Ivan ARGOTE
Asian premiere
Levitate is an installation involving a three-channel video projection. The projections told separate, but interrelated narratives about three historic monuments: the ancient Egyptian obelisk at the Piazza del Popolo in Rome, the Christoph Columbus sculpture at Plaza Colón in Madrid, and a sculpture honoring the French Army General Joseph Gallieni, positioned in the Place Vauban, in Paris. Each of these monuments relate to histories glorifying the colonial enterprise within the contexts of Italy.
Three monuments, including the ancient Egyptian obelisk in Piazza del Popolo, the monument to Columbus in Plaza de Colon, and the Statue General Joseph Gallieni in Vauban, Paris, symbolizing the history of colonial rule, get lifted and moved by cranes to unfold three independent but fundamentally connected stories. The director shows critical thinking on the monuments lifted in the air and contemplates modern society that exhibits remains of colonial history in the plazas. Especially, an obelisk made of thin wood eventually collapses while being lifted and placed horizontally. This performance is as satisfying as a black comedy of useless authority and dominance.
Ivan ARGOTE
Ivan Argote is an artist and filmmaker. He has questioned our intimate relationship with others, institutions, power and belief systems through his works. His strategies are based on tenderness, affect and humour through his critical approaches to dominant historical narratives and attempts to decentralise them. In his interventions, Ivan Argote proposes new symbolic uses of public space.