Strong feelings
A person who used to play an important role in society is now hoisted through the air. He has been taken from his pedestal and is being taken to an invisible place. This evokes different feelings: of fear that the familiar is disappearing, of sadness that the good is over, of hope for better times, of joy that the improvement is now more concrete.
These different feelings will be made known in the media. Ivan Argote has the courage to raise more awareness to these feelings with an artistic action, which may unleash a storm of emotions.
By Theo, artatsite.com.
Sterke gevoelens
Een persoon die voorheen een belangrijke rol in de samenleving speelde hijst nu door de lucht. Hij is van zijn sokkel gehaald en wordt afgevoerd naar een onzichtbare plaats. Dit roept sterk uiteenlopende gevoelens op: van angst dat het bekende verdwijnt, van verdriet dat het goede voorbij is, van hoop dat op betere tijden, van plezier dat de verbetering nu concreter is.
Deze uiteenlopende gevoelens zullen in de media bekend gemaakt worden. Ivan Argote heeft het lef om met een kunstzinnige actie meer aandacht te vragen voor deze gevoelens waardoor er misschien een storm van emoties loskomt.
Door Theo, artatsite.com.
www.perrotin.com:
Au Revoir is a short film documenting an artistic intervention consisting of removing the statue of Joseph Gallieni from Place Vauban in Paris. This former military officer and colonial administrator took an active part in consolidating and expanding the French colonial empire in Africa. His statue was vandalized several times in recent years and was notably covered with fake blood by activists in 2021 to denounce the glorification of colonialism. This film by Iván Argote was conceived in collaboration with the activist Fran oise Verg s and the journalist Pablo Pillaud-Vivien. It was imagined as an 'anticipation' of a future where sculptures glorifying colonialism would be legally removed from the public sphere.
The film is a continuation of the artist's critique of the Western view of colonization as salvific for colonized populations. The heroization of colonists is materialized through numerous monuments and sites of remembrance in European and American cities, which have inspired numerous interventions by Iv n Argote. He has appropriated multiple sculptures and monuments in order to give them a different meaning, making them more inclusive and representative of groups that are often invisible in official narratives.
www.youtube.com:
We imagined this day would come so we made it up. The day when, without violence, out of an honest reflection, we would take down the statues honoring this kind of military figures. Some months ago Fran ois Verg s and Pablo Pillaud-Vivien came to the studio to talk about public monuments, to talk about actions and ideas. We started together a conversation about something to do with this particular statue of Gallieni in Paris.
Joseph Gallieni was a military ideologue of colonization and slavery, author of massacres and forced labor in different colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Also the author of the book The Politics of Races , a sort of manual on how to destroy and dominate local communities in the colonies.
Not only the statue in itself is part of a horrible narrative, but the pedestal that supports Mr Gallieni s image is also horrifying. It represents four women of four different races half-naked, holding with her arms the mustached man of weapons. These women are supposed to represent the continents he dominated.
The message is clear, a powerful and proud military man, walking on top of women, on top colonies, on top of continents, on top of others.
I knew this day wouldn t come as fast as we wished, so I decided to make that day upm to speculate it. With my studio team we created an official atmosphere, we went on-site with a beautiful red crane, workers well dressed in flashy costumes. We hired extras who look like officials or politicians. We filmed as a news channel or a press agency would do. I put everything in place, I climbed up, attached delicately the statue, and anchored it to the crane. I thought the police would come, but they just crossed many times without saying anything, the Army Museum is right in front. Nothing happened. So we did it again, and again. We made different takes until we consider it was enough.
We didn t take the statue down (I was tempted), some weeks before we made a 3D scan of the monument, then with this file, a group of animators and FX designers based in Barcelona started working. We made a subtle animation, slow and heavy.
At the same time with Fran oise and Pablo we started thinking about how to generate a larger public debate out of this action. Pablo who writes at Regards proposed to host an article mentioning the removal of the statue. We discussed often how there s a need for actions, and also a need for humor. The world of the mustached military men on top of pedestals is a grey serious world, of sad and greedy feelings and ideas. We wanted to challenge that whit this video, and yes, we wanted to generate controversy, and yes, we wanted to make people think of the possibility of changing this sad icon in our cities. We need to talk about this out loud if we want to create some changes.
The idea with the video Au Revoir is to create the possibility of this day, that s why I think of it as an anticipation film. I believe in five or ten years we will have something different there, as Fran oise says, a garden, a comfortable bench, maybe another kind of hosting place. Today we want to think of the day we will say Au revoir Mr. Gallieni.
www.roots-routes.org:
On 16th June 2020, 'Déboulonnons le récit officiel' (Topple down the official discourse) was written on the base of the public statue representing Joseph Gallieni (a French Marshall and administrator of the French colonies with a prominent role in Madagascar) located in Paris on Place Vauban in the wake of the protests that followed the death of George Floyd. Almost a year later, on 19th April 2021, Iván Argote, with the help of historian Françoise Vergès and journalist Pablo Pillaud-Vivien, orchestrated the ‘fake’ removal of the statue which people wanted removed, as was graffitied on its base. For this intervention, which Argote called Au Revoir (Joseph Gallieni, Paris), an anticipation film, a crane was hired by the team to remove the statue and put it back on its base multiple times in order to, 'without violence [...] take down the statues honoring this kind of military figures' . In the street, only a few people are taking interest in this fake removal. But when showed in the museum as part of Argote’s Air de Jeux installation, visitors are all gathering and captivated by the intervention.
