Marcelo Cidade – (Un) Monuments for V. Tatlin

31.10/2015 — 09.01/2016
Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy

Galleria Continua is pleased to host (un) monuments for V. Tatlin, a new solo show by Marcelo Cidade, in its San Gimignano exhibition space.

Between 1964 and 1990 the American artist Dan Flavin produced a series of sculptures called Monuments. Made from fluorescent tubes, they were a tribute to Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International. Tatlin’s Tower was conceived as the home to the Third International, following the 1917 Revolution, and was to have been the beacon of the Monumental Propaganda planned by Lenin.
In the series (un) monuments for V. Tatlin, Marcelo Cidade recreates Flavin’s Monuments using structures for fluorescent tubes. While Flavin’s aim in using the lights was to stress the temporariness of materials and, therefore, of systems, the Brazilian artist explores the theme of ruins. In the works re-created by Cidade, there is no further space for temporariness, there are only the useless remnants of a Utopian plan.
“In the 2015 works”, Cidade explains, “we will not see any more blown lights, just the recovered structures of abandoned buildings, unused for a long time and charged with the memory of the deterioration of their own original spaces. The structures are rusty, dirty and without any recoverable system that can turn back on the light with which Flavin intended to “wash” the exhibition spaces where the works were to be presented.

See below for the gallery’s press release.