MOnuMENT, 2007 - 2009
MOnuMENT, 2007 - 2009
MOnuMENT, 2007 - 2009
The focAR group and Association S.A.C. claim to "share" their artistic production within urban and rural space. These artists operate like a team of urban observers that capture architecture to look upon its use and meaning within the urban landscape. For example in 'Urban Traces', the artists attempt to record and photograph traces of identity inscribed in the architecture and the public spaces of an urban environment in the city of Bucharest in this case.
On Saatchi Online, focAR presents their 'MOnuMENT' series, close-up photographs of Romanian monuments representing a reoccurring national emblem: the eagle. The bird has been used as a signifier of power in many former communist countries such as Romania. In fact, a number of countries all over the world still use the eagle as their national emblem, although some of which use it amongst other animals. These countries are marked below with an asterix*:
Armenia - Eagle *
Austria - Eagle (Bundesadler)
Egypt - Saladin'sb Eagle
Germany - Eagle (Bundesadler)
Mexico - Golden Eagle
Panama - Harpy Eagle
Philippines - Philippine Eagle*
Poland - White Eagle*
Romania - Golden Eagle
Russia - Golden Bicephalic Eagle*
Scottland - Golden Eagle*
Serbia - White Bicephalic Eagle *
United States of America - Bald Eagle
Romania's Golden Eagle, which lies at the heart of the country's coat of arms, is representative of the nation. Its signifier, the Aquila, is the signa militaria of the Romanian military. For focAR, their photographs "open the possibility of a dialogue in between the rural and urban spaces, in between different mentalities from different corners of our country."
This process of reiteration of nationalistic symbols could be described by Judith Butler, a North American philosopher, as the iteration and reiteration of norms. For Butler it is only within the practices of repetitive signifying that a subversion of identity becomes possible. Reiteration means repetition and change and therefore the construction through reiteration is both persistent and unstable. The photographed monuments are constructed artefacts that are extracted from their original context and may allow the viewer to approach the symbol from a different point of view.
To see more of their work registered on Saatchi Online click here.
Kerstin Niemann
Kerstin Niemann is a curator and founder of FILTER, a platform for international contemporary art currently based in Hamburg, Germany. She has been working as a guest research curator at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, The Netherlands since 2006, where she was co-curator of "Academy, Learning from the Museum" (2006). She is currently preparing "Heartland The World You Want to Live In", a large-scale group exhibition about art and music, part of which will travel to the Smart Museum of Art in Chicago in October 2009. She also works on freelance projects with other curator colleagues and art institutions. She lives and works between Eindhoven and Hamburg.
)
)
)