the IFFR along with his short film "Ancha es Castilla/ N'importe quoi" which was part of the Sónar festival image that same year.
