ALTERNATE MONUMENTSScale models of nonexisting monuments and memorials (together with their respective inscriptions), commemorating figures or movements which were never honoured with a proper place in the official history, in many cases not even as enemies. Each one stand for a different cause, with often contradictory or quite undefined goals: what all of them shared besides the lack of recognition was the desperate heroism that leaded their actions, a hopeless endeavour against infinitely more powerful forces, doomed to fail almost from the very beginning, either because of the adverse moment or due to the own nature of their ideas, incompatible with victory in the regular sense of the word. The aim of these works is not to glorify failure, but rather to reject historical determinism and recall that ours is just one of many possible societies, neither the best nor the worst, helping thus to imagine alternative outcomes to the actual and upcoming crises. Each monument encourages us to think of which kind of government would pay tribute to that forgotten causes, and in a broader way about the deformations inherent to the political use of persons and ideas from the past, the transformation of the once subversive into hegemonic discourse in order to legitimate an established system. |
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Brotherhood of Vagabonds 2013 / 23 x 66 x 40 cm / Mixed media |
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| Marinus van der Lubbe 2013 / 25 x 70 x 44 cm / Mixed media |
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| Green Army 2014 / 27 x 68 x 46 cm / Mixed media |
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Arnold K. 2014 / 28 x 58 x 53 cm / Mixed media |
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| Boris I of Andorra 2014 / 25 x 47 x 60 cm / Mixed media |
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| Mineriads 2014 / 18 x 61 x 43 cm / Mixed media |
This work arose as a reflection on the actually existing museums where monuments and other objects are displayed out of their original context in order to discredit the social system which erected them as a whole, not only from a political but also from an aesthetic point of view, and support the historical narrative of the new government. This is particularly evident in the case of the museums and sculpture parks dedicated to Communism, which proliferated after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. Using the same strategy, only reversing its meaning, this model consists of scale reproductions of real, still standing monuments from all Europe, devoted to the main advocates of neoliberal policies who collaborated to shape a US-led unipolar world order. They are placed in a neglected ground with no further explanation besides their titles and city of origin, some of them deteriorated by natural and/or human causes. With this change of perspective we can easily consider our political-economic system as if it would be already overcomed and thereby exposed that it was so artificially built like any other modern form of government. |
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| Park of Neoliberal Monuments 2013 / 16 x 93 x 70 cm / Wood, modeling paste, paper, lacquer |
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