Have Mexican artists ever met an obelisk they didn’t want to make portable and drive to New York?
Obelisco Transportable, 2004, Damian Ortega, on view with the Public Art Fund, thru 10/28 [image: Ortega’s gallery, kurimanzutto]:
Portable Broken Obelisk (for outdoor markets), 1993-4, Eduardo Abaroa, on view at“Mexico City” @ PS1, Summer 2002 [image: Abaroa’s gallery, kurimanzutto]:
from Pruned:
We can’t help here suggesting that Ortega should give Ikea permission to mass produce and sell his reusable memorials, because, firstly, we like to imagine them multiplying exponentially in public spaces everywhere (and no, there is still not nearly enough memorials), and, secondly, we also like the image of people scouring the city–a sort of pre-funerary cortege mixed in with some urban sightseeing–for an abandoned obelisk, one commemorating something already forgotten in the collective memory.
Which suddenly reminds me of Sam Durant’s powerful, obelisk-filled 2005 show at Paula Cooper. [Here’s Jerry Saltz’s review] Titled, “Proposal for White and Indian Dead Monument Transpositions, Washington, D.C.,” Durant’s idea was to move all the obelisks and markers from their far-flung battlefield and massacre locations and arrange them on the Mall in DC. I know, I know: technically, Durant’s not Mexican. But he IS from LA. Also, Indians are brown.
2016 update: I’m re-reading this in preparation for linking to it, and I cannot figure out wtf I meant by that last line, about Indians being brown. Maybe it was a reference to the “White and Indian” in Durant’s title? I have no idea, but reading it cold right now, it sounds more racist, certainly more insensitive, than I would have thought at the time. Time does that, I guess.