The video makes people laugh; everybody is finally paying attention. While the public interventions generate some level of interest and questioning by passers-by, it seems like it is the exhibition of these interventions within the museum which give them permanence, but also a long-lasted reach and impact.
Certainly, a public museum is nowhere comparable to an outside public space because it is governed by the price of the entrance ticket, the art knowledge which seems to be expected from anyone entering the museum, and social codes. But while the public space is somewhat more democratic, it is clear that the museum perpetuates the interventions made by Iván Argote. Seeing the removal of a statue within the walls of a museum becomes purposeful and meaningful, rather than something which could be considered as planned maintenance, underserving of time and attention.
Examining several of Argote’s interventions in the public space and their later exhibition in the museum space, this paper studies the material, functional and symbolic aspects of these artworks which are constitutive of sites of memory and allow us to consider them as lieux de mémoire.
www.wikipedia.org:
Iván Argote (born 1983) is a Colombian artist and filmmaker based in Paris. Using humor and staged interventions, his performance pieces and installations challenge dominant political ideologies.
Iván Argote was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1983, and was raised in a family of militants who were heavily involved in the armed conflicts during La Violencia. As a result, he became a human rights activist focusing his artwork on social justice issues. Argote's awareness of historical processes and social policies (particularly in Colombia) are what informs his work. At the age of 22, he worked as assistant director at Colombo Films in Bogotá where he learned about filmmaking, video, and photography. Until 2005, Argote had been living in Colombia where he spent time studying Graphic Design at the National University of Colombia. Soon after graduating, he moved to Paris, and made it his home. The move gave Argote the opportunity to meet Emmanuel Perrotin, a French gallery owner, who inspired him to seek a career in the art world. Argote's collaborations with Perrotin started his art career. In 2011, his first collaboration was his first solo exhibition at Galerie Perrotin in Paris called Caliente.
Over the years, he has had several show and screenings at Galerie Perrotin, including his 22-minute film As Far As We Could Get (2017) which features people from two antipodes, the town of Palembang in Indonesia and the city of Neiva in Columbia. The resulting work is a commentary on transnational cultural relations. He works primarily in mediums of sculpture, installations, and videography.
A person who used to play an important role in society is now hoisted through the air. He has been taken from his pedestal and is being taken to an invisible place. This evokes different feelings: of fear that the familiar is disappearing, of sadness that the good is over, of hope for better times, of joy that the improvement is now more concrete.
These different feelings will be made known in the media. Ivan Argote has the courage to raise more awareness to these feelings with an artistic action, which may unleash a storm of emotions.
By Theo, artatsite.com.
Sterke gevoelens
Een persoon die voorheen een belangrijke rol in de samenleving speelde hijst nu door de lucht. Hij is van zijn sokkel gehaald en wordt afgevoerd naar een onzichtbare plaats. Dit roept sterk uiteenlopende gevoelens op: van angst dat het bekende verdwijnt, van verdriet dat het goede voorbij is, van hoop dat op betere tijden, van plezier dat de verbetering nu concreter is.
Deze uiteenlopende gevoelens zullen in de media bekend gemaakt worden. Ivan Argote heeft het lef om met een kunstzinnige actie meer aandacht te vragen voor deze gevoelens waardoor er misschien een storm van emoties loskomt.
Door Theo, artatsite.com.
www.perrotin.com:
Au Revoir is a short film documenting an artistic intervention consisting of removing the statue of Joseph Gallieni from Place Vauban in Paris. This former military officer and colonial administrator took an active part in consolidating and expanding the French colonial empire in Africa. His statue was vandalized several times in recent years and was notably covered with fake blood by activists in 2021 to denounce the glorification of colonialism. This film by Iván Argote was conceived in collaboration with the activist Fran oise Verg s and the journalist Pablo Pillaud-Vivien. It was imagined as an 'anticipation' of a future where sculptures glorifying colonialism would be legally removed from the public sphere.
The film is a continuation of the artist's critique of the Western view of colonization as salvific for colonized populations. The heroization of colonists is materialized through numerous monuments and sites of remembrance in European and American cities, which have inspired numerous interventions by Iv n Argote. He has appropriated multiple sculptures and monuments in order to give them a different meaning, making them more inclusive and representative of groups that are often invisible in official narratives.
www.youtube.com:
We imagined this day would come so we made it up. The day when, without violence, out of an honest reflection, we would take down the statues honoring this kind of military figures. Some months ago Fran ois Verg s and Pablo Pillaud-Vivien came to the studio to talk about public monuments, to talk about actions and ideas. We started together a conversation about something to do with this particular statue of Gallieni in Paris.
