Latin America

Runo Lagomarsino

On Fire

2020

On Fire, 2020

On Fire by Runo Lagomarsino comprises twenty pieces of parchment, each of which has had the contours and map of Brazil burned in stages. The work’s connection to Amazon deforestation is difficult to ignore. Yet still, it also engages in broader issues about the country’s fractures, such as the 2018 fire at Rio de Janeiro’s National Museum and the ongoing erasure of its past. The use of common household materials and instruments in a printmaking-like process places it squarely within a conceptual space aimed at destabilizing hierarchies. Victor Grippos’s 1972 Construction of a Traditional Rural Oven for Making Bread [Urban Action] is linked to the work embodied by free loaves of bread that Grippo distributed as an inflammatory gesture toward Argentina’s ruling military power. The images created by Lagomarsino are physically created in an oven, implying the fragility of geopolitics and the necessary destabilization of regimes.

Runo Lagomarsino's installations, sculptures, and films provide alternative perspectives on historical, political, and cultural power dynamics. His work, which is concerned with how power relations have manifested in colonial contexts, calls hegemonic versions of history into question, particularly in South America. As a result, he frequently deviates from the images generated by these histories to displace and transform them. On the other hand, the artist does not seek to tell other stories, reveal hidden truths, or create new historical narratives from a colonized perspective. Instead, it aims to rewrite the same stories, exposing contradictory dependencies and complex political dynamics.

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Runo Lagomarsino On Fire

Runo Lagomarsino

On Fire