"Small monuments"
Monumentum, from the Latin "remember".
Remember pyramids and cenotaphs, tempiettos and towers, triumphal arches and commemorative obelisks , shrines , observatories and panoptic stating their presence from Imhotep to nowadays ...
Herron`s "Walking cities" or "Invisibles" from Calvino, fantastic predictions of Jules Verne and the " arkitektones " of Kasimir Malevich.All of this mixes and interacts happily in my memory.
Touring Buenos Aires hand in hand with my grandfather and asking about this or that monument, its significance or the addressee.
It is said that the monuments are mainly architectural works of justified artistic, historic or social value, bearing a message from the past of each nation and living testimonies of its secular traditions.
These structures that were erected in memory of a character or an important event and have come to understand any historical construction, have been and are to me, objects of observation and interest grounds.
An obelisk ... Does it seduce so strongly that the shape does not need to be tied to its function?
A paperweight or a pyramid ... Could it be that by recognizing a geometric form we are transferred back in time, exploring remote areas, often unknown and even imaginary?
Note that when the "object” has no parameter to compare it by, we can wander eternally from the tiny to the monumental without any restrictions.To discover that with no reference there is no scale, and no scale means freedom to choose the size of this object ...and the adventure this situation uncovers.
Be willing to give secrets a chance.
"Small monuments" is, simply, a collection of memories, readings and feelings that come and go as forms of expression of the imagination itself ... Drawings, sketches, ideas, situations in dreams ... A sum that allows from buildings and nonexistent spaces to literary imagination disappearances, a tribute, a memorial, or ... a license for fantasy.
Buenos Aires, Argentina
June 2011
Fabián Tanferna