Joseph Gallieni was a military ideologue of colonization and slavery, author of massacres and forced labor in different colonies in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean. Also the author of the book The Politics of Races , a sort of manual on how to destroy and dominate local communities in the colonies.
Not only the statue in itself is part of a horrible narrative, but the pedestal that supports Mr Gallieni s image is also horrifying. It represents four women of four different races half-naked, holding with her arms the mustached man of weapons. These women are supposed to represent the continents he dominated.
The message is clear, a powerful and proud military man, walking on top of women, on top colonies, on top of continents, on top of others.
I knew this day wouldn t come as fast as we wished, so I decided to make that day upm to speculate it. With my studio team we created an official atmosphere, we went on-site with a beautiful red crane, workers well dressed in flashy costumes. We hired extras who look like officials or politicians. We filmed as a news channel or a press agency would do. I put everything in place, I climbed up, attached delicately the statue, and anchored it to the crane. I thought the police would come, but they just crossed many times without saying anything, the Army Museum is right in front. Nothing happened. So we did it again, and again. We made different takes until we consider it was enough.
We didn t take the statue down (I was tempted), some weeks before we made a 3D scan of the monument, then with this file, a group of animators and FX designers based in Barcelona started working. We made a subtle animation, slow and heavy.
At the same time with Fran oise and Pablo we started thinking about how to generate a larger public debate out of this action. Pablo who writes at Regards proposed to host an article mentioning the removal of the statue. We discussed often how there s a need for actions, and also a need for humor. The world of the mustached military men on top of pedestals is a grey serious world, of sad and greedy feelings and ideas. We wanted to challenge that whit this video, and yes, we wanted to generate controversy, and yes, we wanted to make people think of the possibility of changing this sad icon in our cities. We need to talk about this out loud if we want to create some changes.
The idea with the video Au Revoir is to create the possibility of this day, that s why I think of it as an anticipation film. I believe in five or ten years we will have something different there, as Fran oise says, a garden, a comfortable bench, maybe another kind of hosting place. Today we want to think of the day we will say Au revoir Mr. Gallieni.
www.roots-routes.org:
On 16th June 2020, 'Déboulonnons le récit officiel' (Topple down the official discourse) was written on the base of the public statue representing Joseph Gallieni (a French Marshall and administrator of the French colonies with a prominent role in Madagascar) located in Paris on Place Vauban in the wake of the protests that followed the death of George Floyd. Almost a year later, on 19th April 2021, Iván Argote, with the help of historian Françoise Vergès and journalist Pablo Pillaud-Vivien, orchestrated the ‘fake’ removal of the statue which people wanted removed, as was graffitied on its base. For this intervention, which Argote called Au Revoir (Joseph Gallieni, Paris), an anticipation film, a crane was hired by the team to remove the statue and put it back on its base multiple times in order to, 'without violence [...] take down the statues honoring this kind of military figures' . In the street, only a few people are taking interest in this fake removal. But when showed in the museum as part of Argote’s Air de Jeux installation, visitors are all gathering and captivated by the intervention.
The video makes people laugh; everybody is finally paying attention. While the public interventions generate some level of interest and questioning by passers-by, it seems like it is the exhibition of these interventions within the museum which give them permanence, but also a long-lasted reach and impact.
Certainly, a public museum is nowhere comparable to an outside public space because it is governed by the price of the entrance ticket, the art knowledge which seems to be expected from anyone entering the museum, and social codes. But while the public space is somewhat more democratic, it is clear that the museum perpetuates the interventions made by Iván Argote. Seeing the removal of a statue within the walls of a museum becomes purposeful and meaningful, rather than something which could be considered as planned maintenance, underserving of time and attention.
Examining several of Argote’s interventions in the public space and their later exhibition in the museum space, this paper studies the material, functional and symbolic aspects of these artworks which are constitutive of sites of memory and allow us to consider them as lieux de mémoire.
www.wikipedia.org:
Iván Argote (born 1983) is a Colombian artist and filmmaker based in Paris. Using humor and staged interventions, his performance pieces and installations challenge dominant political ideologies.
Iván Argote was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1983, and was raised in a family of militants who were heavily involved in the armed conflicts during La Violencia. As a result, he became a human rights activist focusing his artwork on social justice issues. Argote's awareness of historical processes and social policies (particularly in Colombia) are what informs his work. At the age of 22, he worked as assistant director at Colombo Films in Bogotá where he learned about filmmaking, video, and photography. Until 2005, Argote had been living in Colombia where he spent time studying Graphic Design at the National University of Colombia. Soon after graduating, he moved to Paris, and made it his home. The move gave Argote the opportunity to meet Emmanuel Perrotin, a French gallery owner, who inspired him to seek a career in the art world. Argote's collaborations with Perrotin started his art career. In 2011, his first collaboration was his first solo exhibition at Galerie Perrotin in Paris called Caliente.
Over the years, he has had several show and screenings at Galerie Perrotin, including his 22-minute film As Far As We Could Get (2017) which features people from two antipodes, the town of Palembang in Indonesia and the city of Neiva in Columbia. The resulting work is a commentary on transnational cultural relations. He works primarily in mediums of sculpture, installations, and videography.