Iván Argote, Levitate 2024 (3D simulations)
Courtesy of the artist
Born Bogotá, Colombia (1983), lives and works in Paris, France
Levitate 2024
crane, rope, plaster, medium-density fibre
Courtesy of the artist
The production of this work was supported by IFN / Embassy of France in Nigeria.
Commissioned by Lagos Biennial 2024
Artist’s statement
A pedestal broken into pieces seems to be half dismantled; part of it is still hanging from a crane. The larger piece balances slowly above the concrete, driven by the wind, in the middle of the day.
Our cities are theatres of power that work to direct our vision. National narratives are a puzzle made of fragmented histories, interests and, above all, political positions. The public space is that book written by different forces, in which we are reminded minute by minute of what it means to be a nation, who our heroes are, who we should revere, and who we should reject in a very frontal and naïve way.
Levitate creates a mise-en-scene where a massive pedestal, this hierarchical object, is presented broken, as though in the process of the removal of a past monument. The installation functions as a question mark in the middle of the city space, suggesting that we need to imagine other ways of talking about our complex histories. A monument to the disintegration of power.
Iván Argote’s work is included in Gregarious architectures.
