LEVITATE
Ivan Argote, 2022, 24’
Levitate is a film that tells separate but interrelated narratives about three historic monuments: the ancient Egyptian obelisk at the Piazza del Popolo in Rome, the Christopher 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, Spain, and France.
Iván Argote is an artist and film director. Through his sculptures, installations, films and interventions, he questions our intimate relationship with others, institutions, power and belief systems. He develops strategies based on tenderness, affect and humour through which he suggests critical approaches to dominant historical narratives and attempts to decentralise them. In his interventions on monuments, large-scale installations and performances, Iván Argote proposes new symbolic uses of public space.
Works by the artist are included in the permanent collections of numerous prestigious institutions worldwide, including the Guggenheim Museum (New York, US); Centre Pompidou (Paris, France); ASU Art Museum (Phoenix, US); Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (Miami, US); Colección de Arte del Banco de la República (Bogotá, Colombia); Kadist (San Francisco, US); MACBA (Barcelona, Spain).