IVÁN ARGOTE

Iván Argote is a sensitive artist. Constantly listening to the world around him, it is with tenderness that he studies the inner murmurings of men and the societies that they have built for themselves, often through illusions. Fragile foundations, an earth constantly trembling, thin as the layer of tar on a road laid bare by the umpteenth construction site in the city of Paris, on which, however, the ego of the powerful has erected empires and monuments. The heroic figures of the national narrative and the monuments dedicated to them are precisely subjects towards which the artist directed his critical gaze for the past several years.

Through a series of interventions in the public space, Iván Argote plays with the collective perception and tests the particular relationship we have with history and its artifacts. By simulating the removal of a statuein honuor of Marshal Joseph Gallieni in Paris (Au Revoir Joseph Gallieni, 2021), the relocation of a sculpture dedicated to Christopher Columbus in Madrid (Paseo, 2022), and finally a Levitation of the Flaminio obelisk in the Piazza del Popolo in Rome, a summer 2022 performance as part of his residency at the Villa Medici, the artist reveals our attachment to the fictional narratives that constitute the history of nations. Like children unable to symbolically cut the umbilical cord, we want to continue to believe in our heroes, in their discoveries and their virtuous triumphs, which are as factual as Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytales.